I'm finally here!

Well, it's taken me over 48 hours of being in the country before I've had the chance to come online and update the blog! Apologies! It's been crazy!!

Let's start with Saturday... in sunny England. We left Bristol at 4pm and got to Gatwick at about 6.30pm. Went for a lovely Indian meal in nearby Horley before crashing out at about 11pm... sleep was somewhat light - I kept having wierd dreams! But soon enough it was Sunday - Disney Day!

It all started out well enough, we went over to Gatwick, my case was 22.7KG! Soooo close to being overweight it's not even funny, so checked in with no problems and went to have a bite to eat with the parents. I felt as nervous as the first time round but quite excited! It was a bit weird because we ate in the same place and then waved goodbye at the same place etc! Went through security, got a full body frisk which was random and then into the departure lounge. Located the Wetherspoons we agreed to meet at and luckily spotted a load of Mickey t-shirts in there so knew I'd found the right gang! Spent an hour or so in there chatting before leaving to get drinks and snacks for the flight in WHSmith. Then the gate was called and off we went! Really nice group of people, we all had a laugh sitting around at the gate etc... got onto the plane and I was sitting with 2 other ICPs (Hannah, of course, and a guy called Jason) plus a couple in front of me (Chris and Jonny) and another couple behind me. So throughout the flight we kept each other company!

The captain jinxed it... he said the flight would be 8 hours 20 minutes. Which is rediculously short to get to Florida from London... so about 8 hours and 10 minutes later (involving a Quorn curry for lunch, watching several episodes of the Inbetweeners as well as 'Have you heard about The Morgans' - love a bit of Hugh Grant) we came into land at Orlando International... where we hit a massive storm cloud, right over the airport. Cue loads of kids vomiting everywhere and lots of turnbulance and then having to divert to Tampa to refuel otherwise we would have dropped out of the sky. Not good.

3 hours later, after sitting in a boiling hot cabin and watching a drama unfold involving a woman fainting and paramedics being called onto the plane, we finally took off back to Orlando. We landed fine and then had to spend 1 1/2 hours sitting around on the floor at immigration... it took forever! Finally, got the Mears shuttle and made it to Vista Way at 10pm!! In English, that's 3am!

Long story short, I am back at Vista Way (again!) in apartment 1608 this time... I am living with 4 Americans (Brett, Rachel, Britney and Ashley) and a Liverpudlian (who's my roommate, she's called Megan!), we had a whole day of BORING housing talks yesterday and then the obligatory trip to Walmart (I am sure I will muse on the things I found there in another post at some point!). Spent nearly $100 in Walmart plus another $50-odd in Walgreens as well... so already probably spent half the money I brought with me! Bad!

Last night, after Walmart, we went to Downtown Disney - a big group of 13 of us. We got a table at Planet Hollywood and then went to see Toy Story 3 in 3D which was amazing!! (Even if it did cost $13.50 a ticket!) However, didn't get back to Vista til 1am so it was a bit of a late one considering we're all still a bit jet lagged!

Then this morning it was back to the pavilion for Doomsday.... finding out where we're working!!! And I'm at Hollywood Studios!! :D In "Icon Attractions". Now, my role was told to me as 'Main Entrance Operations' so to find out that my job title has the word attractions in it means that I truly don't know what I will be doing - whether I'll be operating a ride or a show... or whether I will be doing turnstiles and parades etc. The important part is that I am in a park (my second favourite one at that!), I won't be finishing work at 3am every night, and I know someone else doing attractions in HS so at least I can go to traditions with them tomorrow!

And yes, traditions is tomorrow. At 8am! Early start! So I will be having an earlier night tonight I think seen as the bus is at 6.50am... fun times! That's all for now, folks, I have to get ready for the second lot of housing talks this afternoon which are sure to be as fun as the last. Not!

Cat x