Disneyland, the original.

Friday in LA was to be the realisation of a massive portion of my childhood dreams. Everytime you watch a Disney film, that castle flashes up beforehand with the shooting stars overhead. Well, now I've been inside that castle. Inside !!!

It's going to be really difficult to not rub it in, but I'll try. Firstly by remembering it's not the Taj Mahal.

However, like Tim Horton's coffee for Canadians or Gelatissimo icecream for Aussies I might have developed an magnetic attraction to Disneyland. It's going to be hard not to find an excuse to go to Florida or Paris this year to take my Disney gluttony on tour.

The day started and ended bright and sunny and upon waiting for the shuttle bus I was approached by another Aussie girl who asked me if I was "Lisa A...." I was surprised but she had been enterprising enough to see my name on the signup list from the hostel and we were the only two people going from the hostel. Bec was travelling with Aust married friends who were sushi fanatics by all accounts and weren't keen on Disneyland. So she'd decided to leg it alone and was hoping to make a travel buddy for the day.

Being from Mount Gambia she had no problems with my home town and we got along so well that by the time we got there, we decided to tackle Mickey and Friends as a team.

We'd both learnt our lesson from previous theme park food and headed to a pancake place for a slap-up brunch to fortify ourselves for the park. Sorry to say that whilst Santa Monica is full of a combination of beautiful people, regular folk like me and exotic imports, Anaheim (theme park neighbourhood) was heavy in poundage, consisting of Americans from other states. Certainly I'm still eating Australian style (a few crepes and fruit is a good filler). There is no way I could possibly handle the sheer quantity of food eaten by the non-coastal states Americans at each sitting. It was also my first experience of ordering eggs in the US and the number of ways you can have them is boggling. So far in Canada I have chickened out (pardon the pun) at each opportunity and gone for scrambled.

So fortified and having sharpened our elbows for the crowds, Bec and I said goodbye to reality and stepped into a magical world for a day...

There are two theme parks at Disneyland that require separate tickets. The first is Disneyland (the original). The second is Disneyland (California Adventure park). Whilst the original is more of the complete Disneyland experience with shows, parades and rides, the California Adventure Park is more just rides or an extension of the original to keep up with the Florida and Tokyo parks.

We went to the original which, though it has been around a long time and is considered "small", met and exceeded my highest expectations.

We had precisely 7.5 hours there. We constantly on the move, no messing about.

To be continued...