Day 5 -- Around The World (EPCOT)

Day 5 (Wednesday) was another GORGEOUS day! Sunny and about 70 degrees, so we decided to take a trip around the world -- World Showcase
aka: the "back half" of EPCOT.

Beautiful landscaping of Mickey from Fantasia

First, though, we popped in to "Club Cool" -- a neat little shop sponsored by Coca-Cola -- which features FREE tastes of soft drinks from all over the world!
My favorites were from Mozambique & Germany.
The ones from Italy and Mexico tasted like medicine! Blech.

Performance in front of the America Pavilion

Natasha with a camel I would LOVE to own in the Morocco Pavilion :)

Nadia and I in front of the fountain in "Morocco"

The beautiful architecture of "Italy"

We had lunch in the Germany Pavilion at "Biergarten"

Clay & Raisha in Biergarten waiting for the "Oktoberfest" show to begin!
Raisha was not a fan of the food here & she thought the sauerkraut made the place smell "stinky."

Nadia wasn't really interested in the show; she just wanted to finish her book!

Natasha being "snacked on" (yet, again) by a hungry lion in the China Pavilion. ;)

Overall, it was a great day... especially since Raisha got to meet one of her very favorite characters: Donald Duck in the Mexico Pavilion

Some thoughts about EPCOT:
We made a point of starting in Canada and working our way counter-clockwise around the "world" which hosts representations of 11 different countries.
Previously, we have always begun in Mexico and we usually peter out about the time we get to France, so I was curious what we had been missing...
Not much, actually.

No offense at all to the people or their countries, but this half of the "world" was far less interesting (for us) than the other side. For one, there were mostly only films and shows geared toward older guests. The educational value would have been OK for Nadia & Natasha, but a 4-year-old is only going to sit through so much of that. Plus, in the Canada Pavilion, you have to STAND for the whole show! Not something our tired, aching feet were inclined to do!

The United Kingdom Pavilion had an interesting toy shop and I bought some wonderful hand cream from the "Scottish" shop, but that was about it.

In the France Pavilion, we decided to have a snack of various pastries since that is one of the things they are famous for. They were good -- especially the profiteroles (cream puffs) -- but I think the Kringla Og Bakeri in the Norway Pavilion has them beat with their fruit tarts (shortcake crust!) and (my personal favorite) Schoolbread -- A bready pastry filled with vanilla creme and covered in toasted coconut... Mmmmm

It's probably a good thing the Norway Pavilion is nowhere near here... I could definitely hurt myself with that Schoolbread!

Here, a man feeds a rather tame (wild) squirrel pieces of his schoolbread.
See? Even the squirrels agree it's delicious!

Day 3 -- EPCOT (Front)

Day 3 (Monday) was also still quite chilly. And the wind was fierce! It was so bad, I stopped and bought a sweatshirt on my way into the park because I didn't have a jacket or anything.

We decided to focus most of our energy this day on "Future World" aka: the "front part" of EPCOT. We did all the fun stuff: Spaceship Earth (the big ball), Test Track, Mission: Space, and Soarin'... and last, but not least, Raisha's personal favorite: NEMO & Friends!

Here is Natasha, being a "snack" -- for Bruce, the shark.

Raisha, hangin' out with the sharks...

After lunch, we did our old, standby -- "Living With the Land" which features some pretty remarkable gardening! Check out these 9-pound lemons!

Even though we were focusing on the front half of EPCOT, we did make a quick trip to the Norway Pavilion -- our favorite in the World Showcase.
Here, we are riding the "Maelstrom"
("It's very gentle.")
Ask me about this.

Natasha & Raisha trying to look fearsome, but coming off as mostly cute.

Viking Raisha!
Be afraid; be very afraid!
Seriously, she had a complete meltdown about 2 minutes after this was taken!

Later that evening (after we recovered from the meltdown by riding the Mexico "Three Caballeros" ride about 12 times), Raisha was dressed up & we were headed to Akershus @ the Norway Pavilion for a dinner with the Princesses!

We got to see: Jasmine, and Beauty, and Ariel, and Belle, and of course, Raisha's favorite:
Cinderella!

Raisha & Belle

We left the park just as the last fireworks were exploding in the air and made our way back to the front gates along with the 10,000 other lemmings park guests.

That night we were completely wiped out & vowed to take it slower the next day.
Yeah, right.