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Terrorizing Disney
Jan. 9th, 2008 02:59 pm[Error: unknown template qotd]
That's me with Minnie Mouse, when I was 15 years old, July 1991. Growing up in Brasil, every kid dreamt of visiting Disney World. In the winter of 1991 (summer in the northern hemisphere), we signed up with a travel agency that specialised in taking teenagers on holiday to the U.S. It was the summer when E.M.F.'s "Unbelievable" was top of the charts, as well as C&C's Music Factory "Things That Make You Go Hmmm" (this song was playing in the hotel's bar when we arrived). My brother and I were to share a room with Guilherme and Fernando, two boys we grew up with. Other friends and neighbours (including my brother's girlfriend Roberta) were also in the group. The youngest person was probably 12, and the oldest 17.
Our mothers watched from a window in Sao Paulo's Cumbica airport as we walked into the Global Airline plane that would fly us to Florida. Apparently, not many of them were confident the plane would make it safely there. Judging by the age of the air stewards, and the rotting seats, they were nearly right. Fernando sat beside me and kept worrying about any shake in the plane; he was terrified of flying. When we hit a turbulent patch, I told him we were going to die.
When we got to our hotel in Orlando, my brother and the two boys started jumping on the beds and screaming. I lay on one bed, legs and arms spread out, trying to stop them. At night, they'd take ice from the hallways ice machines and play war. We had never seen ice machines before. The other hotel guests were not impressed.
We spent two weeks in Florida, visiting Disney World, Epicot Centre, Bush Gardens, Paramount and Wet 'n Wild (my favourite day). We pissed off a lot of Americans because, while we went on a ride, our guides would wait in line for other attractions. As soon as the guides got to the front, they let all of us go ahead of them. The other tourists stared at us in anger, biting back their outrage. Because of brasilian kids like us, Disney started sending tapes the next year to brasilian travel agencies for teenagers to learn how to behave in the U.S.
My favourie memory is riding above Disney World on a cable car, Fernando spitting on the heads of as many people as he could manage. As we were nearing the end, I noticed security guards waiting for us. Fernando begged me to tell them he was retarded, otherwise he'd get kicked out of the park. So I did, and he got away with it.
That's me with Minnie Mouse, when I was 15 years old, July 1991. Growing up in Brasil, every kid dreamt of visiting Disney World. In the winter of 1991 (summer in the northern hemisphere), we signed up with a travel agency that specialised in taking teenagers on holiday to the U.S. It was the summer when E.M.F.'s "Unbelievable" was top of the charts, as well as C&C's Music Factory "Things That Make You Go Hmmm" (this song was playing in the hotel's bar when we arrived). My brother and I were to share a room with Guilherme and Fernando, two boys we grew up with. Other friends and neighbours (including my brother's girlfriend Roberta) were also in the group. The youngest person was probably 12, and the oldest 17.
Our mothers watched from a window in Sao Paulo's Cumbica airport as we walked into the Global Airline plane that would fly us to Florida. Apparently, not many of them were confident the plane would make it safely there. Judging by the age of the air stewards, and the rotting seats, they were nearly right. Fernando sat beside me and kept worrying about any shake in the plane; he was terrified of flying. When we hit a turbulent patch, I told him we were going to die.
When we got to our hotel in Orlando, my brother and the two boys started jumping on the beds and screaming. I lay on one bed, legs and arms spread out, trying to stop them. At night, they'd take ice from the hallways ice machines and play war. We had never seen ice machines before. The other hotel guests were not impressed.
We spent two weeks in Florida, visiting Disney World, Epicot Centre, Bush Gardens, Paramount and Wet 'n Wild (my favourite day). We pissed off a lot of Americans because, while we went on a ride, our guides would wait in line for other attractions. As soon as the guides got to the front, they let all of us go ahead of them. The other tourists stared at us in anger, biting back their outrage. Because of brasilian kids like us, Disney started sending tapes the next year to brasilian travel agencies for teenagers to learn how to behave in the U.S.
My favourie memory is riding above Disney World on a cable car, Fernando spitting on the heads of as many people as he could manage. As we were nearing the end, I noticed security guards waiting for us. Fernando begged me to tell them he was retarded, otherwise he'd get kicked out of the park. So I did, and he got away with it.
