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Orlando…Part I

By gwblogabroad

After a long, five hour, bus ride, we finally arrived to the destination we were all looking forward to for more than two months now: Orlando. We have never been more excited than at the moment we arrived in the city, or at least not since we came back from our trip to New York. However, we were all exhausted and the gloomy and rainy weather was not helping our situation. So, we hopped into the taxi, hoping we would soon get to our 7 dollars a night hotel.

You have to know that when you decide to book a room (for 5 people), in a hotel, that costs $7 a night, you don’t really know what to expect quality speaking. We knew we would have enough space for all of us to sleep and a bathroom, but that was it. So, when the taxi driver took us to a hotel where huge statues were at the top and where there was supposed to be an immense swimming pool, we kind of realized that this was too good to be true, way too good to be true. Now, the problem was that not only did we end up at the wrong hotel, but the taxi driver didn’t even know where our hotel was, even if we kept yelling at her the address. Therefore, when we finally made it to the right place (and yes, that hotel did not have any kind of statues), the meter was showing $110. There was no way on earth we would pay $110, even if we could afford it. We ended up paying $25 which we realized afterwards was a pretty good deal considering the tremendous amount of time we wasted sitting in that car.

After settling down at the hotel, we realized that a nice diner was less than 5 minutes away from the hotel. We had never experienced so far how it felt like to eat in a typical American diner and I have to admit that it is one of the best experiences I’ve had so far in the US. Not only was it cheap, but the food was exquisite and it was also very cozy with a homely atmosphere all around. All that remained to be done was going back to the hotel and relax. So we did. We came back to the hotel where we spent a peaceful and restful night without realizing what an exciting journey was waiting for us the next day.

Saying it was “just” a roller-coaster about the “Hulk” is a terrible underestimation. “Islands of Adventure” was the first theme park we decided to go to. We could see the famous Universal Studios’ globe from far away, but taking picture beside it was not part of Monday’s plans. We spent the whole day visiting Harry Potter’s castle, facing our fears by getting into different roller coasters and getting completely wet after being in an aquatic roller coaster. It was an exciting experience. During that day, it was not about magic like it was about to be in Disney, it was more about just letting go and having as much fun as we were having every day when we were little kids.

The following day, we woke up at 6:30 AM in order to be able to get on the shuttle that would directly take us to Epcot, one of Disney World’s theme parks. That day was what could call “relaxing”. No roller coasters and no crazy scary rides, all we did during the whole day was take pictures with Disney characters and attend to movies and shows. We got a chance to visit a few countries and imagine my surprise when I discovered that Morocco was represented in Disney World. I could not believe that people from all around the world are able to get a glimpse of my country just by coming to Disney. Unfortunately, when we went there, I realized that they were selling to people lies. The restaurants were selling people Syrian and Lebanese food while the shops were selling Egyptian clothes. Nothing about that place was Moroccan, except for the people working there which were actually imported from Morocco. It was a huge disappointment for me as I realized that it was all about marketing. However, I wasn’t about to let that destroy the rest of my day, let      alone the rest of my trip. At that moment, I didn’t quite grasp the fact that was living one of the best experiences of my entire life and I hate myself now for letting such things ruin my day.  Fortunately, I realized how lucky I was for being where I was and doing what I did at the end of the day, while watching what I thought were the most splendid fireworks I’ve ever seen. But at that moment, I still didn’t know what I was going to live during the rest of my trip…