Up early to catch the shuttle bus to The Magic Kingdom.
While waiting for the lift in the hotel I was idly watching the TV (there's a TV on every landing) when I found myself watching some sort of contest taking place in what looked like the outdoor pool area of a hotel.
There were lots of men, wider than they were tall, stacking about 6 folded towels on top of their heads. They then picked up a long, thin, flat iron bar and proceeded to rupture themselves while trying to bend the bar over their heads. None of them seemed to manage to bend their bar out of alignment by anything more than a few centimetres but this was by no means a pathetic failure judging from the ecstatic responses from the moronic looking crowd.
While all this was going on, there was a man who was obviously some sort of official encourager shouting things like "Way to go" and "Get it on" and "Yeah baby". I knew he was an official because he had a folded towel on his head as well. Only one towel though, but what he lacked in towels he made up for by wearing a hat on top of the one towel he had on his head.
After the men with lots of folded towels on their heads had ruptured themselves, the iron bars were measured on a peculiar looking piece of equipment that would look more at home in the Science Museum. The number of degrees of deviation in the length of the bar was confirmed and the winner was the last one in the ambulance. I made that last bit up, the real winner seemed to be the man with the towel and the hat who ends up so excited with all his "Way to go's" and "Get it on's" that he ends up in a crumpled heap on the floor looking as if he's just spent seven days in bed with Vanessa Feltz.
The Magic Kingdom is being renovated.
Some attractions are closed and others, like Cinderella's Castle are being re painted. Whenever you see evidence of some work in progress, it's usually behind hoardings and hidden from view with a sign outside that says "Pardon our stardust". Cute eh?
The whole place is clean, tidy, pleasant and thoroughly enjoyable. It does, however, remind me a bit of the TV series 'The Prisoner'. All the Disney employees are displaying their fixed smiles and wonderfully tolerant attitudes to every visitor they come across. The only thing missing is that big bouncy transparent ball that came bouncing along the beach. That would come in very handy here. It could bounce along Main Street every few hours and knock over all the fat bastards clogging up the walkways so the rest of us could walk through at a normal pace.
Joke: How many really fat gross people can you fit into The Magic Kingdom?
All of them, apparently.
I've discovered in my short time in this country that you can't refer to anyone as 'fat'. I think the term is 'alternatively body imaged' but it doesn't have the same ring to it somehow, does it? Mind you I think all this political correctness is turning the Yanks into a laughing stock across the
world, I mean you can't say 'specific', you have to say 'differently diverse', you can't say 'bad', you have to say 'differently good', 'good' is 'differently differently good' and 'very bad' is 'differently differently differently good'.
Even our bus driver was called a Mass Transit Executive Guidance Operative.
I mean it just goes on and on, some bloke was describing his wife to me as sexually insatiable with frenetic erotic responses.
"Oh", I said, "You mean she goes like a train?"
But enough of this for now, more later...
We've only been in the U.S. for 3 days and I've already seen someone who was the spitting image of Muddy Waters (it wasn't him, he's dead, Muddy Waters is, not the man I saw), our bus driver was Chuck Berry on his day off, half the women have been Roseanne look-alikes and the other half look like their father is their mother's brother.
Everybody really does keep bloody well saying "You have a nice day now" and I keep saying back "Why, thank you". Why do I keep saying it? I don't want to. I hate it. But I keep saying it. I've only been here 3 days and I'm turning into one of them already. I am not a number! I am a free man!
Americans are not as rude as I thought, well not the ones on holiday at any rate. If anything, they're overly polite to the point of being ridiculous. I stopped to let someone pass by me and he said, "Thank you sir". Normal polite gestures like "After you" or holding a door open are received with an almost gushing politeness in return, something like, "Oh thank you sir so very much, thanks, thanks".
The hotel room keys are like credit cards. We were issued with two. Pauline carried around one while I kept the other.
Today I lost mine in The Magic Kingdom.
I must say Mickey Mouse was a dead loss in trying to find it. He can only see a few inches in front of his face and couldn't even see me standing in front of him let alone a credit card sized piece of plastic on the floor. I hope there's not a hotel penalty for lost room keys, think I'll say I was mugged in The Magic Kingdom by one of the seven dwarves, didn't get a good look at him but I think it might have been Grumpy having a bad day.
That should do the trick.
Did a couple of the main attractions today.
Space Mountain a roller coaster ride in the dark. Totally enclosed in a mammoth futuristic structure, the theme of the ride is a space flight through the dark recesses of the galaxy. The effects are superb and the ride is very fast.
Alien Encounter a supposedly scary experience that takes place in total darkness. You all sit in a small circular auditorium while in front of you a short dramatic storyline unfolds inviting us to witness a demonstration of interplanetary teleportation, a technique that breaks down the traveller into electrons for transmission a la Star Trek. But surprise surprise, the demonstration goes wrong and an alien escapes and runs amok through the darkness in the auditorium. This is all achieved by lots of noise and various sudden assaults on your senses. The seats move and judder, you can feel it's breath on the back of your neck and it's saliva on your face (just short
sharp water sprays). At last it's re captured and everything is tidy again in time for the next audience to be admitted.
Walking around the Magic Kingdom you come across various cafes, restaurants and snack stalls selling things like 'Subs', 'Gyros' and 'Beef Jerky'. I managed to find out what Subs and Gyros were but didn't have the courage to ask for a Beef Jerky. I'm sure it's a Chinese sexual practise, in fact now I come to think of it, I'm pretty sure that woman serving in the East Peckham takeaway once said to me, "You wanna beef jerky saucy boy?" A Gyro by the way is a pitta bread kebab and a Sub is a baguette.
After my first day's bad experience at getting an ice cream for Emma I decided to have another go and headed for one of the many ice cream/soda kiosks. Posted by the counter was a list of what they sold and it took the three of us all of ten minutes to decide on what type of ice cream to have, the choice was endless sundaes, mondaes, tuesdaes, cold tubs, freezy kools, kooly freezes, freezy freezes or kooly koolies .
But that was just the start...........it carried on something like this........
Me: I'd like three ice cream sundaes please.
Girl: Yes sir, three ice cream sundaes. What flavour?
Me: What flavours are there? (I couldn't believe I'd said that. I was regretting it already)
Girl: Vanilla, chocolate, vanilla chocolate swirl, strawberry, raspberry, pecan, butterscotch, mint chip, raspberry butterscotch swirl....
Me: Er, one vanilla and two chocolate.
Girl: Yes sir and what topping would that be?
Me: What toppings are there? (I couldn't believe I'd said that either)
Girl: Strawberry, caramel, hot fudge......
Me: Er, Pauline, Emma, what topping do you want?
What do you mean on what?
Emma, you're chocolate and Pauline, you're vanilla.
OK. Emma, you want strawberry, Pauline you want caramel?
I'll have strawberry too.
Girl: Yes sir?
Me: Right, it's strawberry on the vanilla and strawberry on the... no, hang on, it's caramel on the choco....no, er, what are you having again Pauline? Chocolate? I thought that was Emma. Oh it's Emma as well. No, Emma's chocolate and you're vanilla? OK. Right. It's strawberry on the chocolate and caramel on the vanilla.
Girl: Yes sir. That's one super kool freeze sundae vanilla caramel topping, one super kool freeze sundae chocolate strawberry topping and one super kool freeze sundae chocolate strawberry topping.
Me: I think so. Is that right Pauline? Pauline? Pauline? Wake up Pauline.
Girl: Do ya want sprinkles with that?
Me: Who said that?
Girl: I did sir. Do ya want sprinkles with that?
Me: With what?
Girl: With one super kool freeze sundae vanilla caramel topping, one super kool freeze sundae chocolate strawberry topping and one super kool freeze sundae chocolate strawberry topping
Me: Um, er, why not?
Girl: We have chocolate sprinkles, strawberry sprinkles, caramel sprinkles, multi sprinkles and dog shit sprinkles sir.
Me: Emma? Pauline? What sprinkles do you want?
What do you mean what are they?
I don't bloody know do I? Do you want them or not?
You do.
Well come on then, what sort do you want?
What do you mean what sort do they have?
Aaaaarrrrgh!!!!!
Girl: Ohhhh Kaaay. That's one super kool freeze sundae vanilla caramel topping with multi sprinkles, one super kool freeze sundae chocolate strawberry topping with caramel sprinkles and one super kool freeze sundae chocolate strawberry topping with dog shit sprinkles. Sprinkles are 5 cents extra on each order sir. OK?
The queue behind us which is now winding around the Magic Kingdom and into the overflow car parking areas shouts with one voice:
H E ' L L T A K E I T ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
We walk away with our ice cream to thunderous applause.
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