last festival is just around the corner

Hey everybody. Sorry it's been awhile, but once it gets to be over 2 weeks with no updates, I struggle to find the ambition to post when there are so many things to write about.

Both my parents were here a couple of weeks ago; my dad was here during his spring break and my mom for hers the following week. My dad was escorting for a group from the suburbs and Festival Disney was one of their stops. So in a roundabout way, I was working with my dad which I thought was pretty cool. We hung out a couple nights he was here with the final night culminating with him meeting some of my friends at Ale House.

My mom was here the following week, arriving in Orlando on Easter (side note: I kept telling everyone my parents were coming, but they would be here at different times. Mandy was telling everyone the same thing and kept getting asked if my parents were divorced. Luckily for me that is not the case). Anyway, we did various things around the state since there were black-out dates for the parks...not that my mom cares that much and has been here who knows how many times as it is. The Tuesday that she was here, we went to North Beach, which is west of St. Petersburg. Took us a little longer than we anticipated to get there, but it was a beautiful day nonetheless. Unfortunately, Mandy and I got insane sunburn. The next couple nights of sleep were rough for me. Wednesday my mom and I went to lunch at a great Greek place on international drive after I got off of work. We then tried to go to a botanical garden, but missed it by about 10 minutes (damn you, tourist traffic...). Instead we walked around Lake Eola and then came back home for some mini-golfing.

Like the title says, the end of Festival season is quickly approaching. May 7th and 8th will be our last weekend. However, I'm not officially done until June 11th, and the higher-ups have something kind of cool in store for us. For that last month, we will periodically be making sales calls, with some of us staying in the immediate area and others traveling all the way to northern Georgia. Those making the latter trip will be gone for almost two weeks. We will be finding out in a week where we will be going. Either way, it's going to be some GREAT experience.

As for me after the internship, it's one of two things (at this point): 1) go back to safari, get full-time either there or one of several other locations I would like, get on the Guest Relations bench/waitlist (in July) and then brush on my French to be able to give VIP tours after 6 months or 2) remain in Youth Programs for a little bit longer if they do offer me a sales position with other responsibilities. I don't think I would want to do the latter forever, but I also think I would be a fool to turn down the opportunity, experience, and money. With Guest Relations, it would satisfy my desire to go back to the parks and get my fill of guest interaction (which is what I miss the most) and basically have some fun before I feel the desire to remain in an office for awhile. I've had lots of meet and greets, but unfortunately, no one can make me decision for me.

Spring ultimate league is over, with our team finishing 5th out of 8, but summer starts in less than a month and I couldn't be more pumped. I liked my captain and teammates a lot and I'm hoping we get to stick together since there is a draft for our league (and now he'll know who I am). There are also club tryouts starting the beginning of June. A couple of the guys think I have a shot, so if I do make it, I'll see if I can in fact commit enough to remain with the team.

That should roughly bring you up to speed on everything. I'll let you know about the sales calls and post-internship news/job(???) when I get more of a handle on things.