April 19, 2004
Where've u been these days, eLLa?
Haha, good question! Need long answers too ;) Yup, I just got back from Florida for 10 days last Sunday, and hasn't got any time to blog. Well, actually these last 2 months have been so busy for me: musical play, water polo practice, Spring Break ( Washington DC & Florida!), Ethnic Fair, and I had to catch up my study last week bcoz of my absence d week b4 (for Florida Trip! hehehe... ;)
OK, I guess you all have read about my trip to Washington DC. Now, here's about my trip to Florida: I went with 54 other exchange students from many different countries in the world for a fun spring break tour by bus. The first time I entered the bus, I didn't really know too many people, maybe just some who I met before in AFS camps. The travel time from Illinois to Florida took about 1 day and 1 night, so it was long and pretty tiring, plus the bus was super cold! But as we arrived at the Florida border, the sun shone brightly and... I don't need my coat! It was warm, trees have their leaves (still spring in IL), and there're coconut and palm trees! Some kids even have never seen palm trees in their life! Yeah, u can tell that I'v enever seen snow b4, but now... yeah... I have a palm tree in front of my house in Indonesia! :P Going to Florida is like going back home! The first night we arrived in Orlando, we went to downtown Disney, where they have unique shops and Disney stuffs. Well, we didn't really shop since we only had 1.5 hour there. Just looking around and took some pictures, hehehe. Oh hey, Christina, Antje & I bought similar Mickey earrings for fun. It's cute and we put it on right away :D We're all still tired from the travel at that time, so we just headed back to the hotel after that.
The next day was for Wet n Wild water park! Yeah... I love swimming!!! Once again, some kids have never been to a water park. Fortunately, Indonesia is always warm and all waterparks and swimming pools open all year long. Some parts of this waterpark are not much different from Waterboom in Indonesia, mostly the sliding stuffs. But there're some rides I think are the coolest: The first one is "The Storm". We slide through a high closed tube and in the end we'll swirl arounda big bowl and plunge to the water (I fell mostly with head first). They also have smoke & sound effect here, make it look even cooler. The next one is a super high almost vertical slide. It's similar to the light blue slide in Ancol, but much higher & faster. I wasn't brave enough at the first time, but then I thought, I'll never a have a chance to try it anymore. Now or never! So, I tried and it did feel like free fall, with the fact that u can feel there's something on your back. Well, free diving from 7 m diving tower is scarier, which I did long time ago. The next one is knee water ski. Our chaperones said that we can just watch people and don't have to try it, coz it needs some skills. There're 2 kinds of this "wakeboard" ride: knee ski & water board. Since I've never done skateboarding b4, I chose water ski, although I just went skiing once :P Just feels challenging, coz we need a life jacket & a helmet to do this. So we, 3 crazy girls just tried this knee ski. It was pretty hard, coz the rope will pull u really hard while u grab it. I failed for the first time I tried, but I could do almost a half of the lake in my 2nd try! I also took some pics when I did it & with the outfit. It was a lot of fun, and I got tanned. No!!! I've been lighter over the winter, and now I get darker again? (>.<) We went to Pleasure Island, a bunch of Night Clubs in Downtown Disney. We danced there, and of course it was fun. The South American kids are really dance masters! Well, at least I can dance for my excitement ;)
And then... time for Disney World! We went to MGM Studios in the morning in small groups. I went around with Ira, Mandy, Ken & Wataru. The first thing we did was of course pictures! In front of Mickey's big hat, and also with the characters: I got Pooh & Lion King! Then we got to the Star Wars adventure simulation and Indiana Jones: similar to the Police Academy one in WB Movie World, but it looks cool, too. Then, we headed to Tower of Terror. Ouch, long lines! But it's a "must ride", so Ira & I decided to stay, along with Mona, Sara & Laura. And it really worthed! The ride was fun, my backpack flied when it moved up and down :P Then we met back with Mandy, Ken & Wataru. They wanted to go right to Magic Kingdom, but I insisted to watch Beauty & the Beast musical. I was pretty stubborn, but we did enjoyed that show, or at least me :P I sang along the songs like what I did with crewbies 2 weeks b4, and I think people just thought I was crazy, coz I also moved my head & body along the tunes :D Enough with MGM, we took a bus to Magic Kingdom. The first thing we did was watching the parade. Oh, I couldn't believe that I was really in Disney World, watching the parade which I just saw in TV before! Then, we took pictures in front of the castle. Once again, really??? Then Wataru, Ira & I went to Space Mountain, the in darkness rollercoaster. We stood in line for more than 1.5 hour. I thought it was fun, but it was.... OK. Huhuhu, I regret for standing in line so long just for that :( After that, we entered "It's a Small World", a ride through display of different countries in the world (Istana Boneka copied this one! ;) Soon after that, we got to The Haunted Mansion, a ride through a haunted house, which I think is not scary at all, but it does has cool effects (^^;) Before riding our final rollercoaster, I wanted to go in a steam ship trip along American old river. I just thought it was cool, like in Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer & Huck Finn. And the last one was... The Big Thunder Mountain rollercoaster! This one is not scary, but it's a classic Disney rollercoaster that I really want to ride! Finished with that, we rushed to the monorail, and then bus coz we thought we're laste, but we didn't. Nice... ;)
Universal Studios was coming up on the next day. We decided to go to Island of Adventure instead of the Universal Studios one, coz it has more rides. So, the first think we got to was Spiderman simulation ride. It was super cool, with 3D effects and the shaking ride. Then, we went to Popeye's "You'll be wet for sure" rafting ride. None of us had changing clothes but that's OK, we got dry not long after that. After that, we decided to split, and that's when I got Express Pass to the Hulk rollercoaster. That's the freakiest rollercoaster ride in my life! The first thing it does is swirling, not going down the rail like the others! After that, the Jurassic Park ride through dinosaurs habitat exactly like in the movie! Next, we splitted again and I took some funny pictures in Dr. Seuss' section, with the Cat in the Hat, funny hat, etc. After that was another rollercoaster: Dueling Dragon. I thought it'd be really scary coz there's no foot base, but the Hulk still won over this one, hehehe. It was still fun, though ;) The last thing was the spinning trip in the Cat in the Hat house, which made me dizzy a little bit. Oh yeah, there's also Storm spinning bowl ride, but it wasn't that great... but it's still OK :) After those theme park rides, we got to City Walk and had dinner in Nascar Cafe, and danced at Bob Marley Club. I dunno why but I wasn't in the mood for dancing... maybe I was tired? Hmmm...?
Here's the last day in Disney! Yup, Animal Kingdom in the morning first. We watched It's Tough to Be A Bug, which is a 3D film with crazy feel-like-real things around your seat. Then we watched Festival of the Lion King, combination of music, circus, act and song. Pretty good, but I like Beauty & the Beast better. I also took picture with Mickey here, hehehe. Next, we entered the Dinosaur ride, which is similar to The Jurassic Park, but I think this one is better coz it has more cool effects. The last, we stood in line for the African trek. It's similar to Safari Park, but this one has African animals in their artificial but looks real habitat! Feel like really in Africa, hope I can do the real one someday ^^ Soon, we hopped to Epcot and hoped to ride the cool rides there, but ouch! The line was for almost 3 hours, and there's no Fast Pass left! Oh well, there're still many other rides. So, we went to the Imagination ride & studio, and took our picture there, hehehe. Then, we saw a movie about environment feat. The Lion King characters. It was actually educative & entertaining, but Ken fell asleep during the show :P After that, we entered "Honey, I Shrunk the Audience" theatre which was also with 3D. The last, we walked through the World Display. I took a picture in every country display, and we ate Japanese food. Ken felt weird like he was already back home, hehehe. Well, I got some Germany chocolate & Japanese nori. Sweet.... We also got to a ride about Norway, the Viking land. I like this Epcot park coz Disney hire the native people from their country for the World Display. Their accents are cute, hehehe :D Some exchange students enjoy talking to people form their own country, but unfortunately Indonesia's not there :P We used the rest of the time for shopping, and see the fireworks, which was great! Oh well, that's our last day in Disney and also Orlando :)
Yeah, the next day we got to Cocoa Beach, swim in the ocean! Finally, this is what I want since last year :P Well, the beach wasn't as nice as what I thought. But I still swam there, anyway. I love the wave, and now I know the basic surfing, hehehe :D But of course, the weather is hot. I also swam in the pool & played tennis --> super stupid for this, hope they won't have this in PE :P The next day, we woke up early to see the sunrise and I took 2 pretty pictures. I like sunrise/sunset pics, I hope I'll have collections for that on my own someday. We also had a picnic & crazy skits on the next day. My room created a "Blind Date Show". It was cool, but just too long for a skit. Unfortunately, that was our last night in Florida we sang "Leaving on A Coach Bus", our version of Leaving on a Jet Plane. Hix... not that song, please! So, yeah... it's hard to leave the others, we've been really good friends in that week!
On the way home, we stopped in Atlanta for a fast food restaurant which has super greasy food. Noooo!!! And when we arrived in Illinois, it was cold! Where the heck are we now??? Hmm... I thought: Well, back to America! It's like going back to Indonesia for a while... hmm.... ;)
