Monday, April 6, 2015

Disneyland

I spent two and a half days in Disneyland over spring break and I had so much fun.  Disneyland really is The Happiest Place on Earth because there is so much to do there!
Sleeping Beauty's Castle is all decked out in anticipation of Disneyland's 60th Anniversary.  It was a lot smaller than I thought it would be but it was still magical!
My friends Kjersti and Sarah on the teacups.
Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.
Tower of Terror.  I am not a huge fan of going on rides but they got me on more of them than I thought I would go on.  My favorites are probably Pirates of the Caribbean and Jungle Cruise (but don't tell my friend Kjersti).
There is so much entertainment in the park.  Above are the Dapper Dans performing and the jazz band Five & Dime.  We also saw the stage musical Aladdin performed at the Hyperion Theatre, which was absoutely magical, and we saw a concert featuring a cover band called Instant Replay, which was a lot of fun!  My friend Josh knows how to rock!
(My friend Josh, who teaches instrumental music at HHS, thought Mickey had great technique on the drums!)
I turned into a little child during Mickey's Soundsational Parade.  I was literally giggling and squealing with delight when I saw each character appear!  It was so magical!  My favorite was Mary Poppins!
California Adventure.  I really wanted to ride the Ferris Wheel but it closed down as we were about to get on!
A lot of my Disneyland goals (other than getting Mickey ears with my name on them which happened the first day) focused on food!  I had beignets in New Orleans Square and, of course, I got the world famous Dole Whip (amazing) at the Enchanted Tiki Room.  I had lunch at the Blue Bayou restaurant (the restaurant you see in the Pirates of the Caribbean) which was expensive but worth it.  I also spent some time in Downtown Disney which is an area adjacent to the park with lots of fabulous restaurants and stores.  It is a good option for lunch and dinner because it is sightly less expensive than the park and you can get there easily on the monorail.  My friends raved and raved about the Earl of Sandwich before the trip and they were right!  We ate there twice!
My very favorite thing at Disneyland was the World of Color!  It was seriously the coolest thing ever and the perfect way to end my time at Disneyland.

Tuesday, March 31, 2015

The Girl on the Train

My book club chose the wildly popular novel The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins as its March selection.  I was enthralled from the very first page.  Rachel takes the same commuter train into London every morning and, at a signal crossing, she sees the same couple having breakfast on their deck.  Little by little, we learn that Rachel is an alcoholic whose husband has left her for another woman and, furthermore, that she has been fired from her job and only takes the train to keep up appearances with her landlady.  She idealizes the couple she sees every morning, even making up names for them, and assumes they have the perfect life.  Then one day she sees something she shouldn't and the next day the woman goes missing. Rachel inserts herself into the investigation and learns that the couple didn't have the perfect life she imagined for them after all.  The narrative is told from multiple perspectives and the suspense builds and builds to a climax I didn't see coming (although several members of my group did). There have been many comparisons to Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl (which my book club also read) because they are both psychological thrillers with unsympathetic characters and huge plot twists but I actually liked this book more. Even though Rachel is a complete mess with questionable judgement, I couldn't quite hate her.  I kept rooting for her to put the gin and tonic down and get herself together.  I did, however, get a bit confused with the sequence of the multiple narrators occasionally but I found it to be a quick and enjoyable read.  I would recommend it to fans of psychological thrillers.

Note:  Does anyone else romanticize people you don't know at all but come in contact with on a regular basis?  I have had season tickets to Broadway in Utah for years and I always sit near the same couple. They are quite a bit older than me and they are very affectionate with one another. I decided that they were a newly married couple who found each other later in life and were now living a fun and adventurous life together.  I was completely devastated when I eventually talked to them and learned that they had been married for years and had several children...

Monday, March 30, 2015

California Dreamin'

The trees are not brown and the skies are not grey (in fact Utah has had one of the mildest winters I can remember) but I am still dreaming of California!  Spring break starts for me tomorrow (I am taking a few extra days off) and I will be on my way to California in the wee hours of the morning!  I get to spend three days at Disneyland, a day at the Santa Monica Pier, and I get to see the musical Newsies at the Pantages Theatre in L.A. on Friday night.  I am so excited!  In the meantime, here are some of my favorite adventures in California.

Sea World
San Diego Padres game
San Diego Zoo
Wicked
Tour of the U.S.S. Midway
The beach
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