And then there were fireworks

I'm officially in the happiest, and quite possibly the busiest, place on earth.

First of all, I'll excuse today's kind of hellish undertone in that it was a travel day. Travel days are supposed to suck, right? I mean, okay... hold up. Rewind.

I love Disney World, and I'm in Disney World, so I AM happy. Very happy! But bad things happened. Is that okay? So, I am happy. Now here's what happened.

First, the traveling (walking through crowds of people, such as in airports, really stresses me out). Then, lots of waiting. I try so hard to be patient. I think I did pretty well with that. We got to Magic Kingdom (did I mention it POURED all day?). I got my Guest Assistance Card (more on that later). I was soooo excited to show my mom my very favorite place, and she was excited to see it! For all the times I've argued that I don't flap my hands, Leigh, I'm sorry-- I really do, don't I? Even my mom said, "Yes, I can see that you're excited, you're so flappy today." We rode a few (amazing!) rides, then we quite possibly the best dinner of my life. I'm not even kidding! Then, it started...

First, there was a parade that involved music being played over loudspeakers throughout the park and lots (and lots and lots and lots and lots) of moving lights. Well, I wanted to ride Space Mountain, and the parade was both bright and noisy, so please get me out of here. In order to get out of the way of the parade, though, we had to get through the throngs of people. It. Was. Torture. The crowd was absolutely jam-packed, probably 10 deep by 100 or so long, with a jam-packed crowd of two "lines" trying to pass each other behind it. No one was cooperating, so it was a lot of getting stuck. I was crying by then, trying to move through all those people. The only way through was out, though. We got out. I could breathe. Okay. Space Mountain.

Space Mountain was closed. Flexible. Flexible, flexible, flexible.

I can ride the Speedway (aka, go-karts) if I use my pass and don't have to stand in line with all the noise and completely freak out, right? If my mom drives, so I can hold my ears, right? I can do that. That would be fun.

Insert title of post here. You got it, people: and then, there were fireworks.

I lost it. I tried to put in my iPod, but it didn't block nearly enough noise. On go-karts, with fireworks? Oh my goodness. I was bawling, shaking, trying to hold my ears and bite my hands at the same time, while my mom was trying to help me and drive. It was awful. My mom loves fireworks, so she was also enjoying them. But, seriously, what a disaster.

At least, after that, I got a Mickey ice cream bar, which is only the best form of the best character of the best food in the whole entire world.

On another note... this Guest Assistance Card. This pass allows me to use an "alternate entrance" to the rides, so that I don't have to wait in noisy areas. Back in October, I got so run down by the waiting, that it was sometimes hard to enjoy the rides. Today, for example, I was pretty stressed out after parade issue... but because of my pass, I could stay in the park rather than have to go back to the room and give up for the day. Basically, it allows me to use up my crowd energy when I'm moving around in the parks throughout the day, rather than all at once on just a few rides. Still, what ends up happening, is that I'm being let on the "fast pass" entrances. Basically, at Disney, you can go to a ride and get a pass that tells you a specific time to come back, late rin the day. Then, you come back at that time (say, 4:15pm) and get almost right on the ride. Well, because of my GAC, I can hop right on almost any ride, any time. I feel very, very, very guilty about it. Someone said that it sounds perfectly fair, because otherwise, it wouldn't be anything like vacation for me... but somehow, I still feel bad not having to wait.

Anyway, tomorrow is Epcot. And, Lord willing, there will not be any fireworks!