Rainbows and Roller Coasters

This past Saturday, I made the 17-hour trek out to Orlando to begin my college program internship at Disney World.  Most people's jaws drop when I tell them that I drove straight through, but it's not as bad as it sounds.  For me, the 17-hour drive was actually a nice change, since the journey to and from Utah takes about 21 hours.  Seventeen hours?  Piece of cake.  The drive actually wasn't even that bad.  I-10 is actually a decent highway, minus a few spots here and there between Houston and Baton Rouge (sorry Louisiana).

I got in about 3am eastern time and stayed the night with my friend Kevin who was my follow-up trainer on my mission.  After getting a good night's sleep, we attended a very interesting YSA (young single adult) ward for church that afternoon.  I won't go into further details, but it was quite interesting.  Later that night, Kevin introduced me to Geocaching (click here for the official website), which he had just experienced for the first time the night before.  There were two caches just a mile away from his apartment, so we checked those out.  I quickly learned that Orlando really is a swamp, overflowing with swamp-friendly creatures.  Regardless, we successfully found both caches.  Both had been found the night before by another fellow geocacher, but one cache did not have anything in it yet.  The other had its first entry dating back to 2009.

I checked into my new housing this morning.  I was glad to see that I got the complex I wanted, and I only have 3 other roommates.  On top of that, the apartment is in good condition and there is a lot of space.  My roommates are pretty chill, and I think we are all going to get along just fine.  Us new college program participants attended a casting session where we took care of paperwork and got instruction about our upcoming trainings.  As a quick note, there will be probably be a lot that will happen over the next several months that I won't actually be able to discuss due to confidentiality, but I will try to share what is allowed, especially with regards to pictures.  We were given permission to take a picture of the front area of the casting building, but could not use our phones from there on out.  I scrambled to take a picture before they got us moving again, so it didn't turn out all that hot.  Feel free to follow me on Instagram(Username:  zedamora) and Twitter(same) as I will try to share frequently on both those apps.

After attending our casting meeting, I learned where I am going to be working.  Drum roll, please...  I have been assigned to work Front Desk at Disney's Animal Kingdom Lodge.  According to the people I talked to, it is awesome and it has animals on-site.  Hopefully I won't get too distracted by the giraffes while working.  Here are some pictures from Google:

   



Other than the check-in procedures and paperwork, it was a fairly open day, and I got a chance to familiarize myself more with the area.  While the toll roads are almost necessary to go into downtown Orlando, all of the parks are near where I live and can easily be accessed without shelling out a ton of cash (minus the tickets, of course).  Driving back home after the crazy amount of rain, I passed by SeaWorld, which is like 5 minutes north of my apartment.  Stopped at an intersection, I could see Kraken (Sea World's tallest coaster) on the right and an awesome rainbow on my left.  I wanted to take a picture, but the light changed before I could pull out my phone.  In that short moment, I thought to myself, "You know, I think I'm going to like it here."

As a quick aside, I attended the media day for Six Flags Fiesta Texas' Iron Rattler last Wednesday.  I talked my brother into going with me, and it was a great experience.  I didn't want to double-post about the Rattler, so I held off on talking about it, but basically it was a fun event with lots of news stations and coaster critics.  If you ever have an opportunity to attend  a media day opening for a new ride or show, I would highly recommend   Not only do you get to experience it before it opens (and before the lines stack up), but you also get free stuff.  Stay tuned for more about my magical life at Disney.  It is supposed to rain all day tomorrow, and I have absolutely nothing to do.  Indoor rides at Universal?  Perhaps so...