The one about the food.

And the music. And the food. And the music. And also more food and music. And the Jesus skywriter.

But I'll start where I left off - Toy Story Mania. What a fantastic ride! In spite of the pain of getting up and going early enough to be there for rope drop, I'm glad we did. I did not score particularly well, but in my defense, I was kind of taking in the whole experience and sort of slow with my shooter. The Husband did quite well, however!

After Toy Story Mania, we grabbed a quick breakfast at Starring Rolls Cafe, then left the park and headed off to Sea World. We had an enjoyable day seeing the sea critters, and even had an extended underwater viewing of the manatee habitat while a thunderstorm blew through during the afternoon. Overheard in the Wild Arctic exhibit, while observing the beluga whales, a guy said to his girlfriend, "Hey, these are those manatees!" Um, notsomuch, dude. The Arctic and the Everglades? Not exactly the same.

When it started looking likely that we were going to get rained on again, we made our way out of the park. Just as we arrived at the car, the rain started again, so we'd made a good decision. We drove back to our resort for a bit of a break, then we were off to Epcot to see Big Bad Voodoo Daddy at the Eat to the Beat concert! We arrived early enough to grab some beverages at the San Juan, PR booth (frozen mojito for The Husband, frozen dragon berry colada for me), and chicken souvlaki and spanakopita at the Athens, Greece booth. Yum. We got great seats for the BBVD show, which was really good; they played a mix of their older stuff and some Cab Calloway covers from their newest release.  This is the fourth time we've seen them play in some venue or another and they always put on a good show.

Since we were pretty much wiped out by that point, we headed back to the resort, grabbed a quick dinner at Artist's Palette, then crashed.

Next morning, we slept in - my birthday, my choice. :) After getting some breakfast, we intended to hang out at the resort pool for awhile, then heading over to Epcot to enjoy more Food & Wine action before our dinner ADR at Rose & Crown. However, the day took a slight detour for The Husband when he attempted to go back to our room briefly after breakfast, before joining me at the pool, and his key card wouldn't work in the door. A new card, a visit by the maintenance guy, and about 45 minutes later, he finally made it. In spite of that, we floated in the pool for awhile, then got ourselves sorted and headed off to Epcot.

Oh. My. The food. And drink. Out of twenty-seven stands, we ate and/or drank at twelve total stands, ten of them on my birthday. Here's the rundown:

• Desserts & Champagne: Austrian Bundt Cake, Grand Marnier Parfait with Orange Coulis
• Rio de Janiero, Brazil: Leblon Frozen Caipirinha
• Buenos Aires, Argentina: Grilled Beef Skewer with Chimichurri and Boniato Puree
• The Mouse Catch: Trio of Cheeses - Dorothea (Dutch), Piave (Italian), Mahon (Spanish)
• Mexico City, Mexico: Corn Tortilla filled with Shredded Pork and Purple Onions, Mousse de Piña Colada y Coco
• Krakow, Poland: Kielbasa and Potato Pierogi with Carmelized Onions and Sour Cream, Chopin Raspberry Chiller
• Cape Town, South Africa: Seared Beef Tenderloin with Sweet Potato Puree and Mango Barbeque Sauce
• Munich, Germany: Apple Strudel with Vanilla Sauce, Beck's Oktoberfest
• Bologna, Italy: Cannelloni, Polpettini (veal meatballs in red sauce), Primavera (strawberry, banana, & peach slush)
• Paris, France: Chocolate Milk Crème Brûlée, Parisien Cosmo Slush

We kind of had to stop at that point, because of our dinner plans.  We made a few stops along the way at some of the permanent country pavilions in the World Showcase, as well as stopping to see Richard Marx at the Eat to the Beat concert. Weirdest moment of the day: a skywriter who first wrote "PRAISE JESUS", then "JESUS 4 GIVES", seemingly aimed at the masses at Epcot.

We checked in a bit early for dinner, but we were ready to get off our feet for awhile, and still kind of full from grazing.  We did get lucky and were seated outside for fireworks viewing. We had a delicious meal (if a bit large and un-finish-able after our grazing) and enjoyed the fireworks. Our server brought me a birthday card signed by the waitstaff, which was a nice touch.  After dinner and fireworks, there were Extra Magic Hours, so we took advantage and rode some of the rides in Future World before heading out of the park and over to Boardwalk to Jellyroll's for dueling pianos! I love dueling piano bars, and we had an enjoyable time singing along (and even dancing along, at one point, to The Time Warp!) before heading back to the resort to collapse.