Life with Zsolti: January 2008

where do i start? i was going to not complain, but this morning as i was sitting here looking at my sister's stroller that the airline broke, i figured that you all wanted to know exactly what happened. csaba is going to help me try to recreate the week here with pictures just for you.

let's start with last week. as you all know, by the response i got from the comments, i really hated to miss pa's funeral. well, someone was listening. our flight out of GR got cancelled due to problems with the ILS system at the airport. we couldn't get another flight out until sunday. with a connection. pa's funeral was very nice and the minister did a wonderful job recreating his life into a story that included all of us.

we stayed at rach's saturday night in GR because we had to get up at 4:30am to get to the airport on time. we decided to check the stroller because we had other things to carry- such as laptop, my camera, a child and a diaper bag FULL of junk to keep him occupied. i'm not sure if you know that i hate flying. you don't have to sit there and tell me how much safer it is, because in my mind, flying=death. so as you can imagine, having two flights in one day had me a little on edge. i decided against the valium only because i realized the day before when i tried it out that there is nothing on this earth that can actually relax me. we sat zsolt by the window, because i will freak if i don't get an aisle seat. he loved it. he even went as far as saying "WHEE" every time we hit turbulance.

(which got an incredulous look from me every time) we stayed a few hours in minneapolis before getting on a three hour flight to orlando. we spent just as much time traveling as we would have driving... nice. the descent was excrutiating for me since i had developed a nasty cold and the sinus pressure on the way down made it seem like my eyeballs were going to pop out of my head. i mean that. every word. when we got to orlando i was ready for a vacation. every part of my body was achey, i was consumed with stress and... well... it was freezing cold in michigan- i wanted some heat. i got it. i think it was like 95 degrees and 100% humidity when we got there. we were able to take a bus right to the hotel which was nice - one thing about disney, they have transportation everywhere. our luggage was delivered right to our room, minus a stroller. after i called to find out where it was it was atleast another hour before it got to the room. in a bag. csaba asked if it was in a bag because it was in pieces and i assured him that it was probably just to keep the tray with it. it was too late to get to any of the parks by the time we got in, and i was shivering (even in the heat) because i was so sick. i took lots of medicine to make sure i was better by morning. next morning revealed a broken wheel on the stroller and an apology from the airline.

the first day there was monday really, and csaba's boss had arranged for all of us (meaning us and his family of like 35 people- all very nice) to take a charter bus to busch gardens. i am apologizing to all of florida right now for my wearing shorts. i think i blinded everyone. we met some nice amish folk there who were from northern indiana. one woman and i shared a little laugh when she had been regaled with questions by another tourist who had never seen an amish person before. turns out her cousin owns one of the stores near where i work. busch gardens was pretty cool- and zsolt even got on some of the rides by himself.

even if he didn't like it- he asked to go back again!

there's was lots of good photo opportunities with all the animals, and my new lense works really good. so good that i can rub it in my dad's face that i have one and he doesn't!

after busch gardens, we had to activate our park passes or they would expire. since we were a few days late we figured it was ok to hit one of the parks anyway, and it was new years eve, it'd be stupid to miss out on the fun. we decided to go to epcot for the fireworks (supposedly at 9). there were atleast a million people there. loud, LOUD music (which would be fine if i didn't have zsolt with me) and i was super hungry since i didn't eat dinner. there was a hair, a very BIG hair in my food at the hotel food court and i refused to eat there if i could avoid it. i forgot my wallet so csaba had to wait in line at a mexican joint for 45 minutes to get me some unidentifiable food. meanwhile i held zsolt in my arms along with a 40lb diaper bag and camera bag because everyone had snatched up every available seat to see the fireworks. as i was leaning against a half wall to help balance him- some lady spilled her margarita all over me, zsolt and my 1000$ camera. csaba didn't think there was a problem because i, remakably, did not yell, nor lose my cool. but i demanded that we leave because i was soaked and zsolt was crying. anyway, here's epcot on new years eve.

turns out that if you keep zsolt up to midnight or later, he will sleep til 9am. we got a late start to magic kingdom new years day and paid for it by having to wait in line for forever. the carousel wasn't that bad, zsolt and i got right on, but right next door was the dumbo ride, which he HAD to go on. i waited for an hour and a half to get on it with him, meanwhile he screamed and cried the whole time because he kept thinking the next time around was his turn. even when we were waiting right by the gate, they kept us from going for another turn. after three circles, he decided he loved being in the air and wanted to go again. HAHAHAH. i sidetracked him by asking if he wanted to meet pooh bear and tigger who were standing nearby. we'd been telling him for months that he could meet them along with mickey. we go to stand in line and they immediately shut the gate. yes, you now have to wait in line to meet characters. there was no one else behind us, and zsolt started screaming. i know i know, if they let us in, they'd have to let everyone else in too. (but there was no one else.) i decided to complain just a little to a nice worker named donielle. she made things quite a bit better by giving zsolt some cake and cookies, and getting him to the front of the line to see buzz and stitch. and making things better for me by giving me a front of the line pass for about 5 rides. thanks donielle.

we liked the jungle boat ride quite a bit, the captain of the boat was quite amusing, however it's placed right next to aladin's carpet ride- similar to dumbo. i made csaba get his butt on that one too. (to try to get him over his circle sickness)

add in the small world ride (which wasn;t as scary when i was a kid) and oh, 30$ for a sweatshirt, 15$ for a blanket all for zsolt and 40$ for a zip up because i was cold and you have one remarkable day at disney. (those were the cheap ones too, i'm not listening to csaba's idea of warm any more...enjoy the zip up, rach) csaba's boss invited us to a luau that night at the polynesian. i think i now have just as much of a crush on hawaiian men as i do native american men. the food was amazing!

good thing i looked at the weather before we left and was able to pack some jeans and long sleeved shirts. but by the time we got to animal kingdom on wednesday it felt like it was about 30 degrees. oh, right, that's because it was! add up 8$ for gloves and 20$ for two hats. but this was the best place of them all. there was more than just rides and it didn't fill up until after noon. they even had a baby care room where we could get out of the cold and give zsolt some lunch.

zsolt won a prize first thing in the morning.

we tried to keep warm, but i don't think it worked.

(this is the one where i gloat to my dad, this lense is great for zooming, this deer was WAAAAY across the field)

this was on the safari ride, which was pretty cool, but all the jostling about put zsolt to sleep....

(that's chip, not dale)

that night we went to downtown disney to have a nice (read expensive) dinner at the yacht club. it was FREEZING out and zsolt developed a fever once we got there. so we ate fast and tried to get him back to the hotel so we could give him some tylenol. we waited for the bus for over 40 minutes. (not to mention when we were almost late getting to our reservation even though we left the room an hour early. buses every 20 minutes my ass.) luckily zsolt's fever didn't last long and we were able to go back to downtown disney the next morning. (where we spent too much money on chocolate and stuffed animals for kids and at the lego store. ok, so the lego store was my idea...)

we decided to try epcot again because i thought the nemo ride would be cool- and it was! best one of them all. but it was freezing again and the ride home we waited in a line of over 100 people to get on a bus that was an hour late. poor zsolti froze. our last day, friday, we tried magic kingdom again- no better than the first day. zsolt rode like three rides because that's all we had time for. (and all three he had rode on before)

zsolt thought that waiting in line sucked too.

the flight home was the roughest, i think i cried on the way up, and i wanted to swear at the pilot as he was smiling at all of us on the way off. did he really NEED to fly sideways?

overall, thanks bob for sending us, but i don't think it's enough to ever make me want to go back. maybe i wasn't meant to vacation (as rachel says) or maybe i need somewhere where there's no people. ever. and quiet. i donno, maybe i'll just stick to the zoo and cedar point.