So in my mission to see all the states (except maybe Hawaii), we went to Florida for Valentine’s Day. 

We flew to Orlando on Friday and met up with some friends to visit Epcot on Saturday. I’ll confess I’m not really a fan of Disney. Having grown up in Orange county, I’ve been to Disneyland plenty of times, and with many trips to Knotts and Magic Mountain, I’d decided years ago I’d had enough of amusement parks. Normally, I’d have no desire to fly all the way across the country to see another version of the same thing I’d seen 20 times already, but Epcot promised something different, so I was willing to do it.

I guess I should mention that we ate at a restaurant in Disney Springs, more or less the equivalent of downtown disney here. The crowds immediately reminded me why I disliked the disney experience in the first place and had me rethinking the entire endeavor, but Epcot turned out to be nice.

It was a food and arts festival, and there were lots of pop-up types of food vendors, each selling specialties from the various country “villages” that they represented. First up was Canada.

Then the UK.

Morrocco came next.

Then France. We hadn’t eaten anything until we got to the French section, where we tried a few different things. We also went on the Ratatouille ride.

Japan

Then Italy

The US was in there too… although it was apparently an 1800′s version of it..
We had some scallops and beef wellington here, and while sitting in the shade, was able to strike up conversations with a lady from Anapolis, Maryland, and a couple from Miami, who gave me some tips about places to visit.

Germany… we ate a few more bites in the German section

China…

then Norway,

By the way, we saw another replica of this building at the Norwegian cultural center in Minnesota, across the river from Fargo, ND, while on vacation a few months ago. 

There was a Mexico section too, where we ate some carne asada, but I didn’t get any pictures. By this time, the walking, standing in line, and heat, had gotten to all of us, and we were exhausted and just looking for a place to relax. We hit a few rides just to have a place to sit down and get outta the heat. Then went back to the French section for a sit-down dinner. 
My friends wanted to stay for the fireworks show at 9p. I would have left if it were just Shell and I, but we stayed. Now, both my wife and I grew up in the shadow of Disneyland fireworks, and I’ve never been overly impressed by them. So I wasn’t expecting much. But I was wrong. This show…. it was truly spectacular. Disney has, by now, a long catalog of movies, characters and well-known songs from a variety of cultural references to put together a varied, but still familiar show. They also have very talented artists putting all this together and the resulting, sound, laser, and firework show was the proof of this. I found myself tapping along to familiar and…. really likeable music, and watching with amazement this production. The pictures here don’t do it justice, but from a skeptic, I was impressed.

I’ll close out Saturday’s stay at Epcot with a shot of the iconic ball all lit up.