Disneyland

I'm now a week behind in making posts to my BLOG partly because I came down with a heavy cold during the return trip to Australia. Indeed, I might be the first person in the whole world to infected every passenger on an Airbus A380!! Bec and Max came down with a milder version, but poor Ella was hospitalised last night in Palm Springs - after visiting the Joshua Tree National Park / Monument - with the same complaint!

Anyway lets' make up for lost time by saying that our last 3 days in California were action-packed as we took in first Disneyland, secondly Universal Studios and lastly a day at Newport Beach, a really swank suburb on the shores of the Pacific. I'll make a post on each one separately in that order, but before I do I must thank Emily for her superb arrangements. We spent 3 nights at a Marriott Residence Inn at Anaheim, which was very comfortable and within walking distance of Disneyland. The motel was inhabited almost exclusively by families and some of them dressed up (or is it down) for the occasion. One couple with four kids presented themselves at breakfast wearing identical red T-shirts with an inscription on the front. The husband was described as Thing 1, the wife as Thing 2, and so on down in age to Thing 6! I nearly went up to them saying no-thing could be more appropriate, but I was dissuaded.

Emily deserves another gong for her constant attention to Ella, which was made more difficult by the latter's removal from normal routine and fascination with her surroundings. Wow! She was stimulated! Emily also had to sacrifice a few wild rides because they were quite unsuitable for an 8-month old baby. And, finally, Emily deserves a gong for driving long distances on LA's insane road system inhabited by lunatic drivers constantly switching lanes, tail-gating, speeding, illegally occupying as a single driver the HOV (high occupancy vehicles) lanes. Let me just say that considerate drivers were rare and, the bigger the road - as was the case with the Santa Ana Freeway, the worse the driving. Compared with some of the freeways, the Space Mountain Ride at Disneyland was hardly scary. By the way, LA's SMSA (i.e. greater LA has getting on for 11 million people living at negligible population densities by UK standards. The city was vast - roughly 130 x 75 km (or 80 x 47 miles) and it seemed to take hours to go anywhere despite the city's impressive collection of freeways. Alas, the latter were often jammed and it's said that only time to get a more or less free run is 1.00 am!

Enough of introduction. Disneyland was much as I remembered it, and Max certainly did so as it was his second trip there in 4 years. Basically we wandered from one ride or experience on (or in) this that or the other to another: for instance space mountain, splash mountain, the haunted house and pirates of the Caribbean, but also the teacup ride which Ella could take and the replica Mississippi paddle steamer. Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and their relatives wandered around, along with bands playing pirate songs. The streetscapes were homely and home to theatre, like the training routine for young kids to fight the Star Wars villains. Alas, we arrived too late for Max to get a gig in this. Still, he had a nice day out and was excluded from no ride on account of size! Some of the above attractions are shown below. Now I come to think if it, Max had his first serious attempt at driving a car and I was terrified!

By the way, many of the scarier rides tried to warn off cardiac patients, but I managed quite a few of them and am still here. I don't know if I, as an academic, should show this last photo. The greatest term of derision for an academic is that their work is Mickey Mouse. However, I take the plunge and I am happy to be seen the gentleman's company. The same couldn't be said of Ella who took an instant dislike to him ... and Donald Duck and, in a later encounter, Shrek.

AS