After a fairly relaxing Christmas here in San Diego, January was an imposing month of travel for me. I'll start with the start and try to get some of the details in right, instead of my normal cursory monthly overview

A couple days after New Year's Courtney, myself, and two friends of hers were off to Orlando and Disneyworld for 9 days of vacation and marathon running (the latter not including me). We had a Southwest flight that stopped in Houston, aside from standard cattle-car flying (at a good price) we had an uneventful trip and arrived in Orlando pretty late at night to find out its a lot colder there in January than anticipated. My decision to pack only a couple hoodies for warm clothes was immediately proving to be short-sighted. Getting in so late we just found a Disney bus to our hotel and went to sleep.

The next day we began our park exploration with Epcot center. Courtney had been to Disneyworld when she was a teenager but I hadn't been since I was 5 years old and basically had no memory of anything. I expected to really enjoy Epcot but I actually found the various "countries" you visit there to be really lame. I guess I just felt they were "disney-fied" versions of the countries and I'd rather just visit the real places to experience the culture. At least we found some decent Chinese food there though. The newer part of Epcot also had a couple cool rides, but I was underwhelmed by this park.

I guess I should explain the Disneyworld structure if anyone doesn't know how it works. Disneyworld is completely self sufficient, with its own fire department, hotels, bus system, parks, etc. It felt like being on a large college campus actually, and our hotel was very dorm-esque, especially the food there, which we called the "student union" by the second day of the trip. There are different levels of hotels and ours was the lowest, as the trip was fairly expensive anyway and we didn't figure to be in the hotel much, it seemed smart to save money there. There are at least 6 separate parks: Epcot, Hollywood studios, Animal Kingdom, Magic Kingdom, and 2 water parks that were closed. Plus lots of resort hotels with nice restaurants, Downtown Disney for shopping, golf courses, etc. strewn about the entire huge property.

After Epcot all day one, we went to Hollywood Studios the next day. There were a lot of rides that are also in Anaheim at California Adventure, but they are all the best ones, so I liked this park a lot. We found a good roller coaster, a couple cool shows, and lots of other entertaining rides of varying age-appropriateness. Courtney was told about a cool lunch place there which was an awesome 50s style restaurant that shows clips of old horror movies and feels like you are at a drive-in movie. Completely random and totally awesome .

I'm starting to confuse my days at this point but pretty sure Courtney and I went to Animal Kingdom the next day while her two friends went off campus to the NASA space center. Animal Kingdom was by far my favorite park, just because the ambiance and design make it really unique, and feels very realistic I suppose. Also it had the best ride of any park, the Everest Expedition roller coaster which is like the Matterhorn only actually good. There is also a safari ride which takes you through their real live animal preserve, pretty cool though we have the wild animal park in San Diego which is at least as good so I suppose I wasn't as enthused about that as some of the tourists would be.

The two or three days after that were full of marathon festivities. Courtney and her friend Kelly were running the "Goofy challenge" which is a half marathon and then the full marathon on back to back days. The morning of the half marathon it was freezing cold and raining (sleeting I suppose at times is more appropriate), the girls had plans to basically run slow, make sure to finish, and conserve energy for the full marathon the next day. I guess this worked out slightly in their favor considering if they had other plans the weather probably would have forced a slow pace anyway. Regardless, they finished fairly cold and wet, but done with the first part of Goofy's challenge nonetheless.

Day two was the full marathon and it was just as cold, though at least not raining that day. Courtney ended up finishing in what she might call a disappointing time, but given the conditions I know she was excited to just complete the challenge, and go for personal best times in future races. Unfortunately, Kelly was behind pace and ended up getting picked up with like 5 miles to go

The rest of that day was obviously recovery time and I got some work done in the hotel room on my computer, though apparently not enough time to remember to blog while it was still fresh in my mind

The two days after we stayed mostly in the Magic Kingdom, which is more or less the same as what we have in southern california at Disneyland, though all slightly different. We went on all the staple rides and enjoyed the slightly warmer weather. I had made reservations for a couple nicer dinners those last couple nights, one for Courtney and I for a delayed anniversary celebration, and the other for the whole group. Courtney and I went to the Blue Zoo, a Todd English seafood restaurant and had an awesome meal. The next night we went to a Mediterranean / Indian / African inspired (weird medley I know but that's the best way to describe the menu) restaurant at the Animal Kingdom Lodge called Jiko. This too was a nice meal, and it was cool to finish the trip seeing some of the fancier stuff around the parks. There were plenty more nice restaurants at the other resort hotels but I could have spent a mint going to these places everyday, I feel like we struck a pretty good balance for such a long trip.

The last day was basically pack up and head to the airport, for a flight home that stopped in Phoenix. I was jealous we couldn't get outside security in Phoenix to pick up some Paradise bakery sandwiches and cookies, but oh well. We got home after the longest trip Courtney and I have ever taken together (9 days) and found our two babies (the feline kind) to be well cared for in our absence. I had precisely 16 hours from the time I arrived home to prepare to drive up to LA the next day for the long flight to Australia and the Aussie Millions.

Stay tuned for part 2 and the Aussie adventure…