Anaheim

Sorry we've been a bit slack on the blogging front lately- there's no free wireless internet here at our hotel in Anaheim like there was in San Diego.
Right now we're using the laptop of one of the parents here because we figured we haven't updated in 5 days and our parents might be going a bit nuts not having heard from us.

Our last day in San Diego was spent at the San Diego Zoo wild animal park. It was absolutely freezing that day. We were all like "where's the warm, sunny California weather we were expecting?" It was so windy that our faces were red because we had to walk everywhere and there was hardly any covered areas.
We saw lots of different animals, mainly African animals like giraffes, rhinos and elephants.

After spending the whole day at the park, we got on a bus to Anaheim. Most of us slept the whole time there, since it took 2 hours to get there. Everyone woke up once we started to see signs for Disneyland!
Our hotel rooms in Anaheim are a lot smaller than those in San Diego, so our room looks a lot messier with four girls' luggage. We are starting to accumulate a lot of "stuff". We're all suckers for Disney memorabilia. Our first night here was spent in the Downtown Disney store stocking up on clothes, hats, etc all featuring Disney characters. The Downtown Disney store is on the Disneyland lot but you don't actually need your Disneyland ticket to get in, you just have to go through a security bag check so we can go in and out as many times as we like. There's also restaurants and shops in the complex to explore.

On our second night here, we had dinner at the Rainforest Cafe at Downtown Disney. We had spent the day doing whatever we liked. Haylee, Claryse, Elise & I went hunting for Disney outlet stores on the main street and bought some Disney character t-shirts. We then got our hair braided for our performance the next day and went to Build-a-Bear to celebrate two of the little girls' birthdays. By the time that was finished, it was time for our reservation at the Rainforest Cafe. The cafe was decorated like a real rainforest, with moving animals and thunderstorms where the lights turned off. I had paella for dinner, and then Claryse, Ashlea and I shared a volcano dessert, which was a big brownie shaped into a volcano with icecream exploding from the middle like lava. We ordered it because whenever they delivered one to a table, two or three waiters came from the kitchen yelling "Vol-can-oooooo!" at the top of their lungs and we thought that was cool!

The next day was our first performance in America. We danced at Knott's Berry Farm. As performers, we had a backstage area to get dressed and prepared in. However, it was not anything like we imagined. The "room" was really a small open area, with a dirty concrete floor and a a small green room with a disgustingly dusty airconditioner and a small toilet. It was so dusty that it was hard to breathe.
The stage wasn't much better. It was wooden, and by the first dance many of us had splinters. One of the parents told us later that while we were offstage changing costumes, they got one of the maintenance guys to hammer in some nails that were sticking out of the stage! It certainly wasn't professional like we expected and therefore our performance wasn't the best.

Since our performance was mid-morning, we got the whole day to explore Knotts Berry Farm. It proclaims to be "America's 1st theme park" and there were definitely a lot of rollercoasters and other thrill seeking rides but there was no rides that were really in between. It was either kids rides or ridiculously scary rollercoasters. Us older girls were supposed to stay until 9pm but we ended up leaving with some of the younger kids and their families ar 6pm since we there was nothing really left for us to do.

We came home and babysat the Poirier kids (one of our dance teachers' kids) and then went out to dinner. We usually just stroll up and down the street until we find a restaurant all three of us agree looks good. The one thing we have found here is that the food is so much more unhealthy. Even when we try to eat healthy, like I ordered nachos thinking it would be corn chips and mince; the Americans manage to make it unhealthy. I had the most disgusting "yellow cheese" all over my nachos. It was more like cheese sauce than real cheese. It just makes you feel all bloated and disgusting. We are definitely missing Aussie food.

The next day we danced at Disneyland! We had to be there by 8am so it was a mad dash across the road to Disneylabd (yes we literally are across the street from Disneyland!) since the park opened at 8am and we were supposed to meet our stage manager across the other side of the park at 8.10am! Of course, we got there and the lines to get in were huge. We ended up speed walking right across Disneyland to Toon Town where we met our Stage Manager (who was very chirpy and Disney-like) and got escorted through the back lot to our dressing room (which was A LOT better than the one at Knotts Berry Farm). We got changed into our costume and took some photos before we had to go backstage. Then it was go time! Our performance was heaps better than the one at Knotts Berry Farm. We even had some non- Sally K people watch us!
After our performance we went back to our hotel and got changed before going back to the park and exploring Disneyland for real. We have a 5 day park hopper pass, which means we can go from Disneyland to California Adventure park back and forth as many times as we like in 5 days. We spent the day getting our bearings at Disneyland and going on some rides. Haylee, Claryse & I went on the Teacups and the Pirates of the Caribbean. Then we watched the street parade in the afternoon with everyone and had hot cocoa and cupcakes and watched the fireworks at 9.30pm.

Today we are dancing in the late afternoon at Disney's California Adventure park. It's our last performance, and hopefully because it's later in the day, we will have more of an audience! Then we are spending the next few days going back and forth between the parks as we please. We are having theme days to make it fun, like "Wear Red Day" and "Wear Disney wear Day".

We will try to blog more often, but it's hard because we have to ask to borrow laptops off other families. Hopefully once we get to New York we will find more wireless places. Normally we would find a Starbucks since they usually have reliable wireless internet, but we can't find any here in Anaheim. It's not like San Diego where we could easily catch public transport and find the nearest Starbucks to do a quick twitter update, but we will try to be in contact more regularly!