Disney is way cooler when you're 21.

So I know I've been to Disney before, but I'm pretty sure the last time I was there I hadn't quite hit puberty yet. I don't remember especially liking it, it was a family trip to Orlando, and I was way more jazzed about going to Islands of Adventure and going on the roller coasters. In fact, when I hear about people my age going out of their way to go to Disney, I kind of judge them a little bit. My friend Loraine, however, had two free tickets to go to Disney Paris, and invited me along. Considering I rarely say no to free things, we made plans to go together on Sunday!

We got to the park and it took me all of 30 seconds to ditch my "big girl" attitude and get really, embarrassingly excited. We got in around 12:30 and made a game plan for the day: First go to Disney Studios park, then over to Disneyland park (I could very easily have the names totally and completely wrong here) Loraine is a bit of a Disney expert, having grown up right near the park in LA, so we checked out the wait times for the rides, got a "fast pass" for the one with the longest wait (Aerosmiths Rock n roller coaster), then jumped in line for Tower of Terror.

I won't give a minute-by-minute breakdown of the day, but we got really lucky the whole time. We somehow managed to wait a maximum of about 40 minutes for a ride, and during that wait we talked to this adorable German girl who was celebrating her 9th birthday (oh and she spoke three languages... way to make us feel inadequate) Also there was the Stunt Show, for which they asked us to make some noise, and the loudest person/people were going to get to come down and drive a stunt car. Big surprise when the two loudest people in a crowd of EASILY 1,000 people was the two American girls, right? So we went down and they tricked me into thinking I was driving a car with a remote control (they had another driver hiding on the side of the car)

As the night got late and the final firework show was about to being, we rushed toward the front of the castle and waited only a few minutes in the rain. The show lasted about half an hour and was (and I hate to be this cliche) magical. It was such an amazing display that brought back a lot of fond memories of my childhood, as well as a lot of critical thinking from my adult life about Disney as a corporation. It was a weird feeling I had throughout the day of the juxtaposition of the way Disney played such a vital role in my childhood, and it has such fairy-tale qualities behind it... and knowing that the people who work for Disney as princes or princesses are expendable humans who are under some of the most strenuous contracts in the world.

All in all, it was a really awesome day with easily my favorite person I've met thus far in Paris.

half and half

As of today, I've been in Paris just over one month, and I've got just under one month left. I'm planning the next few trips I've got lined up, although I'm doing them in a rather silly order. I've got all of my focus and attention going toward my January 2013 flight to Australia, and I haven't really booked anything for my eastern-European adventure I'm doing one month from now. I guess logic isn't really one of those things I like to use when I travel. Some things are very go-with-the-flow.

One such adventure happened after I met Loraine, a Los Angeles native who is here studying at the American School in Paris. We met while we were sitting next to each other at the play "How to Be Parisian in one hour" and we hung out the next day. She invited me to this club called "Mix", where foreigners enter free before midnight. So we went, threw on American flag stickers, and danced. We also met three Canadian gentlemen and talked to them a bit at the start of the night, then found our way back to them at the end of the night. For me the best part was convincing the DJ to play Bohemian Rhapsody and sharing an epic moment with dozens of strangers singing the power ballad. Around 4 AM, we decided we wanted to leave, so we headed to Loraines apartment with the Canadians. We spent the remainder of the night singing showtunes and talking about clouds. We then walked to the eiffel tower to watch the sunrise, and said our goodbyes around 7:30 AM.

Another go-with-the-flow thing about Paris is the goddamn weather. It's currently 1 PM, and since waking up around 11 this morning, it was sunny, cloudy, a bit rainy, sunny, torrential sideway downpour, cloudy, and it's now sunny again. Getting dressed for a day out is one of the most frustrating things to do, because the weather is almost never the same for more than 30 minutes or so.

I'm going to take a nap now because I've got the flu and my head feels like a balloon.