Hello everybody! So now I’m back from outer space… Let’s give a small briefing of what went on during my second week of Vacation Time!

Saturday: Departure from Texas. Fernando, Maria Luisa, Patricia and me went to a steakhouse for the farewell dinner. Since I had a heavy breakfast I could only manage to eat some steak chops and onion rings. Patty left for a school-friends gathering, and the parents took me to the airport. I took pics of Patty’s award shows and before the goodbyes and MariaLuisa will send them to me later on. :D The plane travel was fast and fun. They were showing Are we there yet and although I didn’t get the headphones the movie looked funny and interesting so I didn’t realize the hours went fast. Soon I arrived at Orlando, and Michael received me. Vangie was parked outside, with Groundel. They picked up my luggage and off to the quest of finding the EconoLodge! No problem, right Vangie? LOL

Sunday: The plan was Disney for 7 days, but as I woke up a bit late I had a vision of Virgilio’s face moving side to side saying “Not just Disney, Universal! Universal!” LOL (Virgilio is the chauffer with ultra super traveling experience and he warned me NOT to stay away from Universal… God, I was a good Padawan and followed his advice… So got the 3 days at Universal offer (2 days, 3rd one free). Universal Studios. Shrek 4D was the first ride, and The Mummy was the first roller coaster in my life. Wow! No bone was left untouched in the Mummy! As we went out of the Mummy store Inhotep scared me on the entry door… How nice of him…Then Twister, Jaws and Earthquake. The MIB ride was a nice shooting experience, loved the spins! Went to Back to the Future and got many bumps in the head… The whole day went too fast. Fun, fun, FUN!

Monday: Well, got the Disney’s 4 day one park a day Magic Your Way offer. Disney’s Magic Kingdom. Plenty of memories. Absolutely LOVED the Splash Mountain, and the Thunder Mountain. The Pirates of the Caribbean and It’s a Small World brought many memories, and got pretty postal-like pictures as keepsakes. (I went to Disney when I was 7 years old… so imagining… More than 20 years later…) Space Mountain broke down in the afternoon but was up and running in the night, and Haunted Mansion was cool for decorating tips. Saw the Light Parade up close and personal since we sat on the edge of the walkway, and the demon from Fantasia looked impressive! The fireworks were ok.

Tuesday: Universal Islands of Adventure. At first I was overwhelmed because the place is visually intimidating… looks busy everywhere. Went into the Hulk ride, I guessed that if I went in it I would go in every ride… and I did. :D Got into the Storm spinning ride, then to the Spiderman 3D ride (awesome FXs). The Dudley Falls ride at Toon Lagoon, was closed as we got there… we were pissed because of the 45 minutes stay in the line but it turned out to be a good thing… Went to Jurassic Park, loved the draft ride. Rode the magical Unicorn, and then rode the blue dragon at the Dueling Dragons ride. That was WAY OUT OF THIS WORLD COOL. Then took the Poseidon adventure and passed by DrSeuss land very fast (I am not fond of him). Returned to the Marvel Island and took pics of the places I had not seen. Then Went back to Toon Lagoon… the ride was wet. As a last resort for entertainment, we went to Popeye’s ride… turned out to be a great ride as well as we came out SOAKING wet (thanks to a London family we took the ride twice and the waves that I missed the first time I caught the second time). Dripping water, we went to drink a warm coffee and cinnabuns. Yummy! We had time to go into the heated pool at night, soothing!

Wednesday: Disney’s Epcot center. Ok, the history of communication and progress ride was ok, but the Innovations area sucked by my standards… The Living Seas area was my favorite. No need to go to an aquarium, you have it there. Loved the manatees. And the sharks. And the Mind Flyers… And the show Turtle Talk with Crush was outstanding! Had great laughs on that one! The Land is mostly agriculture and more agriculture, but they do have Soarin, a new attraction that is a ride that makes you believe that you are hand gliding… It was outstanding, just that I didn’t enjoy it because I was frozen the whole ride (I am SCARED to DEATH when it comes to heights). After that unique experience went to Mission Space. I loved being the ships engineer, but the captain got space sick… I thought Groundel was joking, so we went on to the Energy pavilion… which sucked… And then I realized that Groundel was REALLY sick. So, we visited first aid and stayed there for an hour. Afterwards, we visited the nation’s pavilions… Mexico’s pyramid was nice. Norway’s Viking ship was really cool. Loved Germany and Italy because they had intricately beautiful surroundings. In Morocco bought liquor with coffee, and the Illuminations show took place. I was baffled. I had never seen such a beautiful display of fireworks in my whole life!

Thursday: Disney’s Animal Kingdom. You want to visit a zoo? Here it is… The whole place has like 3-4 trails for animal watching, Mombats, tigers, a Conservation awareness place, a petting zoo where the Cabrita Incident took place… The parade was nice, no lights and not too fancy but the idea of “cardboard” animals pulled by humans and humans addressed as animals worked very nicely. I liked everything in the park, especially the Bug’s Life 3D experience and the Tree of Life. The tree has over 350 animals carved on it, it is majestic!

Friday: Disney’s MGM studios. The main thing is that Star Wars weekends started on Friday, and we were excited about that… Only a couple was dressed as Jedis… Oh, well… The Star Tours ride is old but still good, and the store deserves 5 stars, plenty of nice goodies! Took pics of Leia, Anakin, ewoks, the bald band, and Jedis… and of course, Vader. Absolutely LOVED the Muppet Show stage. Everything else in the park was a bit… lame… Liked the stunts and backstage ride… Wanted to see Beauty and the Beast and Indiana Jones shows but they were closed when we got to them… that was a downer… But all in all it was a good day, everything was calm, and the place was pretty.

Saturday: Universal and Islands of Adventure. Went to the best rides of both parks. Took pics of Popeye & Olive, the crazy doc from Back to the Future, and others that I missed the other days. In the MIB ride got the killing attitude and hit with high scores Yay! And in the mummy ride almost lost my hat and glasses… Never mind that oopsie… Imhotep grabbed one of my ponytails when taking a pic with me Yay! And ate at the Monster Café those legendary ribs that I loved so much. At the Islands went to the Dueling Dragons ride and this time rode the red dragon. Way cool! It has 2 more loops in midair. Had time to take a cool break and drink a giant Icee, then ride the Spiderman3D cart one last time. Bye-bye Universal, I love You!!! :P

Sunday: Check out at 7:30am. In the end the hotel experience was not so bad… I get used to cheap things easily… LOL Nah, the room was always clean and the people were always ready to service with a big smile, which counts Anyway, the taxi was a small bus, and the taxi driver was a crazy fuck from Iowa. The guy is a horror freak, which was awesome as he was debating with us about horror movies and then he told some pranks he used to do to his brothers and sister. Arrival at the airport went well, no problems at all. In the plane, a lady almost got bitten by the flight assistant because she had a cat… Seems the flight assistant HATES cats… but besides that there was no more commotion…

Arrived at San Juan at 1:30pm. Coriolis picked us up and we went to get Joe to have his late-birthday-meal-celebration-whatever-thingie. It was fun, my first time at Longhorn. Wheeeeee! We dropped Joe in his house and Coriolis took us to his dwelling. Groundel and me departed at 8pm from Caguas to Mayaguez. The trip went fast and was surreal… Two weeks without driving made me feel weird… almost as if I were in a ride…

Anyway, went home and got a bit pissed (welcome to Mayaguez, city of continuous pain in the ass), but having all kitties around at bedtime was enough to make me smile. I love them, ABSOLUTELY love them. I guess I’ve learned that if I am going to travel it should be just one week away, because they suffer… either that or take them with me… I guess that means trying to get rid off my fear of traveling on cruises! LOL But THAT will be another story…

Today is Tuesday, and I should have taken the whole week for a vacation of vacation... I am tired, sleepless... Oh, well... I will take 2-3 days off when vangie visits for the wedding of Frances so that will make up for the working-right-away thing... Want to go to Caña Gorda or El Morro... We'll see... Anyway... Wanna go eat something so... Sayonara!

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