5 Weeks

...is roughly how much time I have left here. Oddly enough, I'm okay with that. It's been fun, but I'm ready to move on to something new. Plus I want out of housing.

Anyway, so on Thursday I went to lunch at the Liberty Tree Tavern with Selina, Erica, Ashley, and DeAnna, and we had fun sticking the Mickey glitter they'd sprinkled on the table for my celebration on our faces. It was a pretty good lunch. I had an awesome pot roast, and a gooey toffee cake with ice cream for dessert (which we shared, along with a chocolate birthday cupcake they brought out while bringing unnecessary attention to me). We watched the parade, and did a few rides.

Friday was the beginning of Star Wars Weekends, so I went around being really geeky and getting pictures with lots of Star Wars characters. I was super-happy that my timing was perfect for getting a picture with Wicket, since he's the namesake of my dog.

Saturday I went for dinner with Stefanie to Shutter's at Caribbean Beach. The appetizers and bread were amazing, and the entree was pretty good. I had ribs with some kind of vanilla sauce, which was a little weird, but still good. My key lime tart at dessert was really delicious, too.

Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday I worked. Wednesday I had to go shopping for a new dress to wear to Citricos with Taryn, but before dinner I met up with Jen and Stef at Hollywood Studios to do some rides and some drawing at the Animation building. I'm addicted now. It'd been a while since I'd picked up a pencil to draw, so it was super amazing to just sit there and relax for 25 minutes at a time and draw a character. It was still early for my reservation, so when the girls headed over to Downtown Disney I went with them. Plus I'd found out at dinner the other night that Stef had never been in the Christmas store, and that kinda broke my brain a little. After looking into a few shops and stuff, I boarded the Grand Floridian bus, which was super freezing cold. When Taryn got there, we headed upstairs to Citricos. We each had this drink that was fruit juice mixed with sparkling wine (yum) and a cheese trio platter to start. Neither of us really touched the blue cheese because blue cheese is nasty and who wants to eat mold anyway? But the lemon ricotta was good, as was ...whatever the other cheese was. I kept my menu, but that's all the way in my bedroom. For our entrees, we both had the chicken breast, but I had mine with the risotto, and Taryn had hers with potatoes. It was a REALLY good chicken. I had a tiramisu for dessert, and I'm rather upset that the caffeine and sugar never set in, because I kinda really needed them.

Thursday I was going to be lazy, but then I managed to get a reservation at Mama Melrose's at the Studios. I've never been able to get in there, so I jumped on the reservation. For a party of one. Which wasn't actually as awkward as I thought it would be. It was pretty good food, but nothing overly special. Just your regular, run-of-the-mill Americanized Italian place. Then I went to draw for a while (Mickey and Scrooge), and then walked over to EPCOT, where I was meeting Selina for dinner. We went to Germany, which was really cool. When you walk into the restaurant, it looks like you're at an outdoor festival, and there's a band that plays German instruments (they totally play the things in the cough drop commercials), and it's a buffet. I did find that a lot of the food was on the plain side, since they don't use a lot of spices, but it was still good. And the Bavarian cheesecake at dessert was really awesome.

Friday I worked, and then did nothing. I think. If I did anything with anyone and I'm forgetting, I'm sorry! Saturday Amy invited me to a mystery dinner theatre place on I-Drive, and since I haven't really been off property since I got here, I figured it was a good opportunity. Plus Amy's cool. So Matt, Amy, Jackie, and I all headed over there, through long weekend Saturday traffic. Which means we were late, but we still got in. I've never done mystery theatre before, so it was really, really awesome. And the food was good too, but that kinda wasn't the focus. I guessed the murderer wrong, but it was still so much fun!

Last night after work I went out with Taryn and Adam to China, which was a lot better than I thought it was going to be. I hadn't heard good things from many people, so I was a little wary of it, but it was on the list, so it had to be done at some point. But the food was really good! And our server's English was really good, too. I had Kung Pao Chicken for dinner, and a ginger cake for dessert. The cake was really light and really sweet. We went to movie night after that (since I was out late enough with people who reminded me that it was movie night, since normally I don't realize until it's too late), and we watched Fantastic Mr. Fox, which makes about as much sense at Pink Floyd's The Wall, but it was hilarious so that made up for the lack of sense and random one-liners running rampant throughout the film.

And now I'm sitting here eating Kraft Dinner before work. Man, I can't wait for Canadian KD. American stuff still tastes weird. It might be the margarine.