First Week Friends

Recently, I started watching Friends––because it's on Netflix and stuff, yadda yadda, you know the drill. This is a massive problem, partially because I just moved and should be using my free time to make friends and socialize, but mostly because I'm not even sure I like the show yet I still can't stop hitting "Next Episode." Yesterday alone, I watched probably seventeen episodes (and somehow lived to tell the tale), so I think that can confirm that this show is starting to take over my life. As if the theme song playing on loop in my head for the past five days wasn't confirmation enough.

Recently, I realized that, in Orlando, it takes about twenty minutes to get anywhere and everywhere. Wanna take a trip to Target? Twenty four minutes. Gotta stop at Walgreens? Yeah, there's one two streets over in either direction, but it's going to take you nineteen minutes with traffic. You want to go to Sephora and buy and overpriced tube of mascara? Well, that's great––it's going to take you twenty minutes to drive there, but since you accidentally plugged the address of the Sephora in the flipping Mall at Millennia, parking ALONE will take you an additional twenty minutes.* Tonight, it took me about twenty minutes to make and consume dinner. This morning, it took me probably twenty minutes to put my contacts in because waking up at six in the morning is the perfect way to guarantee I will not be able to open my eyes one bit. See? Everything takes about twenty minutes.

And so does watching an episode of Friends.

See where I'm going with this? Me neither.

I guess no matter what I'm doing at any point in time, it's going to take me twenty minutes––so why do something when I could be watching Friends instead? Right?

I've had a decent amount of downtime––or at least I've made a decent amount of downtime for myself––but I've also spent a decent number of hours in company training classes the past few days. From that has resulted something very exciting––I got my name tag and my first ever set of ears!! Look at this picture of me looking beautiful in them. Talk about a Disney princess.

I haven't been in the parks yet other than a quick jaunt through Disney's Magic Kingdom as a part of one of our training courses––from which I obtained this lovely photo of the castle, featuring a crane as well as the backs of some heads.

All of my classes so far have been at Disney University,** however, TOMORROW will be my first day of training not at DU (is that what the kids call it?). I'll be going to Animal Kingdom for the first time ever––it will probably be a wild adventure to say the least, especially since I have to be up at six in the morning again.
   
In the past few days, my lovely roommates and I also attended the housing welcome event that Disney threw for everyone who has arrived recently, and though we were only there for a bit, we got free Shirley Temples (MY FAVORITE) and free pizza, AND we got to meet our very first characters!

It's really does seem strange that I've not even been here a week. Even though I don't know them well yet, I love all of my roommates already––if not only because I know two of them have a love for the Olive Garden that runs just as deep as my own. Less than three forever.

The adventure continues in, like, seven hours!!! Which means it's time to watch an irresponsible amount of Friends! Ha ha ha ha.........




*This... may have happened to me today... um....
**Disney University has really cool Disney artwork on the walls, and some really COOL decor, like these guys who just hang out in the ceiling tiles

The First Few Days

Disney is a really magical place. I’ve been here not even three full days––haven’t even stepped foot in one of the parks yet––and I’ve already learned so much, experienced so much I never thought I would. For instance, I’ve learned that even Slow Internet is a luxury, because having The Slowest Internet Ever means watching Youtube videos at 144p and still having to wait for them to buffer the entire time. I’ve learned that it’s extremely easy to use up a gigabyte of data just trying to navigate in a city you’ve hardly ever been to before (sorry, Mom), and that I’ve learned that, in a place where everyone is working at Disney World, it’s probably not very hard to find a group of nineteen/twenty-year-olds who will sit around and sing Hannah Montana and the Jonas Brothers together (what a fantastic way to spend a Wednesday evening).

A lot has happened in the past few days. I’ve checked in and moved in and everything that comes with all of that. I’ve learned I’ll be working at Animal Kingdom in the Parking Lot––and though I have no idea what that means yet, I do know that I’ll probably be wearing a yellow skort and a BRIGHT ORANGE AND YELLOW TRAFFIC VEST for the duration of the program. HASHTAG FASHION. My roommates and I have moved into our apartment (we got our first pick––it’s a six person/three bedroom in Chatham Square, and it’s in a beautiful location super close to almost everything we need in the complex). Here are some pictures from before we moved everything in:

We are still in search for a good fruit bowl––because we currently have an overflowing fruit plate that I desperately tried to put together so we didn’t have bags of oranges sitting around in the meantime–– 

but other than that, I feel as though we’re mostly settled in––or at least as much as you can be for only having lived somewhere for three days. Overall, living in a place that isn’t my house for the very first time is weird––I keep forgetting I don’t have to take all of my shower supplies with me into the shower, and that I’m not living out of a suitcase, because this is lasting for longer than a few days. How weird is that? To anyone who has ever seen my room at home, it would be very difficult to believe, but I’ve done pretty alright so far at keeping my side of my room clean, and my closet organized, and my laundry folded. Remember what I said about Disney being a really magical place? Yeah. I wonder how long until the magic wears off. 

So far, I’ve only had one real training session, but I have to be at the bus stop at 6:55 tomorrow morning to start the next one! Oh boy! It’s Traditions, which I honestly don’t know much about, but which everyone raves about and insists is the best thing ever. So we’ll see how that goes! After that, I’ll have my pass so that I can go into the parks––so that will be when the REAL FUN BEGINS. And also all of the pictures, because as of right now, it’s just been me and my roommates hanging out. And it’s kinda weird to be like, “hey, let me take a picture of you as you do those dishes!”

SPEAKING of roommates. I guess I should talk a little about them. Is that weird? Hello, roommates, if you’re reading this, I hope you don’t think it’s weird that I’m talking about you! If it is, let me know, and I won’t ever mention your name here again! I’m in a room with Ashley, and we live with Maddie, Emily, Alexa, and Kristen. The six of us have only been in the same room at once, like, one time for approximately three minutes, but they’re all super great and I’m so excited to hang out with them over the next few months. Last night, Kristen, Alexa, Maddie, and I ate dinner at the Art of Animation Resort and it was a blast––so cool, especially considering I’ve never been to a Disney resort before! Today, Maddie, Alexa, and I hung out the whole time and went to Michaels and freaked out over craft stuff the whole time and it was so much fun. Maddie and I have talked about going to the parks on Friday since we’re the only ones who will have our pass to get in, and who also don’t have any training going on that day––and we’ve also established that she is going to experience the madness and magic of LUSH for the first time while she is here in Orlando. There’s already a long list (not written down, of course) of things that we have all said we want to do while down here (eating at restaurants, taking trips, etc.), but going to Lush is by far the one I’m most excited for.

I can’t believe I’ve only lived here since Monday. It’s going to be a long four and a half months, and I’m really excited about it.

WE DID IT

Somehow, we made it to Orlando. Well, we’re technically in Kissimmee, but somehow, my dad and I have driven most of what there is to drive of I-75 (when I say “my dad and I have driven,” I really mean my dad. I got about an hour behind the wheel and the rest was all him)––we’ve landed at the hotel we’re staying at for the next few days after about eighteen hours of flipping through the radio to find something to listen to other than static or country music. Here’s a brief run down of what we listened to on the trip:

• approximately four hours of Taylor Swift*
• approximately two and a half hours of dad's music or country music (if I drew out these categories, we'd end up with a Venn Diagram)
• maybe three hours of miscellaneous music from my phone
• miscellaneous music from the radio
• "All About That Bass" around 7 times
• "Uptown Funk" at least 15 times

I dread the next time I'm in charge of the radio. It's a nightmare and a life I am not meant to lead. 

We drove through Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, and part of Florida, and kept track of the weather getting warmer as we got even further south. The sun was setting just as we got into Tennessee, but I don't need it to be sunny there to tell you it was the prettiest state we drove through** Now, in Florida, I can't get over how weird it is that it's January and not all of the trees are bare. Also, palm trees???? There's a freaking lot of them around. There's one right out of the window of our hotel room. It's mostly just crazy that there's no snow anywhere!!!!!!

Okay, here's some pictures I took on the trip to send to my mom or friends or whatever!! Next post should be Disney-related, probably. Maybe. Who knows. 

*I told my dad we were had the time to listen through her CDs three times, and I said we were actually going to do that, but I figured I'd let him off the hook on this drive

**Like, seriously, what the heck. I'm never ever going to get over how amazing it always looks there.

The Start of Something New

Hello!

If you're reading this, I'll assume you are either someone who came from something I posted on another social media, or my mother! Or maybe both, in which case, hi mom!

This is a blog I've started in an attempt (I'll say it again––in an attempt) to document the next five and a half months as I live and work at Disney World as a part of the Disney College Program. I'm not doing any of the schooling through my univerisity or through the program, so I also figured that continuing to write while not a student would be a good plan. So here we are! I've never done a blog like this before, so it's either gonna be the best thing ever or the most embarrassing thing ever––or maybe both!

Aaaand since this is my blog for Disney, I wanted the name of it to be something relating to Disney (obviously), and I settled on brinocchio because I think it's a fun mix of my name and a great Disney movie... that I haven't even see in years... uh, and also because it kinda looks like the word 'bronchitis' to me and I think that's a lot funnier than it should be. So here we are! What else do I say here? I'm not sure––like I mentioned, I've never done a blog like this before. So, uh, yeah...

This was a weird half-intro/half-filler blog post, but hopefully this will get better along the way. And hopefully there will be pictures so it won't be as boring for everyone involved!!!

Welp, I guess that's all for now!

-Brianna

I feel really weird writing my name at the bottom of this post so that's not a thing I'm really ever gonna do on this blog, maybe. I don't know. WE'LL FIGURE IT OUT IT'S FINE WE'RE ALL NEW HERE AND WE'RE ALL LEARNING