Thursday was the FULL DAY AT DISNEYLAND! Woot!

Much to my annoyance, my two favorite rides are closed right now. (Big pout there.) But as I mentioned yesterday, we did get to go into the park an hour early on that day. Though it seems a little weird that the only rides/stores/area open an hour early is Fantasyland, so any ideas of hopping into the long line rides (other than Matterhorn) were kind of out.

I can't remember if I ever mentioned this here or not, but I used to be the WORLD'S BIGGEST GODDAMNED WUSS ABOUT RIDES EVER. And when I say wuss, I mean that I was butt-crazy-terrified of rides like Pirates of the Caribbean and Haunted Mansion. Not because I thought they were scary or something, but (a) I REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY HATED the slides in Pirates, and (b) hated the part where you tip backwards in the doom buggy in the Mansion. I mean, I hated those to the point where if you told me we were going to Disneyland (and keep in mind, we went every six months to a year to every other year from when I was six months old to age 19, so this happened A LOT), I'd throw a screaming, crying fit. In the Disneyland parking lot. Yes, I was the only kid who didn't want to go to the Happiest Place on Earth.

Pirates and Haunted Mansion, however, were some of my parents' favorite rides. So they would have no truck with my scared crying ass not wanting to go on, and dragged me on them, hysterical, every single time.

I eventua-fucking-lly grew out of this, and even learned to suck it up and go on more adventurous rides. Thank gawd. I will admit that one of the pleasures for me of going to Disneyland is going on the rides that made me practically piss myself with fear and going, "See? I'm not scared of this any more! Isn't it GREAT?" Yes, that does make me look quite the fool on ah, Pirates, but I say it still counts for um, something.

That said, the first ride we went on was the Matterhorn. This was a favorite of Dad's, and I am glad that I finally sucked it up and went on it with him the last time we were all at Disneyland. Mom even went on the Matterhorn, which she'd never done before and may never ever do again. That can pretty much be chalked up to Mauricio's influence, I think. It seemed to be quite a fitting tribute to Dad that we went on that ride. It was also due to him that Mom later went on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, another ride I'd go on with Dad, but she wouldn't. We figured Dad would be proud of us for not being wusses.

By the way, going to Disneyland in January on a weekday? AWESOME. NO FREAKING LINES. You don't wait for longer than ten minutes for ANYTHING. People were telling me about the fast pass system, and we NEVER needed to use it. We got on the Indiana Jones ride lickety-split, even! So, we got on a bunch of rides, some of which we even got on twice. We got in multiple rides within an hour.

Oh, and I did mention that whole "they ship your bags back to the hotel" thing, right? Oh yes, that was awesome.

I am a total spoiled brat, I admit it. I am also the child of a shopaholic. Who was feeling quite generous of late and bought tons of souvenirs. I didn't even pay for half of what I left the park with, I suspect. I got uh, tons and tons of stuffed animals (yes, I know that's stupid, but dammit, Boo and Stitch and that parrot and the Belle and Ariel dolls and a round Piglet were CUTE), and a 2007 sweatshirt, and a little glass Mickey, and some cheap jewelry, and an Indiana Jones hat (crushable and water-resistant!), and uh, probably other stuff I am not remembering. Oh yeah, and a Darth Tater shirt. Heh heh heh. I also went around taking photographs of the wacky Disney merchandise I didn't get.

I didn't know that pin collecting was such a huge thing now, but apparently it is. Mauricio is a pin collector (in general, not Disney-specific), so it was heaven for him. And damn, there were a lot of cute pins. I don't even wear pins usually because I forget them and they end up in the laundry, but even I caved and bought a few Pooh-related ones.

I took up a new sport: photographing the rides that they don't ban photography on. This was a pretty interesting thing to do. I'm surprised I got as many good shots as I did.

We didn't end up going on that many new rides, I think, but I was amused by "Honey, I Shrunk The Audience." I was really, really mad I didn't get to see the "Innoventions" ride, which, on all three days I was there, had somehow closed(!!!) for the day every time I got over there. GRRRRRR.

At 5:15, we took the monorail over to the Rainforest Cafe, which is just as trippy as everyone says it is. We were seated at "the elephant table," which was pretty interesting all by itself.

The animals in the place (butterflies, gorillas, elephants) are all audio-animatronic, and move around and go off and make noise every 10 minutes or so. Yes, you are allowed to touch them. There was a birthday party full of what looked like 8 or 9-year-old girls behind us, and they were having a goooood time messing around with the elephant's trunk and getting scared every time it periodically started trumpeting.

This was the view from my seat, exactly.

Oh, and the shopping there was awesome. I got a blacklight shirt with a big white tiger on it, and a tie-dyed shirt, and jewelry.

After that, we went back to Disneyland and went on the Autopia a few times. (My cousin worked on the animation on that ride, so we had to check it out. And Mauricio wanted to see how I drive. Hah.) Honestly, that ride is annoying- man, your leg HURTS from holding down that pedal to get the car to putt-putt along for so long. But we learned that as long as you get into the line before Disneyland closing time, you can still ride it. Sweet.

And after that, we did some more shopping. Mostly I hung out in the Lego store and looked around.

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