Yesterday started out overcast and cool, and far less humid than it had been. It felt wonderful, and was a great way to start out the day. This was a very good thing, because Joe and I had decided to go to Disneyland!

All the way there (and pretty much throughout the day!), I felt filled with childlike glee, eager to experience Disneyland all over again in a brand new way. I also felt torn between wanting to experience the joy of the park without thinking much about the camera, and wanting to photograph absolutely everything I came across. I think I leaned more toward the former, actually.

As we walked through the park, it was so strange to see everything. Joe asked how I liked it and what I thought, and I said, "I love it! It's the same... but different!" He said that's what he thought too. It's like, almost all the elements of Disneyland are there, just laid out slightly differently. The photo shop is at the beginning of Main Street instead of the end. There's no Matterhorn. There's a huge Disney Hotel over the entrance to the park, so that's what you see when you look back down Main Street. There's no Toon Town, but there is Fantasyland, Discoveryland (their version of Tomorrowland), Adventureland, and Frontierland. No Tiki Room or Bengal Barbeque, though. Awww. But there is a Plaza Gardens Restaurant, and it's in the very same place as regular Disneyland!

Anyway, when we first got there, we had to stand in line a while for tickets. And quite randomly, this old man made his way up through the line, seemingly to catch up with someone he was meeting with, when he just stopped right in front of us. He cut in line in front of like 20 people!! I couldn't believe it.

Then we talked to the ticket girl, who was really nice, asking us if we'd been to any other Disneyland parks, like the ones in Florida. We told her we hadn't been to Florida yet, but that we were Annual Passport holders in L.A., and she thought that was cool. But then she said we should just go to Florida instead of Paris's Disneyland and I said, "Well hey, the weather's nicer here!" to which she laughed and said, "You're probably right! Have a wonderful day!"

First, we went into Sleeping Beauty's Castle. There are stained glass windows inside the upstairs level of the castle, telling the story of Sleeping Beauty, as well as a really cool tapestry. And downstairs, beneath the castle, there's a fierce, steam breathing, growling DRAGON! It's pretty awesome!

We walked through Fantasyland and into Frontierland, and found a hotdog stand, with really long, delicious hotdogs in these flat and chewy, toasted buns. They were excellent!

Next, we went on Pirates of the Carribbean! It's one of our top favorites. Pirates, Haunted Mansion, and Star Tours. Those are the classics, the must-sees of every Disney trip (for us, anyway). And go on them, we did!

Pirates was awesome. As you walk through the entrance, there are these huge tarps overhead and lots of tropical looking trees. The boats are actually bigger, and the ride itself is in a totally different order! It shows the looting and fires and bride auction before all the skeleton scenes. And the guy with his feet hanging down, and the donkey and the guy with the pigs are there, but in a different order as well. And instead of a cat peeking out of the barrel, there's a woman! There's still a drop, which was fun, and the cannonball splash during the war scene actually got us pretty wet! I liked the shadowy silhouettes of soldiers running through the hall. It looked quite realistic! And the talking skeleton head was at the very end, instead of the beginning. I really liked hearing him speak in French! The "Yo Ho, Yo Ho" song is still in English, in case you were wondering.

Then we ate lunch at a Spanish restaurant. We got chicken fajitas, a chicken burrito, and a bowl of chili and chips. The fajitas were my pick, and they were okay. Then Joe got towards the end of his burrito, made a confused face and said, "Taste this sour cream." The dude in front of me in line had asked a million times if there was sour cream on the burritos, or if he could have a side of it, but they insisted there was no sour cream anywhere, on the food, or in the restaurant. But he still ordered it anyway. So I thought, "That guy must be happy to have discovered sour cream in his burrito!" Then I tasted Joe's burrito, and said, "That's not sour cream, that's goat cheese!"

We laughed. "That explains it!" Joe said. "I thought it was just the creamiest sour cream I'd ever tasted!"

Of course, Joe doesn't actually like goat cheese, so he gave me the rest of his burrito, which turned out to be far more delicious than my fajitas. Mmm, goat cheese.

Then we walked around a bit, and made our way over to the Haunted Mansion, which looked a lot like the house from Psycho. The cast member guys made me laugh. One spooky guy silently followed me, his face right up in mine which I didn't notice at first, and when I did, I jumped a little in surprise, and laughed, and he went away. Then the other guy spoke so casually to us all, not at all in the theme of the ride. He said something in French, then said in a bored tone, "Bring your dead bodies away from the wall, please." Ha! For those who don't know, in English, it's supposed to be, "Kindly drag your bodies into the dead center of the room. Mwah ha ha..." So anyway, that made me laugh.

Also, the ride was interesting, because it was all wedding themed, and centered around the bride as the main character of the story that played out. The dancing ghosts room displays a wedding reception, and instead of going through a cemetary, it's catacombs, and an old Western ghost town. Very cool stuff! And, I was very happy to see the four heads singing "Grim Grinning Ghosts." That is always awesome!

Joe and I walked very slowly from place to place, because, get this - we are both injured. Joe's ankle was out of whack a few weeks ago, and so was the top of my foot, and all the walking we've been doing brought it all back, and then some. Plus, Joe got some blisters and chafing, so the two of us are sort of a sorry little mess, really! It's sad, dude.

But, we did manage to get ourselves slowly but surely over to Star Tours, which was great. We just walked on, because there was no line (just like in L.A.! Heh. Poor Star Tours; no one gives it the love it deserves!). Dude, I love that ride so much. In Paris, it's exactly the same except that C3PO and Rex both speak in French. The guy who says, "Star Tours, what are you doing here??" still speaks in English, though. Of course, Rex seemed so much less stressed and frantic than the Rex in L.A. He said, "Comets? Oh, comets," like all barely worried. He's calm and cool, baby.

We also managed to have some fun snacks while we were there. First, we had a waffle, which are apparently all the rage here, because they're everywhere. You can get one from a snack stand covered in chocolate and whipped cream. I asked for just a little of each. And dude! I did it all in French. The first all-French ordering endeavour I've had, and it went quite well! It worked out, too, because that lady totally did not speak English, so it sort of HAD to go all in French. Still, I'm quite pleased with myself, like, maybe I am getting the hang of speaking French at least a little bit.

Also, the word for waffle is gaufre, which sounds sort of, a little, like "gopher," which totally amused me. I love language!! And in case you wondered, chocolate and whipped cream covered waffle? Delicious!

Then, we tried staking out a spot for the parade, of which there was only one show. And we wanted some ice cream to enjoy while we waited (we both have a sweet tooth, in case that wasn't obvious by now). So Joe asked me if I'd mind getting some for us, some simple vanilla ice cream. I went over to the stand and looked at the choices and came back. "Um, there's vanilla ice cream," I told him, "But it has Smarties in it."

"Ew," he said.

"Yeah, that's what I thought..."

"Wait!" he said suddenly. "In Canada, Smarties are like M&Ms. I wonder if that's true here?"

I went back to find out. I asked the girl if she spoke English. She said a little bit, so I asked, "What ARE Smarties? Are they sweet? Sour?"

The poor girl looked confused, so she took out the dessert and showed me that the Smarties weren't even mixed in with the ice cream, they were on the very bottom, in the handle. I ordered two, and Joe was right. Nestle makes Smarties, and they taste just like M&Ms. They are not the Smarties I feared they might be! There were small little bits in the ice cream, and a whole bunch to eat out of the handle, after finishing the ice cream. Freaking delicious, man! I'm glad we went with that choice!

Sadly, things took a turn for the worse when we got kicked out of the bench we'd chosen. No sitting there for the parade. Damn. Then, people stood in front of us when we sat on another bench (grrr!), so we ended up standing with the sun in our eyes. Yes, the sun that had finally decided to come out and make for a beautiful, albeit, very bright day.

Joe was upset to have the sun facing him while he photographed the parade. But the pictures turned out much better than we'd thought they might, and the parade itself was pretty cool to see. Of course, we were like, "Why is there a Mary Poppins float?" before Joe remembered that that's probably one of the only Disney movies that took place in England, and since England is so close by, why not include it?

The song for the parade was in English, which was interesting - I wonder if that's true of the Tokyo and Hong Kong Disney parks, too? Also, I loved that before the parade started, the announcements for it were done in like seven different languages! It made the announcement so long - it was crazy! It just kept going and going. It was pretty awesome, I thought.

After the parade, we got some popcorn (again, an all French interaction - go me!). It was regular plain popcorn mixed with sweet popcorn, like Kettle Corn. It was so good! We relaxed and ate it in a half circle arena of benches for a show that would not be playing, while musing about how amazingly un-crowded it was compared to L.A. Disneyland, especially considering the nice weather. Speaking of shows being closed, I was also sad to see another restaurant theater whose show wasn't playing that day, AND a courtyard called Alice's Curious Labyrinth that was also closed! So sad.

However, Space Mountain was open, and I decided to go on it, even though Joe wasn't up for it. There was no line, so I just walked on, mildly surprised to see shoulder harnesses. Was it just going to go a lot faster than the Space Mountain I know and love? Well, I'm not sure if it necessarily went faster, but it did go UPSIDE-DOWN, which I was truly not expecting until it happened. Holy Mother of God! Also, it was a much rougher ride than I was expecting, what with the weird, sudden side-to-side motions (ow, my ears)! I was so focused on trying to stay calm that I closed my eyes for many parts, which is sad, because I missed a lot, and from what I did see, it was a very cool looking ride. It was pitch black, not even stars around, really, and at one point, it looked like we were going to crash into an orange planet when we suddenly ducked under it instead. And the red swirly lights through the tunnel were similar to L.A., but more intense also. It's hard to describe. And then it stopped and I prayed that it was over, because I was feeling kind of nervous about the whole thing. Luckily, it was. I had very mixed feelings as I got off, part of me glad to have seen and experienced it, and part of me that wished I hadn't gone on it at all. The latter part of me was the part with a headache and throbbing ears. (For those who don't know, the very short backstory is that because of a childhood neck injury, I'm not supposed to go on rough rollercoasters because of a minor risk of paralysis. Of course, I was told that when I was like seven years old and never got it re-evaluated, so I just sort of figure that was a long time ago, and probably not something I need to worry about anymore. So, I go on Disney ones sometimes because they're usually not very rickety or harsh at all. This was the roughest one I'd been on, hence the nervousness. Everything turned out great, though! So, no worries, Mom!)

At that point, I didn't want to try any other rides. Joe was feeling a little worse for wear, too, so we decided to go shopping, then head back before the trains got totally crowded. I got a tee shirt and a VERY cute foam pillow of Nemo, who comes with his little turtle friend. It's freaking adorable, and super soft. Love it!

I got some water at a little market before getting on the train, and once we boarded, I fell asleep on Joe's shoulder.

When we got back, I decided to try getting some pizza to go. I went to a place across the street from the hotel called Pizza Renato. The people there are so friendly and nice. I got two margherita pizzas, and Joe and I each ate one! I couldn't believe it. Of course, the pizzas aren't greasy, and they're so light, and the crust is so thin, that eating one whole pizza is comparable to eating about 3 slices of the thick pizza we get back home. Or so I like to convince myself!

And that about wraps up our day! My assessment - Disneyland Paris is a lot of fun!! I could have ridden Pirates and Haunted Mansion and Star Tours a thousand more times. But what else is new? I think my only regret is not seeing and doing more. For instance, I wish I'd taken a few more pictures. And I really wish I'd planned out the rides better, because I would have also liked to have seen what the Disneyland Paris version of Big Thunder Railroad, Small World, and Peter Pan were like. And maybe Indiana Jones. But I get sick riding backwards in cars or trains, and Indiana Jones in Paris is all backwards! So I'm not too sure about that one. I didn't even check to see if they have a Jungle Cruise ride. Hmm.

Anyway, it was cool, and I'd definitely go back! And hopefully not feel all sick and injured next time, either! In fact, when I get home, I'll probably go to Disneyland sometime soon, because even though I liked Disneyland Paris, it made me long for Disneyland L.A. again, too. You just can't beat the original!

All things considered, I'm so glad we went and had a fun time! Disneyland Paris rocks!!