Wednesday Escape.

The Flower and Garden Festival opens next week, but the topiaries were up:

I don’t remember this little Tinkerbell! She’s in the lovely garden behind the UK pavilion. (Pro Tip: Grab a pint at the pub across the street and drink it back here in the quiet. I was the ONLY person in that garden for a while on Wednesday.)

There are WAY more topiaries than these, of course, this is just a random sampling.

I walked around the World Showcase and the endless construction barriers in Future World. The exhibit buildings/rides are all open, but the entire center behind Spaceship Earth is being demolished and rebuilt. I saw the new entrance to the park and totally approve. The old version had a lot of concrete and those monument/pylons with tiny engraved images of people who immortalized their visit by buying an image. My granddaughter loved to play hide and seek in them, generally when the adults were really freaking tired and trying to get her the F out of the park before one of us, possibly Grandma, had a meltdown.

As with any changes at the Disney Parks, the redo of the Epcot entrance was met with wailing and rending of garments, but damn, I really, really like the new version. It’s greener, more colorful, and when the trees get a year or so to get going, it’s going to be shadier and much cooler.

So it was a lovely day free of the gas-filled home office. I had but one mission: I promised my daughter I’d bring her a school bread from the bakery in Norway. (I tried to get her to play hooky with me, but damn, she’s a responsible professional adult and had to teach a training.)

I shared the link to Disney Food Blog because it has a great description of the pastry itself. I of course got two, and ate mine for breakfast yesterday morning, because it is perfection with coffee. It’s not an ooey-gooey sticky -sweet pastry, despite its appearance. They are such a thing to their fans, I hiked back to the bakery, then hiked my tired ass all the way to my car juggling these two plastic containers in the hot sun. They survived the trip home just slightly worse for wear. It was worth it. If I had the time I think I’d make this trip once a week.

It was a good day, and I really would like to do this once a month. If only I had paid time off. I worked extra hours to make up most of my “day off.” Because this is my life.