Bubbly Charm

As I prepare the rest of my Disney World posts, I am going to go off track a little bit and talk about my trip this past weekend to Indianapolis!

My family loves the Colts. Ever since Johnny Unitas played on what used to be the Baltimore Colts, my dad has been a fan, which then led to my aunt becoming a fan as well. Last year was my first trip to Indianapolis. We had gone for Peyton Manning's statue unveiling and retirement ceremony. Being able to see one of the greats in person was amazing, especially for a first trip.

This year, my dad decided to get season tickets. With some of those tickets, my dad decided to give my aunt a trip to Indy for her birthday, so we all packed up onto a plane a headed for Naptown.

I want this post to serve just as a quick little sightseeing and food companion in case you ever decide to take the trip yourself.

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SIGHTSEEING

One of the best parts about Indianapolis is, as long as you stay at a hotel right in the city, everything is in a walkable distance. Everything from the restaurants, to the museum, to the mall (which has an entrance right next to our hotel), you do not need to take a car for anything, which is so ideal for a vacation.

There are a few places that my dad likes to hit when we go out there. One of them, is Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument. Located in Monument Circle, this nearly 300-foot monument has the capability to carry you to the very top, allowing you to view the different sights that Indianapolis has to offer. You can either walk the 330 steps to the top for free, or you can pay $2 to take the elevator up. Whichever you decide to do, the view is definitely worth it.

Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument

View from Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument... you can see Lucas Oil Stadium in the back!

View from Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument

Surrounding area of Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument

Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument

Another amazing place to visit is the Indiana War Memorial Museum. Located just a few blocks away from the monument, the museum is the perfect place to learn about history. The place is donation only, so there is no actual fee to get in. The museum was originally built to honor the veterans of World War I, but eventually grew into a museum honoring all veterans.

It features loads of artifacts and dioramas (my favorite part) to help paint a better picture of what life was truly like for the soldiers during these times. It's a very impactful museum that I highly recommend visiting.

Entrance to the Indiana War Memorial Museum

Inside of the Indiana War Memorial Museum

Every time we go to the museum (my dad and my brother have been more than five times), we end the excursion by going up to the shrine, which was the part built to honor the WWI veterans. It's quiet--as it's a place for reflection--and heavy, and very beautiful, with a huge American flag in the center of the room.

Inside of the shrine at the Indiana War Memorial Museum

If you do happen to take a trip here during football season, I recommend going to a Colts game. Lucas Oil Stadium is energetic, new, and so cool with the retractable roof. If you do get to go, you must get the loaded nachos. Even if you don't, seeing everyone walking around with them will make your mouth water so much!

Lucas Oil Stadium

The Peyton Manning statue outside of Lucas Oil Stadium

The stage where music plays before the game!

Lucas Oil Stadium

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DINING

Here is where I am going to get very serious. As you may have been able to tell from some other travel posts, my family takes food very seriously. Naturally, we always go to St. Elmo Steakhouse while in Indy.

Considered one of the best steakhouses, St. Elmo is known for their "World Famous Shrimp Cocktail." Extremely hot, this shrimp cocktail not only makes your eyes water, but contains the best tasting shrimp that are absolutely cooked to perfection. In case you still aren't convinced, they are indeed so popular that you can purchase the cocktail sauce online to have your own St. Elmo party. La-dee-da!

The "St. Elmo Shrimp Cocktail"... pardon my Snapchat caption!

When you order a steak, your dinner comes with either a navy bean soup or tomato juice before your entree, but you can upgrade for the soup du jour, which happened to be lobster bisque so you can guess what I had! Rich and creamy, but not too filling, so I still had plenty of room for dinner and dessert!

For dinner I had filet mignon and a choice of a baked potato, french fries, redskin mashed potatoes, or sautéed green beans. I chose the french fries, but I know that the redskin mashed potatoes are heavenly! They also have extra sides you can order. My brother always goes for the crab mac and cheese, which is also outstanding.

In case you aren't in the mood for red meat, they also offer pasta dishes, seafood, chicken, and chops, so there is definitely something for everyone.

When I went to Indy last year, they had an incredible chocolate layer cake that I was so looking forward to again this time, but unfortunately, they didn't have it anymore. But, of course, that didn't prevent them from other amazing things on the dessert menu. Cheesecake, creme brûlée, and ice cream are just a few of the options to choose from. Since I'm a chocoholic, I had the double chocolate mousse pie. While I love chocolate anything, sometimes chocolate mousse can still be a little rich, but this was perfect! It was somewhat fluffy and melted on my tongue, not even making it necessary to chew. It wasn't the chocolate layer cake, but it was still amazing.

Glimpse of the menu

Lobster bisque

Dinner's ready!

Perfectly cooked--medium-rare, of course!

Chocolate mousse pie! My aunt had the lemon butter cake!

Little look at one of the walls!

So that was a wrap on dinner for night one, but night two still had to happen! We went to Harry and Izzy's which is St. Elmo's sister restaurant--they have the shrimp cocktail, too!! Only my aunt got the shrimp cocktail this second night. I had a caesar salad, along with my mom and brother, and my dad had the seared tuna, which looked incredible.

Since it had been a long day at the game, I decided to have a burger, but you can have pretty much anything here. They do have steaks like St. Elmo, but they also have pasta and seafood and chicken, as well. The burger was so juicy and the fries were seasoned so well, and it really hit the spot. Also like St. Elmo, you can pick from a handful of sides to add to the table.

The dessert menu only contains three things: a signature brownie, creme brûlée, and Woodford Reserve bread pudding (which serves two-four people and takes 12 minutes to prepare). The brownie lover in me opted for that, and what really made it was the Woodford Reserve caramel sauce drizzled on top! My parents split the bread pudding, which always looks to die for.

The brownie, of course, was so delicious.

Caesar salad

Cheeseburger: one of my weaknesses!

Another weakness: a brownie!

This ended up being a lot longer than I intended, but I hope you find it helpful if you find yourself traveling to this amazing city!

Until next time! CLINK!!

Jordan xx

Our first full day in Disney World arrived and we couldn't have been more excited! We started off the morning going to breakfast at the hotel with, of course, Mickey pancakes and waffles! They had so much food to offer including eggs any way you want them, fruit, overnight oats, juices, and pastries.

I had Mickey pancakes, overnight oats, a quiche, and a chocolate chip muffin!

My dad booked our parks to line-up with the Early Magic Hours. If you don't know what that is, when you stay at a Disney Resort, you get to enter a park at 8 AM instead of the regular 9 AM. But not every park is offered every day. On this day, Epcot was open for Early Magic Hours, Friday was Magic Kingdom, and so on and so forth. With that being said, this was a pretty early day. We were outside waiting for the boat by 7:15.

The boat from the Dolphin to Epcot is about 15 minutes. It makes a stop at the BoardWalk, as well as one stop for the Yacht Club and Beach Club, before heading over to Epcot. The boat does not drop you off at the front of the park, instead it drops you off in the back in the World Showcase between England and France.

The boat ride to Epcot

With the fast passes, when you fast pass a "premium" ride, you are only allowed that one fast pass. Because I wanted to go on Frozen Ever After, he was able to get that fast pass for 6 PM that night, so the rest of the day we had to wait for rides, which wasn't terrible. When you go in for the Early Magic Hours, fast pass is not available, so when we arrived the first ride we jumped on line for was Test Track. In total, I would say we waited maybe a half hour, which is way better than the two-hour wait it became later in the day.

Right after Test Track, we went over to Soarin', which is definitely not as popular as it used to be. We waited only about ten minutes, which in all fairness could have been because it was still Early Magic Hours.

Soarin' changed a lot since I last went on it five years ago. It used to be "Soarin' Over California," but now you travel across the world through Paris, Egypt, and the Arctic. My brother was disappointed that it wasn't California anymore, but I really loved it.

Inside of The Land in Future World East

Spaceship Earth

Hanging with Nemo and friends

You're probably waiting for me to talk about the World Showcase, but since we eat in a country for dinner the night we are in Epcot, we save the countries for the night, which I love so much because nothing is better than walking around at night with all of the beautiful lights each country has to offer.

We ended up being able to go on everything, and even got to meet some characters. We waited on line for Mickey, Minnie, and Goofy, and before leaving to get ready for dinner, we got to meet Princess Aurora in France and Mary Poppins in England. If time permits, I highly suggest meeting at least a few characters. Through the My Disney Experience app, you can search for character spots and the times in which the characters make appearances. The indoor locations usually run all day, but the outdoor spots are on rotations, since it gets so hot out!

Mickey in the Epcot Character Spot

Minnie in the Epcot Character Spot

Goofy in the Epcot Character Spot

Mary Poppins in England

Princess Aurora in France

One of my favorite parts of meeting characters is getting to have a different conversation with each of them. Mary Poppins is very prim and proper, and made conversation with me about my family. Princess Aurora loved my pins and told me about how she had been asking the fairies to make some for her. Every little detail in Disney World adds so much more to the magic and happiness that it brings.

Before going on this trip, I promised myself that I would try a different snack each day. This first day, I had the famous Mickey ice cream bar! The ice cream bars and ice cream sandwiches can be purchased at pretty much every stand in all of the Disney parks, so this treat was extremely easy to find.

Mickey ice cream bar

That night, after going back to the hotel to get changed and ready for dinner, we headed back to Epcot for dinner and to walk around the different countries. First, we went over to Norway to meet Elsa and Anna at Royal Sommerhus, and only waited about 10 minutes at around 5:30. The queue is beautiful--you walk through a Norwegian cottage, passing paintings of the young Princess and Queen. The setting for the pictures is amazing, as well, with windows overlooking scenic landscapes.

Meet Elsa and Anna at Royal Sommerhus

Elsa and me at Meet Elsa and Anna at Royal Sommerhus

Anna and me at Meet Elsa and Anna at Royal Sommerhus

Our fast passes for Frozen Ever After were at 6:00 PM, so we scanned in at 5:55 (since you have a five-minute buffer before your time starts) and got on line. About five minutes into us waiting, there was an announcement over the speaker that "Frozen Ever After has temporarily stopped service." Okay.

Our dinner reservations weren't until 7, so we had time to wait, but were we going to waste time that could be spent walking around Mexico before dinner? After hearing the same message about seven times, and after waiting 15 minutes, we decided to get off line. So, no, I did NOT make it onto Frozen Ever After. And to answer this question if you have it: my dad checked after our fast pass window was over, and the ride wasn't running again.

Little picture of Norway!

After our Frozen fiasco, we went over to Mexico to walk around before our reservations at San Angel Inn Restaurante. One of my favorite places in all of Epcot is inside of the Mexican pyramid. There are so many little shops that feature some of the most beautiful pieces. For myself I bought a little skull, and for my boyfriend I bought a maraca. The items are always authentic and individually crafted to perfection. We also had to go on Gran Fiesta Tour Starring the Three Caballeros, a calming boat ride through Mexico and through the restaurant we were eating at.

Mexico, World Showcase, Epcot

The cute shops inside of the temple!

The skull I got from one of the stands! Everything in Mexico is this beautiful! If I could've afforded it I think I would've bought everything!!

What I love about the San Angel Inn Restaurante is the amazing VIEW!! You feel as though you are in the middle of a village, as you overlook the indoor pyramid. There's the music of a mariachi band playing, and authentic Mexican food, making you feel like you're in the restaurant it is modeled after, dating back to the 1600s.

The view while you're eating!

The restaurant is pretty dark, so I don't have many pictures of the food, but I have a few that I'll post below. Instead of bread like other places, they give each table a basket of the best tortilla chips, alongside their famous salsas. If you fancy appetizers, to name a few they have queso, shrimp cocktail, guacamole (to go with the chips), and a caesar salad. An interesting fact about the salad, is apparently the real San Angel Inn is where the caesar salad was first created. Pretty crazy!

I had the caesar, and it was delicious! It was perfectly dressed and the anchovies gave such a nice flavor to it. Anyone else think most places should put anchovies on their caesars like they're supposed to?!

The caesar salad!

They have a lot of different choices for dinner, including tacos, salads, salmon, chicken, pork--you name it! I had the Pollo a Las Rajas, which was chicken serves over garlic potatoes, onions, red peppers, corn, and a poblano cream sauce and queso fresco. It was so comforting!! If you're looking for something not as filling, the entree salads are pretty light, and so are the tacos, because you don't have to eat all of the sides that they come with!

The pollo a las rajas!

They have so many desserts to choose from, including flan, dulce de leche, nieves, mousse de chocolate, and pastel de queso con cajeta. While all of it sounded amazing, I was saving my dessert for a treat in another country while walking around. I saw a lot of people order the flan and boy did it tempt me.

Overall, I'd give this restaurant an 8/10. The ambience, the staff, and the food were all amazing. The reason why I'm giving it an 8 is because it wasn't the best meal I have ever had, but it is definitely worth the visit the next time you're in Epcot!

Since we already visited Norway, we went right over to China, but only to take some great pictures. One of my favorite parts of all of the countries is the accurate architecture. China, being no exception, was colorful and architecturally perfect.

China

Next up was Germany. When we walked up, we immediately saw Snow White meeting guests at her wishing well. Germany was another beautiful part. Flowers were blooming, music was playing, and it looked even more pretty during that time of day. I went into one of the shops and ended up buying my boyfriend brandy-filled chocolates. The packaging was adorable, and he said he wasn't going to open it for that reason, but he loves food so he couldn't resist and had to try one. I'll just say that he says it's one of the best liquor-filled items he has ever had.

Snow White at her wishing well in Germany!

Isn't Germany beautiful?!

I snapped this next picture while walking from Germany to Italy because it was too perfect to not capture it!

View of Epcot!

So, you guessed it, Italy was next. At a little stand, they had gelato and cocktails, so I opted for a Peach Bellini. I know, you're probably wondering why I didn't go for the gelato, but earlier that day when I was waiting to meet Princess Aurora, my dad found this little French ice cream parlor that he thought looked incredible, so that was our plan for dessert.

Back to the Peach Bellini, the ratio between the ingredients was perfetto! It was a shame I loved it so much that I chugged it!

Peach Bellini was delizioso!

My boyfriend's family is Italian. His mom is half, and his dad was born in Sicily. In the shop, I picked his parents up some packed espresso, because between all of them I think they must drink five (or even more!) espressos a day!

All of the countries had gorgeous handmade goods to take home and I wanted everything everywhere. However, in Italy, there was something about those items that really caught my eye. They sold the most beautiful ceramic olive oil bottles, but they were a little more on the pricier side. They also had little plates and wall hangings, but I fell in love with the creamer!! So many different colors to choose from, and I always stick with green since it's my favorite! For the wondering the price, it was $30!

Italy!

Fontana di Nettuno (Fountain of Neptune) in Italy

More Italy!

The creamer from Italy!

Japan was next! For those who know me, you know that it is a big dream of mine to go to Japan. Studio Ghibli movies are some of my favorites, and I still play Pokemon Go with my friends on a weekly basis. The store in Japan had those things and way more available. Since I can get a lot of the themed things at home, I decided to buy myself chopsticks and a maneki-neko, or "beckoning cat."

This was also where I decided to get my boyfriend's brother and sister a little something! I got his brother a bag of Hi-Chew-type candies (they sold Hi-Chew there but I opted for one I have never seen at home), and I got his sister Koala's March (which you actually can buy at home.... oops!). They both loved them!

It was pretty late by the time we got to Japan, so my pictures are a little dark!

Japan!

Even more Japan!

From there we went straight to France because it was getting late and we wanted ice cream. France is another beautiful spot in Epcot! Very quaint and somewhat private, it's a beautiful spot to slip away to when the World Showcase is bustling.

France!

The ice cream parlor we went to was L'Artisan des Glaces and my, oh, my. May have been the best ice cream I have ever had. I got a double scoop in a waffle cone with coffee ice cream and a flavor I can't remember and it's not on the Disney website, but I'm pretty sure it had fudge and caramelized peanuts? I wish I could remember because it was out of this world! So creamy, so flavorful, and scooped perfectly.

My ice cream is making my mouth water as I'm writing this!

Pardon the blur, but I still love this picture!!

Since we went to England earlier that day, I only walked back to take some pictures, but since it's dark, the pictures don't really do it justice with how beautiful it really is.

United Kingdom!

Since it was 9 o'clock already, we had to stay for the fireworks! "IllumiNations: Reflections of Earth" is a pyrotechnic show on the World Showcase Lagoon. To get the best view of the show, I recommend standing between France and England on that bridge. You get the perfect view of most of the countries and the performance itself.

IllumiNations: Reflections of Earth

As you can probably tell, we had a pretty busy first full day in Disney, but it was so worth it! With how well this day went, we knew the rest of the trip was going to be just as incredible.

Check back soon for our second full day and to find out which park came next!

Until next time!
CLINK!!

Jordan xx

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Friday, October 5, 2018

Indianapolis!

Monday, September 24, 2018

Guide to Disney World, Pt. II: Epcot