Disneyland!

For those of you who don't know (or to whom I haven't admitted), I love Disney parks. There; I said it. Anyone who's gotten a peek at my iTunes collection surely notices my disproportionate amount of Disney theme music that I downloaded when I was a teenager and haven't had the heart to delete it, and I still sometimes use the background music from the parks as background noise.

My mom and brother and me (and my dad's finger) at Disneyland in California in 2008

My dad and me on Tower of Terror!

..and me in my little brown jacket and wide-mouthed terror this time 'round!
(they've made it trickier to get a good glimpse of these photos without buying them!)

So, I decided during my 2-week vacation where I had been craving alone time and thought it best not to spend a lot of money Really Travelling, I would instead go to Disneyland. Travel and tickets included, I only paid 100 euro (and that's including a 32-euro taxi back to Les Andelys, since the buses stop running at 6:30 p.m.!), and I did so much!

I started the day at Space Mountain, which was awesome! Definitely a good way to jump-start my morning. Then, I headed to the Indiana Jones coaster, hoping to grab a Fastpass so I could go back later and not wait in line, but as the wait time was only 5 minutes, I hopped right on!

For those of you who also don't know this about me, I am A Planner. I legit had my route of the parks planned out to the t. It also made me think of when I was in Disneyland Paris last time with the Smith girls.

Definitely also an awesome time, though I was still getting over "le gastro", which was rather unfortunate. I'm sure that they could probably still attest to the fact that I had a Game Plan. Not an unwavering Game Plan, but a plan of attack nonetheless.

We also had lots of downtime and moments of reveling in the French-ness of it all, and I'll never forget when Abby and I were sitting next to each other on the Indiana Jones coaster and could see the stretching fields of crops from one of our ascents up the coaster's hills. There is often a strange juxtaposition of American/English culture and French culture in daily life, but nowhere is this more apparent than in Disneyland, where everything is equally in French and English, even in the middle of Nowhere nearly an hour from Paris.

(me on Space Mountain this time around, behind a kid)

So, even moreso than with my friends, I had a Plan of Attack, and I managed to do absolutely everything I wanted to do and more, except for Rock N Rollercoaster, which was declared closed 5 minutes after I showed up due to "problèmes techniques". I still managed to slow down lots too, and I equally enjoyed my moments of sitting back and watching other people enjoy the magic for awhile. AND I didn't wind up waiting more than a half hour for any ride, except for Crush's Coaster, which was totally worth it!

I thoroughly enjoyed doing it alone, too, and getting to experience a sort of togetherness with everyone at the park with me, through shared smiles as the parade went by or shared laughs at the end of a big ride, or applauding the brass band on Main Street. Although I did enjoy all of those beautiful moments, I knew going in that this would probably be my first and last time doing Disney alone. Mostly, I knew it was probably my only opportunity to experience it on my own, since I'm so close and it's so inexpensive (compared to Disney World in Florida, where I would've paid at least $120 for the ticket alone, versus the 40 euro I paid here).

It definitely has to do with the location, too. I had already been, so I knew my way around, and everything is pretty much specifically designed to make you have a good time (well, aside from waiting in lines, unless you know how to go at the non-peak times, and the classic French attitude. I actually corrected one of the employees when he was sassing a lady for asking a question about an attraction that he thought didn't exist). If I had gone to, say, Rome, the sentiment would've been different. Though I'm sure I would have run into a lot of tourists, I don't know if I would have felt the same shared excitement looking at the Trevi fountain for the first time. Then again, maybe I would.

Anyway, point is, I never thought I would travel on my own, and now, I guess I've come all the way out to Normandy on my own, and then on top of that, I vacationed away from my new Normandy home on my own. So, maybe this is only the first of solitary adventures to come.

But in the meantime, I'm really looking forward to tentative plans of a Spanish road trip with my housemates, Daniel and David in February!