The Happiest Place on Earth

I am sitting at Charles de Gaulle Airport, waiting at Gate 29 to board our flight to Heathrow. This is not one of the world’s great airports. After we checked in, and discovered that our seats are all separate on the London/Hong Kong leg, there was nowhere to sit down until our boarding gate was posted. Like tons of other people, we ended up sitting on the floor. Now we’re quite comfortable.
Yesterday the kids and I went to Disneyland. It was FANTASTIC!!! We had a ton of fun. We went on all the roller coasters and lots of other rides. It was quite busy, but we used our Fastpass to save time, and we didn’t spend a huge amount of the day queueing. The parade was a bit of a letdown, though. It’s just all lights, and the actors looked more like the mannequins than the mannequins did. We had lunch at Pizza Planet, which was fun.
On the way there, we had an interesting experience on the RER. A Quebecois man heard me talking English to the children, and he asked me what the time was. When he stood up, waiting for his stop, he started talking to me, and he warned me to be very careful of valuables, because there is a lot of crime in the Metro. He started to tell me this story about how he got stabbed three times because someone wanted his expensive camera. Then he lifted up his shirt to show me the scars on his stomach! I don’t know what all the French were thinking. We were talking in English, so they would have had no idea why he suddenly flashed his belly. I was a bit worried he might do worse, but luckily that was the end of it. An interesting start to a Disneylicious day. It was such a hoot hanging out with the kids, and spending time doing something completely silly and fun. One of my favourite parts was when we were lining up for Thunder Mountain, and I showed them the ‘dreaded Tapeye’ – something I learned at university. It involves lightly but quickly tapping on someone’s eyelids, preventing them from opening their eyes. Alex thought I’d said the German Tapeye, and he then invented the German Holdnose, where you squeeze someone’s nose and cup the same hand over their mouth, so they can’t breathe. We laughed our heads off trying to perfect this maneuver, and managed to do it to each other simultaneously.
During the parade it struck me that Disneyland prepares kids for Las Vegas as adults. It’s absolute escapism. Nothing is real. There is so purpose but to have fun. Technology is crucial and often very impressive, always designed to make things which are unreal look real. And there are incredibly bright lights. The parade is really nothing but bright lights. At one stage, one of the princess/prince combinations held hands and suddenly they were illuminated by lights sewn into their clothes. I imagine these outfits are not very practical. Prince Charming couldn’t get very far with that power cord coming out the tail of his tux.
It was a super fun day, with great fireworks. Euro Disney is a million times more entertaining than Hong Kong Disney!
Today we spent packing, doing the washing, and cleaning the flat. It was very rushed, but we made it. Outside the terminal, there is a Concorde on display. Can’t wait to get home!