Bucket List Update

Hi Everyone!

Just a super quick update to say that I'm sorry I'm a slow writer and I promise that I'm trying to write updates as quickly as I can manage.

BUT...

If you want to go check out my Bucket List (Just click the little tab up the top there), you will see that I've updated it with what I achieved during my year at Disney.  I even included some notations on different items.

Now, I'll get back to writing and please comment with any questions or feedback you have, Thanks!

Enjoy!

15 Things I Learned on the Disney Cultural Exchange Program (Part 1)

So I've been thinking about how I could possibly start to blog about my experience and to be honest, it's a little overwhelming.  And since my go-to technique when facing an overwhelming task is to write lists, I figured that's how I would begin this process.  2015 was a huge year of growth and change for me and I learnt a complete butt-load of life lessons (yes, butt-load is the  correct term here).  I learnt so much about myself and other people and I came out a stronger person.  In fact I learnt so much I had to break this up in to 2 posts!  So here's your first installment: 15 Things I Learned on the Disney Cultural Exchange Program (Part 1).

1. Walt Disney World is both huge and tiny at the same time  

Disney is full of paradoxes, and one that I became aware of is the fact that despite how absolutely massive WDW is (it's like the size of a City!) it's begins to feel small pretty quickly when you live there.  People call this effect the 'Disney Bubble' and over time you realize that it really is like living in a huge invisible dome.  That's both a good thing and a bad thing.  It's good because getting around Disney World is incredibly easy - especially when you're a cast member and you can get just about anywhere without too much hassle.  Signage is impeccable and transportation is both plentiful and reliable.  Cast Members are friendly and helpful and cheerful music is always playing.  It's a magical wonderland designed to bring joy and happiness (and to get you to spend lots of money lol).  But sometimes it's so claustrophobic too.  You run into fellow Cast Members all the time, the crowds can be unbearable and the music starts to grate on your nerves sometimes.  The artificial quality of it all can be too much at times and you just want to spend one day without seeing something shaped like Mickey Mouse!  I made the effort to just get out of the bubble when I could and spent time in regular old Orlando.  It kept me same to not always feel like a perpetual tourist.  One of my favorite things to do was to catch the bus to the Florida Mall and just hang out there because it felt so normal, and that was very important for me.

2. I am so much older than I realized

This is what we call truth.  Oh my Lordy me, I am so much older than I think I am.  You see kiddos, in my mind, I'm still a sprightly young 21 year old, full of hopes and dreams and potential and so on. But in reality, I'm 32 year old and cynical and in need of sleep and coffee and with zero interest in clubbing and drugs and I have knees that creak when I get out of bed in the morning.  It took living and working with kids in their 20's for me to realize this.  I'm not meaning to sound condescending at all here, and I made so many great friends with people in their 20's at Disney, but I became very aware of how much I have grown and changed in the last 10 years or so.  I'm actually amazed at how much wisdom I have -I'm so wise now lol!  So It's not so much a criticism on others as it is a comment on myself.  And I've come to realize that I'm ok with myself and my age and who I have become.

3. It's best not to go in with too many expectations

This is a good lesson for life in general, but something I think anyone considering the DCP/ICP/CEP should take in to account.  I had so many expectations about what Disney was going to be like, what sort of job I would have, the fun I would have with my roommates etc and when those expectations weren't met, I struggled a lot to get my head around that.  In reality, I didn't get the job I really wanted, but I discovered that I'm a very good in retail and sales and that's helped me with my current job and plans for the future.  My roommates turned out to actually pretty nasty people and not the sweet and funny young ladies I had imagined them to be, but I eventually accepted that there were so many amazing friendships waiting for me outside of my apartment.  I wanted so much to work at Magic Kingdom that when I was assigned to Animal Kingdom I was truly devastated - but it turned out to be my favorite Disney park ever and I feel like I squandered my time there a little bit wishing for something else.  If my mind had been more one from the start I could have achieved so much more.

4. American's love Aussies and Kiwis

I sort of already knew this, but working in a Customer Service role just highlighted it tenfold.  People went crazy about it, asked so many questions, took photos and imitated my accent.  You get sick of answering the same questions over and over again ("Australia huh?  You're a long way from home!") and sometimes you will use an American accent just to avoid those conversations.  You'll have days where you simply cannot wrap your head around how naive and unworldly the average American is, but then you'll have moments where you're sitting in Miller's Ale House at midnight, trying to explain the complex rules of Aussie Rules football and having American friends actually wanting to watch a match with you and your heart will be so full of love for those crazy kids.

5. There are some really stupid people out there.

So stupid.  So, so stupid.  Disney Cast Members have a little joke that when people come to Disney, they accidentally leave their brains at home.  It's not meant to hurt or belittle people (and it's not something we actually say to guests) but it is unbelievable how many people fail to use common sense at Disney.  And I get it, truly I do - Disney is big and overwhelming and if you've never been there before and you're corralling four kids and trying to read a map and remember what time your fast pass reservation is and what parking lot your car is in.... well, something is going to fall by the wayside.  As a Cast Member, you just have to get used to stupid questions and assumptions and lack of understanding.

6. There are some really amazing people out there.
In 2015 I met some really fascinating people, like the woman whose grandmother knew L.M. Montgomery, the kid who looked like a super-cute toddler version of Thor, or the American father who was a random Aussie Rules Football fan and totally geeked out over sharing his passion with me.  I also made some incredible friends, like the ones who gossiped and giggled with me at work, drove me to Wal Mart at 11pm because we both desperately needed groceries, or took me to get a pedicure when some stupid guy stood me up and I was feeling sad.  People will spout cliche sayings about the DCP like it's a contest, but this one is true: it really is the people that make the experience worthwhile.

7. The roommate game is is tough
This is a whole blog post in itself!  I don't even know where to start with how crazy the whole roommate situation is.  Sometimes people get the most amazing roommates and everything is sunshine and roses and perfection - but that is extremely rare.
Living with strangers is difficult.
Living with friends is even harder.
Sharing a bedroom with anyone when you're over the age of 12 is a giant pain in the you-know-what!
You want to know a person's true character?  Live with them.  The sweetest person can turn into a psychotic monster if they don't like your placement of the toilet paper.  And being crammed into over-populated and aging apartments while you're adapting to a new country and working 60 hour weeks?  Yeah, it's tough.

8. Living in America isn't all it's cracked up to be (but sometimes it is)
This wasn't my first rodeo, I'd been to the US before so I had some idea of the culture and all, but living in America is very, VERY different from visiting there as a tourist.  Of course there's the fun of driving on the wrong (aka: right) side of the road and the excitement of visiting huge super-stores like Wal-Mart, but that novelty soon wears off and you find yourself having to adapt to daily life in a foreign country.  Despite the fact that you're technically speaking the same language, there will be translation issues.  Their paper money is just weird (seriously, so easily damaged!) and pennies will make your wallet triple in weight.  Adding on sales tax to almost everything is a constant nasty surprise, and remembering to factor in a tip (and working out what you're supposed to tip for) will do your head in.  People carry guns like it's not dangerous and going to the doctor is devastatingly expensive.  There is poverty in America that rivals third-world countries, and yet they speak constantly of freedom and how lucky they are, ignoring the violence on their local news programs every night.  Sometimes it's terribly overwhelming.
But then you chat to someone from Alabama about southern hospitality and you fall in love with their adorable accent.  You discover amazing places to eat and interesting products you can't get at home.  You go to a sports bar, eat buffalo wings and watch hockey, american football and baseball at the same time.  You watch the Oscars live and laugh at yourself when you realize you can't just google the winners.  You buy a bag of chips big enough to use as a sleeping bag and then try to explain to your American friends that we use the word 'chips' to mean both crisps and fries.
You realize that America is the weirdest version of Wonderland ever.

Is this thing still on?

Testing...testing...

Well hello there!  I'm guessing by now you had assumed me dead, having fallen to my death on Space Mountain or fed to the crocodiles on the Jungle Cruise - right?  And yes, I know, I went completely awol and didn't blog at all last year.  Bt if you're still with me I'd like to make amends.

For the record, I am back in Australia for the time being, my Disney ICP adventure having ended sometime in January, but I would still like to share my experience with you all.  And hopefully I can help out anyone who is thinking about doing the program in the future.  I make no promises, my updates will probably be sporadic and random at best but I will do my best to keep updating for you.

If you have any areas you're interested in or questions for me, please don't hesitate to let me know!

The Adventure Begins

Ok guys, sorry I have been soon unbelievably bad at updating this blog, but I've got a laptop now so I'm going to try and get some updates up.  I'm going to post these retrospectively, because even though it's been over a month since I came here, I want to share my entire experience.  My goal is to catch up with myself so I can post in a more real-time manner, but for now, I'll start with the beginning of my adventure and my journey to the USA.

So the day before I left Australia, I travelled with my parents to Melbourne.  We stayed the night at my brother's house which was nice because  got to say a last goodbye to my brother and his family.  On Friday morning, January 9th, I got up bright and early and made sure all of my stuff was securely packed before we headed to the airport.  I was excited, but at the same time it didn't quite feel real that I was moving to America.  I got to the airport first and messaged the other girls to let them know where I was.  Before long, Aprille, Hannah and Nichola arrived - I'd met Hannah and Nichola before but it was my first time meeting Aprille.  At this point our flight had been delayed, but we stayed positive and checked in before heading off for some final time with our individual families.  Finally the time came for us to head to the gate so we said our final goodbyes.  I tried not to get too emotional, but it was weird to think I wouldn't be seeing Mum and Dad for nearly a year.

Once we found our gate, we discovered that our flight had been delayed even further.  We were worried about making our connecting flight in LA, but there was nothing we could do about it so tried not to let it bother us.  The airline did give us all $20 vouchers to use in the terminal food court, so we stocked up on snacks for the flight.  Eventually we boarded and settled in four our 14 hour flight to LA.  As far as long haul flights go, it wasn't too bad.  It was my first time flying international with Qantas and I was very impressed.  Having an individual TV screen is so good, and it makes me wonder how I actually coped with my first flight to LA back in 2000 when I had to watch the same three movies as everyone else!  I watched Guardians of the Galaxy and Despicable Me 2 during the flight and went for lots of walks around the cabin and eventually we landed in LA.  We had missed our connecting flight and by the time we got through customs, we'd also missed the second flight they had booked us on!  Unfortunately, the next flight they could get us on wasn't until 10pm and it was only midday!  However, the airline put us up in a nearby hotel so we cold get some rest and relax before our flight.  I managed to catch a few hours sleep at the hotel which kept me going for the last leg of our trip, although the flight to Orlando was pretty tough.

But...FINALLY we landed in Florida at 6am on Saturday morning - about 12 hours later than we had originally intended.  The Orlando airport was very cool - we had to take a monorail from the gate to the main terminal building!  We picked up our bags and headed to the area where Disney's Magical Express picks up from.  We didn't have to wait at all before we got on to a lovely coach bus that we had all to ourselves!  Our driver was very friendly and told us lots of little tidbits about Disney World and Orlando during the trip to the hotel.  The moment we drove under that famous Walt Disney World sign was incredibly surreal, and it was even more special that the sun was just rising as we made our way on to Disney property.

Eventually we arrived at Disney's All Star movies Resort and made our way in to the check-in desk.  Check in was super easy and they even allowed Nichola and I to split the payment for the room which was very convenient.  We got given our magic bands, which have our names on the inside and we made our way to our rooms.  Nichola and I were kind of disappointed because whilst Hannah and Aprille had a room in the 101 Dalmatians area of the hotel (also where Lily and her Mum were), we'd been given a room in the Toy Story section, on the opposite side of the hotel.  But there were more dramas to come.  You see, when we got to the room, it wasn't clean.  In fact, it looked like someone had crashed it for a movie night or something because the beds were unmade and there were food packages everywhere!  Nichola ran back to the front desk so we didn't have to drag all our luggage again and when she returned she said they were going to allocate us a new room but it wouldn't be ready yet.  We left our suitcases with baggage services and went to find Hannah and Aprille's room.  We all had showers and got changed in to fresh clothes which was such a relief after so many hours of traveling!

We'd been messaging Lily, our roommate who was also staying at All Star Movies and she said she was heading down to the food court for breakfast so we made our way down there to meet her.  Once we found Lily and her mum, we snagged a table and got some food - I finally got my first taste of Mickey waffles!  After breakfast we checked out the hotel gift shop, which was much larger than I was expecting, and then said goodbye to Lily as she and her mum were heading off to a park for the day.

We returned to Hannah and Aprille's room and rang up to check on our room, but it still wasn't ready, so we all had a bit of a nap and just sat around watching old school Mickey Mouse cartoons for a few hours.  After a while, I rang the front desk again and they said our new room was ready!  The most exciting thing was that our new room was in the 101 Dalmatians area!  And we found out a little bit later that by some incredible coincidence, we had been put in the room right next door to Lily and her mum!  So crazy!  Nichola and I finally headed to our new room to get freshened up before the four of us caught a taxi to Walmart.  We wanted to see if we could get some bedding before the crazy rush of check-in day.  Walmart was great, but in the end we were all so tired we just wanted to go home.

Back at the resort, we had some dinner at the food court and then I skyped my family back home.  Nichola found Finding Nemo on the TV, so we watched that for a bit and Lily even came around to visit for a while but we were starting to doze off so we settled in to our beds to finally get a well deserved good night's sleep.

I'm still alive!

Hi all!  I'm so sorry this update is a long time coming but I've been so busy these first few weeks in America and I also don't have a computer at the moment so I'm attempting to to this update on my iPad.  This is just going to be a really quick update and I will do my best to put up more soon because I  want to make sure I don't miss out on anything.

First of all, this has been such an incredible adventure so far.  I won't lie and say it has been all sunshine and roses because there have been some huge challenges already, and I've had to learn to adapt my expectations of certain people and experiences.  That being said, I've also had some wonderful experiences and met so many lovely people so far, which far outweighs any difficulties I may be encountering.

I'm just going to go through a few of the basics here and then I'll go back and cover things in more detail in future posts.

Due to delayed flights, we ended up getting to Orlando 12 hours late so we arrived Saturday morning instead of Friday night, but it all worked out fine in the end.  I was lucky enough to be housed with the roommates I'd selected and we were allocated an apartment in Chatham Square (our first choice of complex), unfortunately we were given a 2-bedroom apartment, which means we have triple occupancy rooms/bunk beds.  We were pretty disappointed at first, although it hasn't been as bad as we first though it would be.  Our rent is significantly cheaper than a 3-bedroom apartment and they've also given us 2 fridges, which makes a massive difference in terms of space and storage.  Also, our apartment is really conveniently located near the main entrance to Chatham and it's only a 3 minute walk to the bus stop, so that's fantastic.

I was also initially slightly disappointed with my location as I was placed in Disney's Animal Kingdom park and that wasn't my first choice (I was hoping for Magic Kingdom or Hollywood Studios) but since my orientation and the training days I've had there so far, I'm actually really excited about working in DAK.  It's an incredible park and my location is great so you'll hear more about that soon. 

Because of my work/training schedule, I didn't get to visit a park until a week after I started, which I was pretty bummed about, but it was definitely worth the wait, and I got to have a day playing at Magic Kingdim yesterday - more to come about that!

I'm going to have to cut it short here because I have to head to work, but I've uploaded a few pics to Instagram if you want to check that out.  I promise to update as soon as I can!