Disney World

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We took Luke to Disney World this weekend. Well, first, we took him on a plane to my parent's house in Dunedin, Florida, and then we also went to the Magic Kingdom.

Since I spent most of my girlhood in the Sunshine State, I've been to Disney parks more than maybe the average person. I was shocked this time around as an adult to discover that pretty much nothing has changed in the 20 or so years since I've gone. Like, you know that Haunted House ride in Frontiervilleland? The voice over narration is the same, as is the part where the walls go up and you see how the person in the portrait died (like the woman with the parasol, where it's gradually revealed that she's standing on a tight rope just above the open mouth of an alligator). And at the end, the same voice tells you that you will be taking a ghost home with you. I suppose that it would be way too expensive to update the rides (and I think they did add the Johnny Depp character to Pirates of the Caribbean), but I couldn't believe how much the same it was, and how much I remembered about each ride, and how it wasn't really too much fun. Luke liked it a lot--mostly though, he was excited about seeing a man who looked like Santa Claus at dinner the night before (he later came over to our table and asked me, Has he been a good boy this year? The dude is totally playing up the SC look). We could've gone back to my parents right after that and skipped the $300 DW trip and Luke would've been just as happy. I didn't buy any souvenirs, but if I had, I would've wanted one of these new Pook a Looz styles (see above).

Dan kept saying how he just couldn't see me growing up in Florida; he thinks of me as a city person. I guess I didn't really see myself in Florida either--was never much of a beach goer or a lover of the sun or a swimmer or a redneck (we saw a truck go by on our first day there with a Confederate flag waving on the back of it). We drove by my high school and I felt old, old, old and also suddenly understood the appeal of all those movies where you get to go back to your younger days with the wisdom of an adult. Though I bet if I went back to high school, I'd feel just as out of place or awkward as I did then. Remember having to go to a certain period for lunch, or passing notes in the hall, or waiting for your friend to get out of class in the parking lot, or having to dress out for gym, or wishing it were Friday so you could go to the football game and not talk to the guy you liked the whole time even though you spent most of the week planning your outfit around seeing him?

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