Epcot Day of Food!

Rachel and Ashley's day of food!  ~Said in Janice's voice~

Monday was our day spent at Epcot, and the tour of the world.  The poor ignorant person I am, I always imagined the park was all housed within the giant, iconic golf ball dome.  Not so.  There is a ride inside the golf ball, but it's pretty low key.  The main attraction of Epcot is beyond the dome, and consists of several different "countries" arranged around a big lake.  As implied earlier, Rach and I took the day to sample a host of different foods from each country, and it was fabulous!  Rachel and I actually went to the park just the two of us, instead of bringing along our two student friends.  Epcot lent itself to a much more laid-back experience of wandering between shops and restaurants, with only a couple actual rides.  Each country consisted of a collection of shops, food vendors, and random Disney characters from the specified countries.  The other cool thing was that all of the Disney employees were actually from the countries they were working at!  You actually feel like you've traveled to another country.

Starting our tour around the world we first visited Canada.  We checked out the O Canada 360 degree film featuring Martin Short.  This was amusing to me because I distinctly remember being forced to go to one of these films in Disneyland as a child.  I also remember throwing a fit about it!  Haha.  It was fun to go back as an adult and actually appreciate how cool of a film style this actually can be.  I also decided I would really like to go check out Canada sometime, even it it's just back to Niagara Falls.

Fish and chips at an English pub?

England came next with its British invasion shops filled with tea, biscuits, Sherlock, and The Beatles!  Of all the places, England is probably number one on my list of next vacation.  I was disappointed I didn't find a British flag to purchase!  Next up was France.  We started our food tour at France with all kinds of delicious amuse bouche's, quiche lorraine, creme brûlée, and mousse au chocolat.  Yum!  France was also home to a couple of princesses.  We missed Belle and her Beast, but we did get to meet Aurora from Sleeping Beauty.

She was such a perfect princess.  She also explained that fairies did her hair with magic!

Next up was Morocco where we got to meet Jasmine and Aladdin.  Other than waiting for Agraba's royalty, we didn't spend much time in this land.

After Morocco was Japan.  I picked up some delicious sushi at one of the food sample carts.  We wandered up and down the shopping area, and I contemplated purchasing a kimono.

Next came American adventure with a giant bandstand and BBQ joints.  We kinda just breezed through this area, and went straight to Italy!  Italy was another area just full of delicious food.  We enjoyed pasta and this delicious limoncello custard dessert.  We loved Italy's food so much, we ended up coming back later for dinner.

After Italy came Germany.  Rachel was pretty interested in a bratwurst, and I took some time to ramble through the shops.  I ended up purchasing a beer boot for Blake!  (I'm assuming he'll drink butterbeer out of it?)  I actually used to buy souvenir shot glasses for him whenever I'd go to random airports, since he seemed to be collecting them for a while.

 Next up was China.  Call me ignorant, but it felt very similar to Japan, even in the shops.  While browsing the shops we actually bumped into some of our DECA kids!  I also got to sit and watch some fabulously talented Chinese acrobats.

Norway was the next land on our tour, and I think it was the inspiration for the Frozen castle.  The iconic Elsa and Ana were absent, but they did promise a whole new expansion that I'm quite certain will adopt many characteristics from Disneys new popular franchise.

Mexico was one of our favorites since Rach and I both love Mexican foods.  We tried out some tiny tacos from a food vendor that were delicious.  Within the Aztec pyramid that dominated the Mexican landscape there were Dios de los Muertos themed shopping carts.  There was also a boat ride following the Three Cabelleros. 

After shopping around Mexico, we had completed our tour around the world.  We then headed back towards the golf ball for a couple of our rides.  Within the ball was the Spaceship Earth ride, a slow-moving train-type ride that explored the evolution of human communication.  It was historical and somewhat interesting, but not exactly what I'd call a ride.  Next up came Mission: Space.  Themed after astronaut flight school, when picking the line you waited for, you had to choose Novice or Advanced.  With no prior knowledge of what that even meant, of course we went for Advanced.  It turned out they put you in a spaceship cockpit, told you to fly it, then launched you off to Mars.  The trick was you actually experienced a good deal of G-force as you launched from the surface of Earth, hyperslept through the trip, then re-entered the atmosphere at Mars.  It was awesome!  However, it was certainly not for the faint of heart, as it actually did give me a bit of vertigo.  Pretty sure I'm not cut out to be an actual astronaut!

The next ride for us was Test Track.  This was put on by Chevrolet, and they actually had a car lot-esque display of new vehicles you could sit inside, including a Camero.  This was especially fun for me since I've been gifted with several brothers who are obsessed with fast vehicles!  With this ride you used your electronic ticket/card to design your own car prior to boarding.  You got to pick engine, tires, and the aerodynamics of your body design.  The actual ride was a car that ran you through a series of "tests," including a high-speed chase around the track.  It was a blast!  By the end of it, you got to see just how well your vehicle would perform based on your designs.

All my delicious food samples.  Kabob and falafel from Morocco, and manicotti, lemoncello, and procuitto with cheese from Italy.  Fancy food fest! 

After this ride we determined we would stick around for the fireworks and light show at the end of the evening.  This meant we would pick up delicious sample foods, and stake out a good place from which to view the fireworks.  We ended up on the bridge overlooking the lake with a box full of goodies.  After the light show we headed back to our hotel after walking nearly seven miles in a day!  I probably should be embarrassed about how much our trip centered around food.  Meh.  We ate all kinds of weird things at the strangest times possible, and we were either starving, or stuffed the entire time!