I know God rested on the 7th day, but doggone, He's a LOT stronger than we are. For us, we needed a rest today to recover from blisters, chafing, overheating, you name it. As such the shot above is the only pic of any actual person or scenery I'm sharing tonight because, well, that's all I thought to do.
We decided last night, after analyzing our current injuries, that we'd cancel our Fast Pass options at the Magic Kingdom for this afternoon and just take it easy, then head to Epcot for dinner at Biergarten, which is in the China section of Epcot. OK, you're right. It's in the German section, but we had to pass through China to get there, if that makes a difference. :)
But before we get to dinner, we can chat about the exciting schedule we kept today. After sleeping in (seems we've done that most days), we headed to breakfast with Gary and Nell and then Zac wanted to go swimming. So for three hours Zac and I played around in the pool. Clearly we ended up with a little sunburn, but not too bad. He was having so much fun floating on his back and learning to float on his stomach, plus jumping off the side that I didn't want to end it early. :)
After that we headed straight to lunch, then back to the room to shower and be vegetables for the rest of the afternoon until we needed to leave for Epcot. Once there, though Katy thought she had protected her foot well enough for her blister to not bother her, she quickly found out she was wrong. After a long walk, we located First Aid and they gave her some better bandages to help cushion the blister. I should mention that on the way to the park it had begun to rain as a thunderstorm was moving in. They seem to roll through here a lot but rarely drop much rain, it seems, or at least that has been our history this week.
So we were rained on getting on the bus to Epcot. We were rained on getting into Epcot and finding First Aid, and we continued to get rained on with the clouds looking like it wouldn't stop. I decided I needed an umbrella. Katy had the one she keeps in her purse, but it's small, so Zac and I were getting pretty wet. We went into a big store, bought two umbrellas, walked outside and it promptly stopped raining. To the rest of the Epcot visitors tonight, you're welcome. We then headed to the Germany section of the park to get to our restaurant. They were running behind (they have a weird seating concept which, while fun because they fill tables with as many families as it takes, means sometimes you wait a bit to get in) but once we got in, we were paired with a very nice family from Maryland. The video below is a portion of the intro song the band, which began playing at 8, performed at the start of their show.
I wish the quality was a little bit better. It isn't too bad if you play it in YouTube and tell it to show it in 720p instead. Things like this make a dining experience a lot more fun, if you ask me. You will notice I pan over to show Katy and Zac at some point and they are CLEARLY thrilled beyond measure.
Dinner was a buffet, with traditional German foods, obviously. I tried a few sausages, sauerbraten, spaetzle, a potato dumpling and other things. Food was not bad but dessert was really good. The strudel and the berry compote with a vanilla cream sauce, in particular, were outstanding. I had a glass of wine with dinner tonight and when I asked for it, I just pointed to the one on the bottom of this pic and told the waitress I wasn't entirely sure how to pronounce it:
After our very German waitress (all of the employees were from Germany; cool!) pronounced it, I told her that was EXACTLY what I thought but just wanted to be sure. Yep. It was very good, by the way. I just needed to share the name.
Here is another video from the show and this one had something to do with cows wearing bells in the fields and being some type of homage to this, I believe. I missed part of the introduction of the song, but I thought it was kind of neat and they had fun with it:
We ended the night getting to see the fireworks show over the lagoon and then Zac wanted to ride the Mission: Space Race game again. As I write this, Zac and Katy have been waiting almost two hours for Zac to have a caricature done. Seems entire families decided to have one done of each member before she and Zac got there and the artist is way behind. It's just after midnight, by the way, so you see what I mean about the late nights.
As our trip comes to and end and we head home to our regularly scheduled programming tomorrow, I think it's first important to thank Katy's parents for bringing us all on this trip. It's been a fun week, a tough week thanks to a relentless heat and lots of walking, and I know I speak for all of us when we say just how thankful we are to Gary and Nell for being so generous and loving to help create such a fun experience. :) I marvel at their patience with all the kids, sometimes.
I also have some tips for any of you considering this trip, and these apply to us the next time we come here as well. First, don't rush. This isn't a cattle drive, despite how you may feel in some of the parks and the rush you see others in. As long as you take the time to plan your Fast Pass activities smartly, giving yourself time to get to each one or keeping them in the same general area, you'll be able to better enjoy your time in each park.
Second, understand you are here to have fun, not rush from dawn to midnight just to experience every last bit of every park you go to and take every last picture. The best memories are those you make through experiencing things, and you can't experience anything running around like a headless chicken or spending so much time photographing every scene you see that you don't take the time to sit back and enjoy it. Disney does a great job creating beautiful scenes and environments. Take them in. Take some pictures, sure, but not at the expense of being able to fully appreciate your time here.
Third, if you come in the Summer it will be hot and you will get cranky and you may get injured in some way (feet, hips, knees, you name it). You came with people you love. Don't let cranky become your daily mood and ruin a good time. Watch your attitude and everyone wins. :)
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