Maddie Mouse : Exploring O-Town

Yesterday we had the whole day off...some much needed time for ourselves. In the morning, I went for a run/walk around the housing area to get my bearings and figure out where important buildings were located. The free day also meant we had time to explore the city of Orlando. Found a mall, outlets (my weakness!), IKEA, numerous restaurants, and attractions like Sea World, Aquatica, Wet and Wild, and Wonderworks to name a few. Since it had been warm all morning, we ventured to the pool in the afternoon around 4; unfortunately, at this point the sun was pretty blocked by the apartments so it was rather chilly. Nonetheless, it was nice to have some poolside relaxing outside in January!

Even though we didn't have our park passes yet, we still got to enjoy the Magic Kingdom's "Wishes" fireworks show by taking the bus to Polynesian Resort (this is where my family stayed when we spent a week in Disney December '08, so it brought back lots of fun memories, but made me quite homesick). It was just as beautiful as I recalled! After the fireworks ended, we had time to kill before our bus came to the resort to take us back to the apartments so we looked around the gift shops; I found a few things I would like to buy once I have a discount! Kaitlyn and I also wandered into the art gallery located in the Polynesian's Great Ceremonial House and spent time chatting with a very nice man that worked there who took the time to give us some cast member tips and secrets, and showed us some of his favorite pieces of work in the gallery. I found several I loved, but were most certainly NOT in my price range (think $1,200 was the cheapest)!

Riding the bus to the fireworks with some of my roommates (and Danny)