Our European Adventure

Writing this in Nice… it’s been a while since I’ve had the patience to start blogging. Will try to start where I left off…

DISNEYLAND!!! Happy birthday Saphira! We woke up in the morning excited to see the weather was not too bad and jumped on the train with our SIX YEAR OLD to Disneyland Paris.

We certainly weren’t expecting the entire place to be done up for Halloween, but like everything on this trip so far, we got lucky. Pumpkin-heads lined the streets and frightened screams filled the air (interspersed with up-beat Mickey tunes) as we walked down the Main Street.

Took us a while to find our feet, we weren’t really sure what Disneyland was all about when we arrived. Realised we had all these little “lands” to choose from: Frontierland, Fantasyland, etc. Got very excited to see all the Nightmare Before Christmas stuff and watched the a dodgy Halloween show (all the songs were versions of Disney movie songs with new lyrics. Kinda weird hearing Hakuna Matata melody with spooky themed words.) We abandoned the show early, around the same time as this crazy mum started screaming blue murder because her toddler fell off her shoulders. Poor husband (“Tim”, if my memory serves) had to tell her to calm down while the toddler got in the pram and kept eating her fairy floss.

We cruised the park, checked out all the little attractions and stuff and to be honest it wasn’t that great. The constant perky music kept us in a good mood and was a distraction from the fact that everything was a bit shabby and boring, but saphira had a good time. By far, her favourite thing was the tiny kids playground where she made friends with a cute little French girl and played on the kind of equipment you can find in any good park in Brisbane… oh well.

The “it’s a small world” ride made us feel a bit sick. Such blatant stereotyping and so many cultures completely left out. Think I’ll be having nightmares about those soulless puppets for years to come. All to the worst soundtrack ever. Don’t think saphira noticed the sarcasm when I commented, “wasn’t that ride WONDERFUL?” She nodded in agreement.

Alice’s Labyrinth was pretty awesome. I assume if you’re reading this that you saw the video of saff’s impromptu dance. Nuts.

We almost missed the parade because we were lining up to get saphira’s face painted… but somehow we caught the end. Little mermaid float was the coolest. Caught the big show at the end of the night before training it home, all three of us asleep on our feet. Saphira unwrapped her pressies in the apartment when we got back (couldn’t believe she could keep her eyes open!) and is now equipped with a wicked bat girl Halloween costume among other treats.

That night, she commented “Disneyland wasn’t that great. I’d rather go to the train museum with Azman.” Suck it, Paris! Ipswich whips you in saphira’s book! WOOHOO!