Expecto Patronum! Liaisons with Universal!

Holy Cow! I Just spent possibly the best day of my life here in Florida! The day started early as we set out to find our way to Universal Studios. After an hour long bus ride on a random trolley that we discovered we entered the land of movies and super heros. First order of business: pay an arm and a leg for the season pass to said park and justify by stating that it will pay for itself with the number of visits made. After that very lengthy process we headed for the land of wonder and magic. The Wizarding World of Harry Potter! I walked into Hogsmead and I almost stopped breathing. There it was, life size before me and so real. There is Zonkos and Honeydukes and The three broomsticks where we enjoyed butterbeer and fish and chips. It was so good and just like I had always imagined. The employees were dressed in elf costumes and were so much fun! The g-force started in with the Dragon challenge. It is a super fast, inverted, free feet ride. It was so much fun but man did I get off dizzy!
My favorite part was the trip through Hogwarts and the talking portraits and classrooms. There was so much to see that I was in constant sensory overload! This overload continued when we decided to walk a little and came upon the world of super heros. I thought I would die! There they were, the heros of my childhood: Captain America, Spiderman, Wolverine. I went nuts and had to take pictures with all of them. (Any views of Facebook will show that said pictures have taken over my disney album) :) The rides in this park were also amazing and crowned with the incredible hulk ride that blasts you from a canon and lots of other exciting things.

Over all, best day ever and I plan to be spending much of my time in these amazing worlds of make believe.

Yes I am alive and having a blast here in Florida. I am sure that the weather will be the death of me but I am told that it will start to cool off to the low 90s sometime in the coming month. There is so much to do and see and I have only just touched the surface. One of the highlights took place on Saturday at EPCOT (which through working there, I have found it it means experimental prototype community of tomorrow). We decided to be very adventurous and go on a mission to mars. This ride is an incredible accurate take of in a space shuttle. It claims to be the closest experience to the real thing according to the astronauts who have tested it out. There are two different levels to this ride. One that is slightly less intense and one that pulls out all the stops. Our philosophy: Go big or go home! At the front gates they give each person a warning card that tells you to not go on the ride if you are prone to motion sickness, bothered by spinning or claustrophobia and a host of other things. As these are not huge problems for me I let it go and continued. The tension mounted however as a continuous recording kept telling us to make sure this was the right ride for us and that at anytime we could back out and to just talk to a worker. So by this point I am starting to freak out. Finally our time comes and we are all in our spots and the attendant again comes to ask each of us if we are sure we want to continue! With added trepidation we say yes and sit down in our cockpit.
In front of me is a screen and all the buttons that I will have to push for the flight to go off without a hitch. (oh great more stress) Then without warning I understand the comments about claustrophobia as the front of the cockpit move directly in front of my face and the only thing I can see is that screen. They instruct us that we may be tempted to close our eyes or to look to the side but don't do it! Things will be much worse if you close your eyes. So now my eyes are getting dry from trying to keep them open.
Finally the launch sequence starts and we are moved to a laying down position and are looking straight into the sky. We blast off and the force is so strong that I felt like my face was being pushed into the back of my head. There is so much pressure I have to consciously make myself breath. Then just as some of the pressure is being released there is a problem on mars and we must fix it or die trying. Of course my team is the bomb so we succeed in landing on mars after quite a scramble. I could not believe I made it through and decided this ride is not for the faint of heart.

Dreams really do come true! Liaisons with Disney!

So I think to say that the last year has gone by without much excitement would be an understatement. According to this blog I am still stuck in Jackson trying to find food. I guess it is time to update these stories. I am still at BYU-Idaho finishing up school but I am happy to report that my fall semester will be filled with the fabulous humidity of Florida.

Yes that is right I got accepted to the Disney college program and will be working at Disney World!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The plans have started and will continue. I will keep you updated on the goings on and then if I can remember I will keep you posted while I am there. It promises to be fabulous!

This town ain't big enough! Liaisons with Jackson

I just love college! Not only are you learning new things everyday but you get to have fun while you are doing it. The fun ranges from a roommate dance parties to jumping in puddles late at night. This past weekend I joined a group of highly amusing people on my first trip to Jackson Hole Wyoming. I had no idea what to expect and therefore went with eyes wide open for fun.

We finally got on the road after following the Mormon BYU-I standards of being 30 minutes late. The longish drive was made much more entertaining by my decision to sit with Brian on one side and the other Brian on the other. Following many jokes and much laughter we arrived in Jackson! As I looked around I realized that it was Leavenworth but instead of being German it was in the western style. We arrived in time to see a shoot out in the streets and the musical stylings of the saloon girls. We decided to have a look at all the shops and to soak in the town. It was about this time that I realized that I had not eaten in awhile and anyone who knows me knows that this is not a good thing. So with the looming threat of a migraine I asked if anyone was hungry. After explaining my situation all jumped on the band wagon of "Get Lindsay some food so that she does not get sick." While feeling completely stupid we walked around trying to find something that would do the trick. I eventually walked into a random shop and found a bag of cashews. I don't think I have ever been more excited to find nuts. We then retraced the hike that we had just made to get back to where we were and went about our excitement.

The town was great and had many colorful people both workers and tourists. Eventually we decided to go to the famous Bubba's restaurant after getting a good laugh at the fact that I accidentally called it Boodies. The food was fabulous and I think that we sufficiently annoyed the waitress. After packing on the pounds we headed back for Rexburg and left the ever exciting town of Jackson Hole.

Lessons learned: Take snacks so as to not cause a thirty minute food hunt and don't tell the two guys you are sitting between that you are ticklish.

Why can't I See? Liaisons with Caves

Here I am back in my beloved Rexburg. After weeks of traveling and then being home for a few weeks I will shockingly say that it is nice to be back. With that being said one wonders what there is to do in this cesspool of insurrection. You can go to the park for the millionth time or stuff yourself at the ever popular Craigo's. It you are really desperate you can hang out at the library hoping you will see someone you know and they will have a plan. After getting back into town I was not to keen on any of the above suggestions. Luckily I received a call from Amy asking me to come with them to the caves and play hide and go seek. It may have been the hours of traveling or the fact that I had just spent the last three days writ ting a dictionary but I was a little confused. How is one to play this very exciting game when one cannot see? I was quickly informed that we get glow sticks and break them and splatter the substance all over the cave walls and ourselves...... Right! Being the adventurous person that I am I put aside the visions in my head of burned off skin and blinded eyes and said yes!

After following the standard tradition of getting started at least 30min. later than planned we started off on our journey to the civil defense caves. The ride was enjoyable but very bumpy as some person decided that the roads did not need to be paved. We at last arrived and entered the caves. I am not sure what I was expecting but man was it dark. It was impossible to see anything in front of you. There was ice and jagged rocks everywhere. For those who know me you can see the disaster that is coming. Me, in the dark, with ice and pointy rocks? not good. We finally reached our destination and began the process of coating ourselves and the cave walls with the colored substance of unknown ingredients. Fortunately no one died and we finally started playing. I found that the best thing to do was to hide in plain sight because you just blend in with the rocks and no one knows you are there. Props go to Jenny for being fabulous and for being the best hider. After many painful cuts and scrapes and being groped in the dark we finally called it a night. We all drove away exahsted but glad that we are not cave dwellers.

You have got to be kidding me!!! Liaisons with Paris

I cannot tell you the excitment that came to me as we entered the city of Paris. One of the most famous cities and one that I love due to the french connection. But at some point in everyone's life someting is bound to change their opinons or hopes about their greatest desires or favorite places. One of mine happened on the dark streets of my beloved Paris.

Amy and I and two other fabulous friends from the tour had been out in the evening walking the beautiful champs elysees. It is an amazing street full of places that I would never shop at due to the outrageous prices. €50,000 for a watch and €30,000 for a phone. Nonetheless we were enjoying the atmosphere and the excitment of being in Paris. While walking we came across a movie theater. As silly as it is we thought it would be way fun to watch a movie in France. It happened to be playing Iron Man 2 and none of us had seen it. The problem came when we found out that the only showing we could make would be at 9:55PM and the metro close down at 12AM. Yeah I was nervous too! The opinion was that we could make it and the we should go for it.

So after an annoyingly large amount of previews and rediculously funny ads the movie finally started. The movie was a good and I was drawn into it until Amy leaned over to me and told me that if we wanted to get on to the metro before it closed we needed to leave now. THere was no way that I wanted to walk home to who knows where at 12AM through the scary streets of Paris. We left and got into the metro. We figured out that the best way the get home was to go south on the line and then go north. We were riding home peacefully until we stopped at a stop and it did not go anymore. We were then told by the very nice woman who tells you the stops on the metro that the metro was now closed and could we please exit. What!!!!! Really, Really!! We are now further away from home than we started out and we have to walk? So there we are three girls and one boy in scary Paris at midnight armed with a map and fists clenched and ready to punch at the slightest scare. Being the fabulous map navigator that I am I figured out the safest, fastest and busiest streets to get us home. Things would have been better if we were to be leaving the scary parts as we got closer to home but we were actully staying in the scary part. Good luck to us.

The only thing we could do was to start walking. We stayed in the tightest group we could without it getting weird. I don't think I have ever been so alert in my life. It was fun to try and look like we knew where we were going and that we wanted to be there. We got along just fine until we started noticing the same person behind us for quite a while. That ended in less than exciting circomstances as he turned on the street before we did. We walked for an hour an eventully the hotel came into sight. I have never been more grateful to see that very ugly and slightly rundown building. Amy and I pretty much ran in and were so happy to be there. I was glad that a potentially bad situation ended in a boring story.

Moral of the story: Don't watch a late night movie in a town you don't know even if it is the city of lights.

Running Shoes. Liaisons with London

Well this has been quite the day. We went everywhere in London today and saw so many cool things. This really is an amazing city full of culture and very kind people. I found out just how kind they are this evening in my wild run through the streets of London.

One of the most important reasons I came to London was to be able to see Les Miserable performed on stage. This was so important to me. We had planned to be out all day and then to eat dinner near the theater where we were going to experience the magic of this amazing play. I had carefully put the ticket in my bag as I left the hostel. Then after a wonderful day we set off for dinner and some how got so lost that we could not find the resturant. I was so frustrated about the whole thing and then to make matters worse we happened to be in the same place as the London premire of a movie. The place was packed and it was impossible to get around. We eventually found the right place and sat down to have a nice dinner. I decided to make sure that I had my ticket and to my horror found that it was not there. I looked and looked and then the people at the table looked too. I was so upset because I had so looked forward to this experience. After scarfing down my food I decided that I had to go back to the hostel to see if I could find it. It is long trek back and involves using the tube and streets that I am not very familiar with.

With detirmination I set forth at a dead sprint. I was luckily able to find my way back to the tube station and I got off without problem. I did all that in just 15 min. and I was very proud of myself. I went to my room and found the ticket. Feeling a little bit better I booked it down the street. It might have been because I was running and not paying attention but I got so turned around and I could not figure out where I was even though I had just come home without any problem. I was so upset because I only had 10 min. before the play started. I started asking people along the street as I went by how to get to places. They were all so helpful and kind. This however did not stop the time from passing by and by the time I found the tube the play had already started.

So there I was an american, running through the streets of downtown London without a clue where I was and on the verge of tears because the one thing I was so excited about was going to be ripped away from me. All I could do was keep running and running. At least then I would know that I had done all that I could. I was running down the street asfter having asked a very nice guy where the street was and there it was! The huge billboard for the theater that screemed "you are in the right place if you want to see Les Miserable." I was so excited I alsmost cried but was still nervous they would not let my in as I was about 10 min. late. I kept running and opened the door. I had obviously been running for the last half hour so the first thing out of the most wonderful british girl's mouth was, "you are okay. You made it." I was so excited. I could not believe that everything was going to work out. I was led through the darkness with the help of a worker and a very small flashlight. I had missed only a little and it was not a problem.

I sat down and was overwhelmed with gratitude to Heavenly Father. I knew that even though I was freaking out he was there running with me and that he knew how important this small thing was to me. It may be silly but it had a profound affect on the way I looked at the experience. When I was running around like a lunatic I did not feel like I had any help but then I remebered all the people that he put by me that would know where the tube was or where the street was. I sat and enjoyed that amazing production and the whole time could not help but think of the blessings in my life even if I am a crazy girl running through the steets of London.