Sunday, July 13, 2008

11 Countries in One Day!

I love to travel, so we went to eleven countries in one day! If you have ever been to Epcot, this probably doesn't sound as cool.

When I went nearly 10 years ago, I loved Epcot. It seems weird looking back that a 14 year old would love a place that doesn't have any of the big name rides, and has more of an educational focus. But I loved it! Don't get me wrong though. Epcot has some pretty cool rides like a test track, a space mission that makes you really feel the G force, and "Soarin'" a IMAX type adventure where you feel like you are hang gliding over California. But truth be told, most of those rides are less than 10 years old and are not the real reason I love Epcot.


Honesty, I worried when we were deciding which park we should go to. Josh wanted to go to the Magical Kingdom, and I wanted Epcot. For the first 20 minutes I honestly questioned my judgment. What if they didn't like it!? What if they thought it was stupid, and thought I was a nerd?! Fortunately, they loved Epcot! It has a little of something for everyone!

One of the funny experiences was going to a game show devoted to Velcro product and how they help you find solutions to everyday products. (Shameless advertising anyone?) Well, Josh was chosen for one of the scenes and had to diaper, feed, and then stick as many babies to his apron as possible! Fortunately, he is a father so it wasn't TOO embarrassing!

My favorite part of the day was not going on the rides, even though they were fun! It was exploring the little snippets of eleven countries including: Mexico, Norway, China, Germany, Italy, America, Japan, Morocco, France, the United Kingdom, and Canada. Each of the countries is staffed by natives of that country, which give it an extra flair!
This is Steve in front of some of the buildings for Morocco.

It would be interesting to talk to natives of these countries and see how accurately they feel their countries are being displayed. For the countries I have visited, they seemed to be pretty darn good! My favorite by far was France. Call me a hopeless romantic, but there is just something about France that makes me sigh. I love it! Lots of people have told me that the French people were really rude to them in France. When I was there, they were really nice to us! Probably because it was three young girls, and we at least tried to speak French. (most people told us to speak English though because our French was so bad!)
For the France display, they had a couple of street performers. It was really cool, because they pulled a guy out of the audience and had him do this:

If you can't tell, that is 6 chairs stacked on top of each other, on top of a table!!! Fortunately, he was planted in the audience! I know I couldn't have even done one of the chairs!

Another of my favorite things is their French Bakery. It is amazing. I forgot to take pictures of what we ordered because we were just so excited to eat it, but this is a picture of the bakery.

I am not sure I could live in France because I would be too tempted to eat all my meals in their bakeries! One thing that really hit home as we were walking around the World Showcase exhibit is how much we all have different tastes. Steve's idea of a dream vacation would be going to South America and canoeing down the Amazon and exploring the Galapagos Islands. I would love to travel around Europe (actually, I want to go to six of the seven continents). Elisa is interested by the Orient. What would be your dream vacation? Which countries most interest you?

2 comments:

Sarah said...

i want to go to europe: france, england, italy, greece. and i want to go to new zealand. thailand also seems cool.

Tieky Torch said...

I'd love to visit all of Europe, Asia, including China, Japan and Thailand. New Zealand and Australia definitely although too bad I have no money right now to visit my parents who are there on a mission :(