Dark Night

The talk

Sunday was mainly spent dinking around, printing our tickets, and panning our itinerary. With our passes, we were entitled to an early admission one day, which we decided to use on our first day, when we'd be freshest and could really enjoy it. We planned to see a variety of rides, including some of the original attractions, and using a map, plotted our course. We were up early the next day and made it to the park with a little time to spar. It wasn't as crowded as I'd expected, which was nice. We started out taking the monorail around the park since it wasn't very crowded, a great start to the visit. Over the next few days, we visited, in no particular order and sometimes going back to favored rides,  the Indiana Jones Adventure, the Haunted Mansion, the Disney Gallery, the Disney Railroad, the Sorcerer's Workshop, walked through Sleeping Beauty's castle, Mr Toad's Wild Ride, the Matterhorn Bobsleds, the bakery tour, Guardians of the Galaxy, California Screamin', Grizzly River Run, Space Mountain, Splash Mountain, Hyperspace Mountain, and we rode in the spinning teacups. We also ate a lot, poked around, did a little souvenir shopping, got our pictures taken with Mickey Mouse, Spiderman and Captain America. By mutual consent, we cut our third day a little short, being all Disney'd out and footsore, but we'd had a great time. It was nice and warm but not too hot, which was nice because I don't like being sweaty all day, and it wasn't hard to keep the sunscreen on. There was a shop called Curl Surf, where I got a fun new swimsuit for surfing (yeah, I know it was probably overpriced, but this was something I'd use), and we got mouse ears to wear around. We had so much fun, but it was also exhausting.

The next morning I got up early again--Serafina was sleeping in and would arrive later, but I wanted to do some dawn surfing. I'd rented a spring suit, and even with that the water was a little chilly, but I was glad to be back on a board in the water. There weren't many people out which I appreciated. Some of the experienced surfers apparently thought that they owned the place and could be really rude even if you were obeying surfing etiquette. But it was serene and pleasant that morning, kind of zen, and it was just what I needed to relax after the past week I'd had. When I saw people arriving at my beach umbrella, I came in for awhile. More people came than I'd anticipated, actually, since so many people went off for adventures, but I met a lot of new people who were brought by their friends, and in short order everybody seemed to be enjoying themselves. A beach volleyball game was set up and a tag football was also organized. Music was played at a reasonable volume and I think everybody had a good time. I got asked out for a couple of dates; it was really nice, my social life had taken a hit after Arthur breaking things off and finals and all, but I wanted to get back out there. I pooped out mid-afternoon and brought a few people back with me, getting in a nice nap before Serafina came home and we went out for an early bite to eat.

On the way home, we got a message from Mr West, saying that the room had been cleared and the combination to the lock changed so we could move back whenever we wanted. Which, it turned out, was right now. We hurried back to the room, tidied up, and packed the things that we'd used--most of our clothes and linens were still in the bags that I'd brought them over in--and went to load up our cars. It took a few trips, especially with the books we'd replaced, but it wasn't long before we were at the door to our room. I had Serafina's Epi-pen at the ready, just in case, and stepped into the room first. The smell of the cleaners that they'd used was pungent, but I couldn't detect any trace of pot, so I gestured my roommate in, watching her closely. She took several deep breaths and nothing happened, so we called the cleaning a success and went down to get our stuff. On our way up, we ran into some of our hallmates, who helped us bring in everything, and we spent the night moving back in and feeling comfortable at home again. They'd replaced the mattresses, which was nice, the new ones were better, and they'd managed to clean almost everything so losses were minimal aside from the books. The little painting I'd bought in China was gone, but I didn't mind too much because I still had my comforter. The last thing I did before settling back in for the night was to return the cooler John had borrowed and we decided on the time for our skating venture. Not too early, my vacation had been so active I needed a vacation after it, and we decided to set out at around ten the next morning.