I'M HEEEEEEEEEEERE

Well I meant to do updates along the way as I was packing and such, but long story short.. I was home for a week, went to Colorado/Utah for the first time (WHICH WAS GORGEOUS!), then home for a week, then left... so basically I was running around and stressed frantically trying to cross things off my "to-do" list (which I still didn't finish everything!).

So here I am! :) I smiled when I walked in on the first day and saw this:  

                                                               

I am nestled safely into the 4th apartment of my life. I'm living with my previous roommate, Ashley from MI, and a new girl, Paige we met from Minnesota that lives 5 minutes from the Wisconsin border. Ashley will be a seasonal employee and will only be here until the end of August since she unfortunately has to go back to school ;( She is continuing to work at Downtown Disney at Art of Disney, Memories, and the Christmas store. She can also pick up shifts wherever she wants that involve merchandise so she is really looking forward to shifts at the Tower of Terror gift shop and others around the parks! Paige will be a management intern at the Contemporary Resort at Chef Mickey's and will be here until January like me working crazy hours! Look how pretty the clubhouse looks ;)

And I'd just like to point out that we live off of this street: 

I've been to all 4 parks so far and actually just bought an annual pass to Universal Studios because if you only go 2 days it's worth it! They have a summer concert series with Kip Moore, Adam Lambert, and some other people! We just missed Ne-yo. Ha. But we did just see Gavin DeGraw! Very fun, especially since I hadn't been there before! So the first full 3-4 days we had pretty much full 12-hour days in the parks in the hot sun!

Moving on, I saw that my schedule practically every day for the next 3 weeks is going to be 5:30am-2pm. Anyone that knows me knows that this is a problem! So here's a recap of my first week:

Monday: SCAVENGER HUNT! SO so fun! It was with my other fellow intern, Carlos and then another intern from cast activities, Jarret. Our scavenger hunt consisted of going to all 4 parks, ESPN Wide World of Sports, a healthy living center, and a merchandise location. We also met our 2 bosses in Italy and had lunch! Surprisingly though, the food wasn't as good as I had imagined ;/ We all shared pizza and pasta, but the pizza was so thin and greasy I could have used it to grease a baking pan.

Then I was SUPER excited we were going to all 4 parks because on my bucket list was going to all 4 parks in one day and I was going to do it on my first day of work! Seriously..how perfect! Then, of course, right after we get off the Hollywood Studios tram I forgot my ID in the car! I didn't want the guys to wait for me to go all the way back to get it if we just needed a quick picture of Mickey's hat, so unfortunately I can't technically say I did all 4 parks, hence it's still on the bucket list! Also, the other intern, Jarret, did 2 college programs before (as I had done last year) and that was his first time at Hollywood Studios!!! (previously named MGM) I couldn't believe it since he had free admission for a year practically, but he lived far away. Still..no excuses.

Tuesday: Nothing too crazy. I was shown around some more in the fitness center and got some more things set-up like my new Disney e-mail !! Erica.N.Swan@disney.com - how presh. And shown how to fold towels, clean, etc. etc. But then they have a walking league in the early afternoon that I'm going to be able to help lead. We go to a recreation center just for cast members down the street where I used to live and individuals set up teams based on where they work. We set up signs that marks a half mile and the walkers have 1 hour to walk as many laps as they can. As they come by us, we punch a hole in their card and that goes toward their team points. The team with the most points at the end of 10 weeks wins prizes! So that was fun to see, especially riding in the golf cart to set up the signs :)

Wednesday-Friday: Not as exciting stuff. Met my other boss since she was on vacation in Shanghai and brought in little Monster's Inc. cookies since Monster's University came out Friday. Friday I went to a place called "World of beer" where they mix beer drafts from all over the world into one beer! The raspberry beer was delicious! The weekend was relaxing and finally got everything else done that needed to be done. We had a lot of problems earlier this week trying to deal with our landlord, the energy, and internet bill but it is finally all situated! Relaxation is beautiful.

And lastly, a fun fact is that Paige told us that the average server at Chef Mickey's makes around $600/night in tips!! The lowest seniority there is 9 years and goes up to 40+ years. That's 6 figures by just being a server!! Wowza! Makes sense though that the dining plan is expensive and paid for ahead of time so tips are the only money you're actually paying at that time. Plus, the Contemporary is the most expensive resort and convention center, right behind the Grand Floridian, but I'm sure any servers here do pretty well. Crazy!

More fun updates will be coming soon! I already have about 19 things I can continue blogging about.. eek!