DCP: Survived Day #1

Well, I made it to Florida. I kind of wimped out on finishing that whole 30 Day Disney thing. If I feel super ambitious maybe I'll wrap it all up tomorrow....but doubtful.

A quick run-down of the last 36 hours or so:

• Flight to Austin, Texas
• Finished "The Book Thief" and LOVED it
• 2 hour layover in Austin
• Bought a hard copy of "Allegiant" (third book in the Divergent series) and read a good hundred pages or so
• Flight from Austin to Orlando
• Sat next to a couple planning on doing the Official Dopey Challenge this weekend: Disney 5K run on Thursday, Disney 10K run on Friday, Disney half-marathon on Saturday, and a Disney full marathon on Sunday
• Smiled like a dweeb the whole way through the Orlando airport, met up with 3 roommates, got a shuttle to our hotel
• Applebee's for dinner took 2 hours; AWFUL service
• Slept like a rock
• Woke up, took a shuttle to Vista Way for check-in and got there at 7:50 or so
• Received an apartment assignment (Patterson, for those of you who know which one that is)
• Got assigned to my location: Merchandise at Pop Century Resort! :) 
• Had a bus take us and all of our luggage to our buildings; 3 flights of stairs later and I was completely moved into my apartment by 10 am
• Slow unpacking and socializing with the roommates, walked to Subway for lunch with two of the roommates
• Headed to Casting at 4:30
• Received information about Traditions on Saturday (I'm in the group that goes at 6:45 in the morning...yay...), got fingerprinted, filled out an I-9
• Spent 2 1/2 hours waiting in line after line after line after line after line to fill out more paperwork
• Disney is awesome and because we were there so late, they bought us pizza :)
• Got home, turned around and left with the roommates to Chik-Fil-A for dinner and Walgreens for some basic groceries to tide us over until we got to Walmart tomorrow

And...that pretty much is a run-down of everything that's happened thus far. Tomorrow all I have is a mandatory housing meeting at 2 pm and then I'm free until Traditions (aka first day of orientation) at 6:45 am on Saturday. It sucks that it's so early in the morning...but that's also the day we get our park passes. My group is going to be done by noon so you can guess what I plan to be doing Saturday afternoon/evening... :) Exploring Disney World for the first time? I think YES.

Not going to lie, I was pretty intimidated when I realized what I was doing. I was outside of my parent's house and outside of the Mormon bubble. But everyone has been so nice and so friendly. The good thing about waiting in lines for literally hours is that you have ample opportunity to talk to people who are stuck and have nothing better to do than to talk to you too. I'm so excited for the next few days.

After Traditions on Saturday, I have Sunday off. I start actual training at Pop Century on Monday and Tuesday from like 8 am to 5 pm. That still intimidates me a little bit. I'm hoping to catch a bus and at least go poke my head around Pop Century some time this weekend and get a lay of the land so I don't go in there completely blind.

Am I bummed about not working inside one of the parks? Not really, actually. I think it will turn out really really well.

For those that are interested, there are 6 of us in my apartment (myself included) and we all come from BYU-Idaho. I'm in merchandise along with one other girl who is working merchandise in Adventureland in Animal Kingdom, one girl is a lifeguard at the Animal Kingdom lodge, one girl is working as a 'Fairy Godmother-in-Training' at the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boo Boutique in Downtown Disney, one girl is a character performer, and one girl is working in attractions.

I don't remember when the last time was that I was ready for lights out and sleep before midnight, but...I'm tired and really don't have much more to report from today.

One day down and lots more to come! :)