Marci's Grand California Adventure Trip Report!!!!

[Marci]

Hello friends!!! What a trip report I have in store for you! If you want to go back and read the pre-trip report you can find it here: http://www.beourguestpodcast.com/for...read.php?t=771

I have a TON of photos and info for you and please, if you have questions along the way, ask and hopefully I can help you with them! I'm going to do a full trip report of my time in California.. but I will put a link up to just the disney stuff (once I write it out) so if you want to skip ahead to that you can..... but honestly, probably at least 50% of the trip was Disneyland. I hope I can remember everything in order and keep all the details in... with the time difference and being so excited and trying to fit in a ton of things in one week.... I'm pretty exhausted, not to mention that I was operating on typically about 5 hours of sleep a night! lol...
so... if you are ready to proceed.. then get on board!

Day 1: Thursday morning:

I had called a cab to come pick me up at 4:15 am because Tim was out of town for work... I had my bags packed and all I had to do was wake up, get dressed, and put on a coat of mascara and go... well, 4:15 comes and goes and still no sign of the cab... I'm pacing around my living room waiting.. calling the cab company and getting their answering machine over and over... and by 4:30 I realized I was just going to have to drive myself to the airport and leave the car in the overnight parking.. I didn't want to have to do this but in the end it turned out not so bad since Tim would be home on Friday night and could go get the car out of parking. I drove myself to the airport, checked in, got on the plane, and the rest of the morning went pretty smooth... typical travel day... I rode in one of those tiny, tiny planes from NY to NJ and then on the flight from NJ to California I met a nice older couple who were going to Vegas .... we chatted and I took this picture from the plane:



my flight landed around noon and I was hungry, tired, and had a headache... but happy to be in california! Rosa picked me up at the curb and we headed out.. let me tell you, the weather was perfect! blue skies, not too hot or too cold, just great! so we decided to go eat at a raw food place that was near by called Au Lac. I was familiar with it and Rosa was willing to be experimental and try something new...

We drove up to the place and got a seat right away:


it is vegetarian/raw food.. we ordered pistacio bread (which was really more like a nutty pate):



and appetizer called "cream cheese" (that had no cream cheese in it! rosa liked these)


and for lunch I had the humanese soup which was an avocado/coconut water based soup with some mushrooms and other stuff in it.. totally yummy!


Rosa went vegetarian with curry and noodles.. guess I didn't get a pic of that... then for dessert we had "donut holes" which were warm with a gooey liquid center and a durian smoothie... lol.. if you don't know what a durian is... well, it's a fruit.. but there's a lot more to it.. it's a story for another time really:

the "donut holes" (which were great) and the durian smoothie (we left half of it there and I drank most of that half, rosa did not like it):







the owner/chef came out to make sure we were enjoying everything and I remembered that I had heard that he had taken a vow of silence 7 years ago! it was so neat, he didn't speak, but through hand gestures we could understand and communicate with him.. he was sooooo nice and warm and friendly and he gave us a free piece of raw chocolate pie that was awesome! I didn't get a picture of it though

after lunch we went to Rosa's apartment and just relaxed and hung out chatting in the living room for a few hours... we ended up meeting up with three guys that I'm friends with down at a bar and spent the entire night talking and laughing.. I think we got back to Rosa's apartment maybe by 1 in the morning or so.....

I slept on the couch (did so for the entire trip unless we were in a hotel) .. which wasn't too uncomfortable, but wasn't super comfy either... but hey, what are you gonna do right for free room and board?

ok, next morning... downtown disney tour....