Wednesday, October 26, 2011

On the road again...

I cannot remember the last time I was this excited!! I am siting on the bus on the way to the airport, with one of my favorite girlfriends, and getting very exited about the next 5 days!
Okay. We landed in Orlando tonight. Leela picked us up at the airport.  And then the trip happened and I didn't come back to this post at all.

So now I have been home for 3 days and I realized that you didn't get to hear about any part of it.  So sad for you!  I apologize - can you forgive me?  Well you don't have a choice!

I guess this story starts way back in May when Sugarland was playing at Merriweather Pavilion.  But I couldn't go because my baby brother was graduating from Yale, and well I was proud of him!  So Colleen & I went looking for another place & time to go and see them.  We thought about Allentown, PA, but it would have been after school and a pain to get to and then there wouldn't be anywhere to sleep, etc.  So pass on that one.  Then there was Las Vegas, but it was the weekend before school started.  And that was a bad plan.  So then Orlando!  And Colleen has friends & family there, so it won even more!

So Wednesday I went to work and all I could think about was making it through the day.  Just 3 more classes.  Just a few more hours.  And then we were in the airport!  A beer & dinner and then on the plane!  Leela picked us up at the airport and we and hung out.


Thursday, we woke up and went to Universal Studios and to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter!  Oh it was wonderful!  Butterbeer!  And a roller coaster.  And lunch at the 3 Broomsticks.  A great morning all together.  We wandered around for the rest of the day. 
We went back to Leela's condo and hung out at the pool for an hour.  Then got ready for Sugarland.  We went out for Tapas and had delicious sangria for dinner!  Then CONCERT!!!!  Sugarland was all I hoped for and more!  It was love at first sight!

Friday.  Did we sleep in?  I don't think so.  Maybe a little.  Not important.  We went shopping.  I needed a dress for a wedding in November that is black tie preferred, and well I didn't have anything.  So I tried on all sorts of ugly dresses before trying on a pretty red dress.  The other issue was it couldn't be too short (ruling out half the dresses in my closet) and needing some sort of straps (ruling out the other half of the dresses).  I like the new one a lot.
Then we went out for lunch.  We went to the Ravenous Pig - a gastropub.  Yum. I had a delicious chicken sandwich with truffle fries.  LOVE!  I thought I had a picture, but I seem to have eaten it... hehehe

Friday afternoon we headed to Colleen's cousin house to sit by the pool.  LOVE THE SUN!  So MUCH!  Out for dinner.  Watched a movie. Went to bed.

Saturday.  We woke up so very early to accompany Kelly to work.  She works at Animal Kingdom.  She went to work and her opening meeting, then met us at the gate and got us in for free!  One of the perks of working there.  We spent the morning walking around the Animal Kingdom.  It was chilly in the morning before the sun came up.  And when we rode the Mount Everest roller coaster, it was freezing in the mountain air.  But it warmed up on the safari.  We saw all sorts of animals, elephants, lions, giraffes, gazelles, warthogs.  All sorts of animals from the Lion King - and we saw the show they put on.

Then we were off to Epcot and the Food & Wine Festival!  We ate our way around the world.  We ate:
  • Australia - Grilled lamb chops with potato-goat cheese salad and Shiraz reduction
  • Brazil - Seared Mahi Mahi with steam rice, hearts of palm and coconut-lime sauce.  & a Caipirinha cocktail (yum)
  • Mexico - grilled ribeye taco. Crispy shrimp taco.  & a strawberry lime margarita
  • Cheese (I know, not a country, but it counted apparently) - artisan cheeses & a cheese fondue
  • Italy - ravioli (cheese with creamy beef bolognese). & a Moretti (we had them on our honeymoon)
  • American Hops & Barley - Lobster roll, & a Sam Adams
  • Japan - California roll, Tuna & Salmon sensation
  • Ireland - lobster & scallop fisherman's pie (3 times), warm chocolate lava cake with Bailey's ganache (Colleen has these recipes). & a Meade Honey Wine
Do you think we ate enough?  We were there for 8 hours and ate our way around the world and back.  There was a lot more eating than drinking - THANK GOODNESS.  Except for Leela.  She had more drinking than eating at the beginning... I don't want to tell you anything about that.  It didn't end in the prettiest way.

While we were there we witnessed a number of groups that travel to the festival every year and they had the most wonderful T-shirts.


This was such a wonderful trip.  I loved every minute of it!  I can't believe it started with a need to see a concert and then just got better and better.  There is talk of a repeat trip next year!!!!!!

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