After getting to know 4 lovely girls over Facebook for a month, I actually got the opportunity to meet them in person. On Saturday, April 26th I flew to Orange County to spend a little bonding time with Kayla, Katie, Christine, and Silvina. They were so sweet and all offered to pick me up from the airport since they all live in SoCal. Kayla (my actual bedroom mate) ended up getting me since it was right next to her school. We immediately clicked as I hopped into her cute little green bug and gave her a side hug- this quickly changed as I learned she was a very aggressive driver. Just kidding, but never let anyone with a cute little hippie car fool you 😉
We headed to breakfast and meet the rest of the girls at Monkey Business Cafe, this home-style kind of restaurant that is adorable just as much as it is delicious. We all agreed that this would be our favorite go-to spot for meals; and it’s only 10 mins from our apartment! We all connected very easily and laughed so loud that I’m sure we were disruptive to the tables around us, haha. Katie and Christine were so thoughtful that they got Kayla, Silvina, and I a mug with our favorite Disney characters on them. They mostly got them for their birthdays since they were just shortly before the meet up, but they didn’t want to leave me out so they got me one with Rapunzel on it. Obviously I loved it; they already knew me so well.
After breakfast, my friend Marc let us come tour the Carnegie apartment building where we’ll be staying! We know that each apartment is different in the building, but at least it gave us an idea of where we’ll be living. Marc answered our millions of questions and told us a little bit about his program. The apartments were so beautiful! Even the courtyard and shops outside the building were nice! It was a little busy and crowded though since they were having a ‘recycle art sale’ outside the apartments for Earth day, but it was still really cool! We got a few pictures outside in front of the building before we headed off to Downtown Disney.
Christine, Me, Kayla, Katie, and Silvina
Me and Marc
We headed to Downtown Disney and got our Movie tickets right away to see Bears and we even got a free Bears button! We then went down all the shops and looked around. When we went into World of Disney we asked a Cast Member if we could have an “I’m Celebrating” button which he gladly gave to us and we wrote “DCP ’14 Roomies” on it. He told us how they were going to remodel the room were in since it didn’t match the rest of the store, so he asked if we’d like a picture with Ursula since she’ll be no longer in Downtown Disney after this weekend.
Here’s our picture with the not-so-lovely Ursula
After we looked in the shops and with a tear in our eyes agreed not to buy anything until we got our discount, we headed to the gates of Disneyland. No, we didn’t enter the gates, unfortunately. Katie wanted to buy a car sticker at the shop at the entrance and I wanted to meet my friend who’s in the program right now. We then ran back over to the theater just in time to watch Bears, which was so good! It was my first Disney Earth movie and I definitely want to see all of them now!
When that was over we decided to get some food at Earl of Sandwich since some of us have never been there before, or at least I know I haven’t. I now know why they’re called what they’re called, and not called Earl of Soup. I got the Chicken Tortilla soup and although it looked and smelled delicious, it was incredibly spicy. Like my eyes and nose were running. I mean if you like really spicy things- that’s the soup for you… but thank goodness I had some crackers for it.
Our roomie Christine got the role of Life Guard at the Disneyland Resort, but has never seen the pool, so we headed on over there to see what the hotel had to offer. The pool was very cool and this was my first time seeing what the pool looked like too with all the renovating they did a couple years ago. I saw that Trader Sams, an unorthodox Tiki bar, was right there next to the pool so obviously I wanted to check it out really quick. We went in and it was just as awesome as I thought it was going to be. They had a jar that said Paradise Falls on it that was so cute! I can’t wait to go in there with my roommates one evening, sit back, relax and feel like I’m in Hawaii.
We walked around the pool and passed Goofy’s Kitchen! It’s a different kind of restaurant with character dinning that I recently found out about. It definitely went on my bucket list as soon as I got home. The hotel lobby was right there so we decided to go on in and check it out. There were these adorable little Tea Cup chairs that we took pictures in even though I’m pretty sure the front desk CMs were staring at us the whole time.
Silvina had to go to work so we started leaving the hotel but Kayla and I were stopped on the way out and were asked a special question by Mickey!
To which our obvious reply was, “YES!” Sorry Minnie #sorrynotsorry
Anyways, we walked to the parking lot and said our sorrowful good byes to Silvina with lots of hugs. Katie, Christine, Kayla, and I had one more thing on our list though. Kayla had told us about this store that sold cheap, legit Disney merchandise, although not owned by Disney. To which we shouted, “LET’S GO!” We drove to the store which was about 10 minutes away, but it had unfortunately closed 😦 I would have loved to spend even more time with my girls, but my last flight was taking off in an hour so I said my good byes to Katie and Christine and Kayla and I headed back to the airport.
Even though this trip was 9 1/2 hours long, it was way too short. The only thing keeping me smile while waiting for this program to start is knowing that I’ll have some pretty amazing friends and roomies to share it with in just a few short months. I can’t wait to share my experiences, adventures, good times and hard times with these awesome girls! Hopefully I’ll be able to see them again this summer if we can make it work with Kayla coming down from her home in Nor Cal, but if not, atleast we had this incredible day!
My view from the plane on my way back home
Beth 'Baguettes' Disney Magic 