On the Road!
- Sep 9, 2016
- 4 min read
Well folks, I am officially on the road to Orlando! We left this morning shortly after 6:30am and as I type this we are now in Pennsylvania. Only 17 hours and 22 minutes to go!
Now that I am in the midst of my 20-hour car ride to Orlando, I am feeling more and more excited about my adventure. But the past few weeks have not all been filled with excitement, they have also been filled with a little sadness. Saying goodbye to my family and friends has been hard. Most of my hard goodbyes took place last weekend as I had a couple of goodbye get-togethers with my family. I spent Saturday with my mom’s family, my bestie Christina, and Matt’s family. We had a Disney themed party! My mom got us some Mickey and Minnie ears and I made the cake! For those of you who don’t know me too well, you should know that I absolutely love baking! I make everything from scratch too! So for this “cake” I actually made vanilla cupcakes and then formed the cupcakes into the shape of Mickey’s head. I also made buttercream icing and A LOT of food colouring was used to get the colour juuuuuust right. Those who were lucky enough to get a cupcake from Mickey’s ears definitely had a pretty mouth afterwards (lol). Then on Sunday, I spent the afternoon at brunch with my dad’s family. We went to a local restaurant that has the most amazing Sunday brunch buffet! Definitely a favourite of mine so I am glad I got to have it one more time before leaving Canada.
Over the past three weeks I have also been really making an effort to see all of my closest friends. I’ve lost count how many times I have gone out for dinner in the past three weeks (I made sure to hit up all of my favourite restaurants… Boston Pizza, Johnny Rocco’s. Jack Astor’s, Lester D’s… yum!). Saying goodbye has really made me realize the impact that not only have other people had on my life but also the impact that I have had on other people’s lives. I feel so lucky to have such a close knit group of friends from high school, from university, from Swiss Chalet, and from teaching!
Getting to see my loved ones before leaving Canada was really a blessing. I am so lucky to have such amazing family and friends who made the effort to see me before I left. These are the people who have supported me no matter what throughout my life, and have been there every step of the way as I made the decision to pursue my Disney dream. I will certainly miss everyone so so much while I am away but I know we will keep in touch!
Saying goodbye to Matt was especially hard. We have been trying to spend as much time together as possible and we have had quite a few adventures! Just yesterday, our last day in Canada together, we went down to the Falls to do the Mist Rider Zipline! It was so awesome! Then we just hung out for the rest of the day and Matt also helped me run a couple last minute errands. Matt also stayed at my parents’ house with me last night so that we could say goodbye in the morning. It was definitely a hard goodbye (spoiler alert: there were tears). However, in spite of the tears, I tried to remind myself that he will be coming to visit in November and in reality the whole year will fly by. By the time we turned off my street to head to the border, I had composed myself and I was ready for my adventure!
When we got to the USA border, we had to go inside to immigration. We were there for about thirty minutes… A little bit of time waiting and then I had to show all of my paperwork to an officer. The officers at the border this morning made me feel even more excited about the fact that I was going to work at Disney World! The officer who I was working with directly was so kind and seemed genuinely interested in hearing about my program and what I’ll be doing in Disney, and then as we were leaving a second officer was asked me about my role at Disney and wished me good luck! It was a really nice welcome to the USA.
Since then it has been pretty much straight driving. We stopped quickly to grab some breakfast shortly after we left and now we are just sailing down highway 79 in Pennsylvania! Probably going to do some reading and also a lot of sleeping for the rest of the drive. I will post again later this weekend when I arrive in Orlando!
Follow me on snapchat to stay up to date on my road trip and adventures as I arrive in Orlando tomorrow and spend that day with my family and Eileen on Sunday! Snapchat: stephmilbs
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