WDW Sisters' Trip II -- Day 1

FINALLY, I've had a few moments to sit down and begin my Walt Disney World trip report! This has been a pretty hectic week involving two super-huge meetings and a video-interview. Whew. Anyway, today has been a little less crazy so I thought I would start detailing my recent adventure in Florida with my sister!

I guess our trip sort of started the previous day with Shannon traveling from Los Angeles to Washington DC. She barely missed the shooting at LAX (her flight left on 1 November at 8 am!) and made it here in DC safe and sound. We rounded out the night eating a taco dinner followed by a dessert pumpkin spice m&ms and playing The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask on the Wii.

Our trip REALLY began the next day (2 November 2013) with our flight for Orlando leaving DCA at 10 am. We arrived in Orlando a ½ hour ahead of schedule (noon) and made our way straight to the Magical Express loading area. We rode the bus to our lovely hotel: Disney’s Coronado Springs Resort! This is where Shannon and I stayed on our last trip and we loved it so much that we decided to stay there again for this trip.

 

We easily checked in and found our room (#5230 in the Casitas section)--we were very close (one floor down and a couple rooms over) from where we stayed 2 years ago. After getting settled into the room we zipped off to EPCOT by about 2 pm. We were very excited to get our first glimpses of the Food and Wine Festival!

Our first order of business upon arrival to EPCOT was to ride Spaceship Earth (one of my favorites!). From there we headed into World Showcase (among intense crowds of people eating and drinking at the Food and Wine booths) and made our way to Japan for a late lunch at Katsura grill. My food was excellent: shrimp tempura udon soup, iced green tea, and green tea cheesecake. Shannon and I were on the free dining plan again (lucky) and it definitely was nice to not have to pay for any of our food during our trip.

 

After a tasty lunch, we wandered around World Showcase, rode Maelstrom in Norway, and rode the 3 Caballeros ride in Mexico (another favorite!). We had some time before our dinner reservation (also in Mexico) so we visited the Food and Wine Festival center. It was really nice and full of interesting souvenirs and demonstrations to look at.

 

By then it was almost time for our dinner at San Angel Inn (Mexico) at 6:45 pm. This was also the first dinner on our last Sisters’ Trip and we decided to stick with our tradition--the food here did not disappoint! My favorite dinner items were my tostadas de tinga.

 

After stuffing ourselves with delicious Mexican food, we decided to transfer over to the Magic Kingdom to enjoy that park at night. We left EPCOT around 9 pm and rode monorail silver to the Transportation and Ticket Center (TTC) where we transferred to monorail coral on our way into Magic Kingdom.

We went straight to Tomorrowland to ride...The Peoplemover (another classic favorite!). Next we rode Buzz Lightyear’s Space Rangers followed by the Tea Cups and Winnie the Pooh’s ride. There have been many new additions to Fantasyland since our last trip so Shannon and I enjoyed walking around in the peace and quiet of low crowds at night. We went to Gaston’s Tavern to try a cool apple-honey slushie drink called LeFou’s Brew. It was pretty sweet but nice and refreshing. The theming inside the tavern was amazing--Gaston uses antlers in all of his decorating!

 

From there we rode the new Little Mermaid ride (pretty nice) followed by Dumbo (now there are double Dumbos!) and Goofy’s Barnstormer. After that quick little roller coaster, we decided to head back to the hotel via bus, leaving Magic Kingdom from our incredibly-convenient bus stop around midnight (pretty good for our first day!). We made it back to Coronado Springs, took showers, and went to bed ready for the next day: a morning at Magic Kingdom!

Back from vacation!

I got back from Florida yesterday afternoon and my sister and I had a great time in the fun bubble that is Walt Disney World!

We took tons of pictures, ate lots of tasty food, rode so many rides, and had another fun trip playing in and exploring the World. The weather there was beautiful for our entire trip: warm (but not too hot) during the day and cooler at night with no rain! We were able to do everything we wanted (and more!). I will be posting about our trip soon, after organizing myself here and downloading my pictures. Sisters' Trip II was a great success and maybe we will have another (Sisters' Trip III) in a couple of years~

Cheese making and vacation time!

A couple weeks ago I tried making goat cheese with a little DIY kit that I received as a Christmas present. I would have tried making this sooner, but it took a really long time to track down non-homogenized goat milk! I finally found some at the Union Market (where Crafty Bastards was held) so the time was right to try my hand as a cheese maker.

I followed all of the steps, but ultimately this was a failure. I had a fun time trying to make cheese, but the end result was a slimy wet mush that slipped out of the molds and into a salty puddle. Oh well!

On a completely different subject, I am leaving soon to go on vacation with my sister! We are having another sisters' trip to Walt Disney World (we had our first sisters' trip 2 years ago)! Shannon arrives in DC tomorrow afternoon and we leave for Orlando the next morning. We will be there for 8 days total (woohoo!) and I plan to blog about our adventures after I return. Ohboyohboyohboy~

Crafty Bastards and Navy Barracks Street Fair

I thought I had already posted about this, but it looks like I haven't written anything about Carlos' and my festival adventures from a couple of weekends ago! On the same day (a Saturday) we went to the Crafty Bastards arts and crafts fair (which we have been to every year since we've lived here--this was our fourth one!) and after that we visited the fair happening in the Eastern Market area near the Navy Barracks.

Honestly, Crafty Bastards was a bit of a let-down. The new location (Union Market, where it was last year, but not the previous two years) is way too fancy and is really a hipster haven. We have to walk through a really sketchy neighborhood to get to Union Market, which is kind of like an uber-fancy food court. Also, we had to pay admission ($5/person) to attend the festival. It was really crowded and full of annoying people so I really don't think we will be going back again next year (not that we will still be living here in October of next year, but I will post more on that a little later). We wandered around for about an hour, found a couple of gifts and decided to head back home.

After a little break, we walked to the Navy Barracks Festival and it was so much fun (we should have just skipped Crafty Bastards and spent more time here instead!). We went to the petting zoo, saw Chesty the bulldog (mascot of the Barracks), saw a cooking contest, watched an ice sculptor, and lots more! The group hanging out here was more diverse, fun, friendly, and decidedly less hipster-y than the lot at Crafty Bastards!

From there we took the metro to our friend Terry's house and we all drove out to the Maryland countryside for a BBQ at a friend's house. We didn't get home until around midnight--such a busy day!

Birthday fun 2013

On the weekend before last I celebrated my 32nd birthday (as my Dad would say, I am now "well into my 30's!") and it was pretty great. Carlos and I made a peaches and cream cheesecake the night before so that we could have a proper birthday breakfast (This cheesecake is also known as Jungle Pie as we made it in the wild jungles of La Selva, Costa Rica for a past birthday with Mom and Judy).  I opened up presents from my family and friends and everything was so nice--I took some pictures of my awesome loot:

We spent the day (it was a Sunday) relaxing and playing video games (something I rarely get time to do these days!) and it was awesome to take a break. That evening, Carlos took me out to dinner at Founding Farmers (this is a Kuprewicz family tradition that started about a year and a half ago when we celebrated my Dad's birthday with dinner there). We had too much tasty food and wandered home after a fun, mellow day!

Costa Rica pictures

Things have been super busy (hence the dearth of posts as usual!) but here are a bunch of pictures (in chronological order) detailing some of the highlights from my two months in Costa Rica this summer.

Things are gearing up for the academic year here in the museum, but I really like the new people I am working with and my job is great so far! I hope Carlos and I will be able to find some fun new things to do in DC this year that I can blog about.

Back in DC

If you couldn't tell from a dearth of posts on this poor blog, this has been a pretty crazy/busy summer for me! I returned to DC from Costa Rica about 2 weeks ago and I am getting settled back into DC life and starting my new Smithsonian position. I don't know if I've talked about it on the blog yet, but before I left to teach my last grad field ecology course with OTS, I interviewed for and got a position at the National Museum of Natural History. I am the coordinator for the Living in the Anthropocene group that involves scientists/curators across all Smithsonian organizations. I will be working with a really enthusiastic group of people and things are going along well so far!

Other than that, Carlos and I have been enjoying the last few pieces of summer in and around the city. We've been visiting farmers' markets and we even went to the Holocaust Museum last week. I am really excited that it is starting to turn into fall weather around here (we haven't had to turn on the air conditioners for about a week now!), which is my favorite season in DC. I am also planning my next trips: maybe Mexico with Carlos in October and a "Sisters' Disney Trip II" with Shannon in November (we are going back to Walt Disney World for a week-long vacation).

I hope to get back to regular-ish posts on this blog now that I am back and not yet really swamped with work!

Las Cruces -- land of the agouti

This summer has been really flying by and unfortunately I haven't had much time to post on this blog! I have been teaching the graduate OTS course since the first week of June and we are nearly done (2 weeks left). We have just spent a week in Las Cruces and there are still plenty of agoutis running all over the garden here. Tomorrow we head up into the mountains (2600-3000 m) for six nights in Cerro de la Muerte. I can't wait to rejoin Carlos and our good friends Deedra and Bob there. I also really love that station and the nearby paramo habitat.

We won't have any internet there and after Cerro we travel to Las Alturas (no electricity there). We finish up the course on 29 July. After that I have about a week in San Jose (with Carlos and my co-coordinator Ana) to finish up all the paperwork/reports/accounting of the course. After that, Carlos and I return to DC on 5 August whereupon I start my new position at the Smithsonian! I am very excited to have an official position there now. I will have more information about everything once get back to the states~