Epcot Day!

About 30 minutes after the gates opened and a LOOOOONNNNNGGGGG walk in from the parking lot, we made it to Epcot! Did you know that there is a ride inside of that big golf ball looking thing?! It was awesome! Everyone I talked to told us to make sure to do Epcot first. They said that if we waited and did it after any other park, it would be a let down. Well, after taking the advice Chris and I decided that Epcot would be worth going to any time! Of course, I say that not having been to the other parks yet... :) Epcot was also enhanced while we were here with their annual Food & Wine Festival. It was amazing! Through out the day Chris and I got to sample food from Poland, Germany, France, South Africa, Japan, Belgium and most deliciously: Italy!

This is the restaurant where we had our main meal. We racked up and $85 meal and didn't have to fork over a cent thanks to our dining package that came with our trip. It was AMAZING! All the waiters and hosts were from Italy. We asked our waiter how he came to work for Disney and he said that he along with many of his fellow waitstaff are all on a 1 year work visa in the US. They go to school and work for Disney. They all stay in big dormitories with other guys and gals from all the other "countries" at Epcot. Every new country had staff members from that particular place. It made everything so real!

 

Chris had the Cannoli for dessert today...

 

I had a delectable piece of Mocha Tiramasu! You now have permission to drool, because these were both totally drool-worthy! YUM! Oh! What did we have for the main meal? I had the lasagna (Divine!) and Chris had the Seafood Risotto and said it was excellent!

 

 

We walked and walked and walked and walked....we were exhausted so we headed to the Food and Wine Festival pavilion to see what we could see. We ended up attending two really cool demonstrations. The first was a culinary demonstration with Master Chef Ed Leonard. We watched him prepare leg of lamb, with a Caesar salad and home made dressing! We got to sample everything he made and it was....well, adventurous for me, (to say the least) and delicious for Chris! I thought that the lamb tasted like smelly feet, but Chris disagreed. :)

 

 

 

They told us in the demo that just one bottle of this wine cost $123! It didn't taste that expensive, but we enjoyed it knowing that we would probably never EVER drink from a bottle that expensive again. It really did taste good with the lamb. I think Chris liked it more than I did, which is odd because usually I'm the one into the red wine!

 

This is the food we got to try. The Chef talked all about how this should be a "regular" portion and all I could think about was, this guy ain't from the South! So in order on the plate was a pita chip, shredded lettuce, olives, tomatoes, feta cheese, a piece of lamb, a Parmesan "cookie" and all of it garnished with an anchovy. I ate everything on the plate (EXCEPT the anchovy...DUH!) which was the equivalent of Neil Armstrong stepping foot on the moon for the first time. I'm not very adventurous when it comes to food. Chris is much more inclined to try new things. He always says that he will try anything at least once. It made me happy that he was proud of me for giving it a shot!

 

From the culinary demo, we went next door to a mixology class! We learned how to make delicious mixed drinks with Red Stag bourbon. One of the teachers is the author of the all the "101 (drinks)" books. All the drinks were kind of sour, so we weren't really blown away by anything we tried. By the way, I feel a need to clarify...Everything we ate/drank were SAMPLE SIZE. Please don't think that we ran around Epcot today like gluttonous drunks! I promise we didn't! In fact, I'm thinking of pulling out our bag of chex mix to snack on because I feel like we only got one full meal today! (despite what that crazy Master Chef says....)

 

Eventually, the end of the day came. We found ourselves a great spot to watch the closing show: "Illuminations: Reflections of Earth". It was beautiful! The fireworks and light show lit up the entire park. The center of the show was in the middle of a lagoon on which all the "countries" were set. Each building in all the different countries had lights on them and played a special part in the show. It was a fantastic ending to a really awesome day. :)

 

After the show, we all pointed ourselves in the direction of the exit gate and moved together like cattle. Being in crowds like this can definitely try your patience. Indeed, it gives you many, MANY opportunities to show grace. We are exhausted and we saw another little person that must have been tired too....

I know this is a dark picture, but can you see the kid thrown over his dad's shoulder? :) that's exactly how we feel! We considered asking other patrons if they would carry us out like that, but our better judgement prevailed.

 

Tomorrow is the Wild Animal Kingdom all day and a dinner reservation at the Wilderness Lodge in the evening. We are still excited and so thankful that God blessed us with this opportunity to be together. Thanks for reading along with us! TwoMadigans, OUT!