Day 1663: Greatest City in the World

It's been about five years since I last headed to the greatest city in the world, but there were still a million things I hadn't done there, and that meant that when my friend Kiera asked if I wanted to take a spontaneous trip to New York, I immediately checked my bank account to figure out if I could swing it financially, especially with moving to Florida in just a few weeks. Luckily, I did some budgeting and found enough leftover cash from various gigs I'd picked up and other awards from college to make a trip to New York City happen and we booked it soon after. 

Of course, there's a lot to talk about when it comes to New York City, which is why plenty of the posts from the last week which have yet to appear will absolutely be focused on my trip, but it seems fair to give an overall rundown of all the excitement we experienced on our adventures! 

As you can see from the above picture, we were lucky enough to see FIVE shows while in New York. Four were Broadway shows, including Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812, War Paint, Bandstand, and Chicago, and one Off-Broadway show: Avenue Q. We rushed all the shows, meaning we would sit outside the theatre's box office in the morning for an hour or two (or more) in hopes to get discount seats. The wait is frequently worth it though, as we had excellent seats for all five shows and basically saw four of the shows for the regular price of one, if you take into account where our seats were for some of the shows. 

But that's not all we did, as the subway system helped us get all around New York on the cheap. Since we invested in the 7-Day unlimited metro pass, we could use the subway as much or as little as we wanted over the course of the week for a flat rate of $33, and if you're heading to New York for a trip, note that you only have to use the pass about 11 times for it to pay for itself (a single ride ticket is $3), so if you're comfortable using the subway (and everyone should be, but that's a topic for another day) and you'll be there for a few days, it's absolutely worth the cost. In other words, in between rushing for tickets and the shows themselves, we also saw the following sights: 

Times Square, Rockefeller Center, New Museum [of Contemporary Art], South Street Seaport, Chelsea Market, The Bagel Store (Rainbow Bagels!), Heatonist (Hot Sauce Store), American Museum of Natural History, Columbia University, The Statue of Liberty (and Ellis Island), MET Cloisters, Harlem (and the apartment in The Last Five Years), Trinity Church, Alexander Hamilton's Grave, 9/11 Memorial, Central Park, Belvedere Castle, and Strawberry Fields (Imagine Mosaic). 

Coming soon right here on Everyday Disney I'll give you an inside look at Times Square, the NYC Subway System, The Bagel Store, the American Museum of Natural History, Hamilton's New York, The Statue of Liberty, MET Cloisters, Disney in New York, an inside look on each of the five shows we saw, and one final post with some of the other exciting things we discovered in the Big Apple! 

Have a magical day!

Day 508: Proud Alumni

I am very proud of where my High School Band has come from, and excited to see where they're going. But one of the things I'm most proud of is the fact that I've been able to be a part of all of that. I watched the band go from disoriented to going to Disney World, and to be completely honest, that is something I never thought I would see. But this group continues to surprise me, and this time, it gets a blog post, which means that it really makes me proud.

Two years ago we weren't gearing up for Disney, but instead for our trip to the East Coast, Boston and New York. We were all very excited, and back in those days I was the Vice President of the band, meaning that I, at the time, ran the band facebook page that still continues to this day. Before that Band trip, I decided that we needed a fun way to count down each day, and since that was not long after the addition of cover photos to the facebook pages, I decided that a great way to do that would be through those cover photos!

I'm no stranger to graphics, so it wasn't all that difficult to do. Just a little bit of editing and some fun fonts and I was done with the countdown. I handed over the band page this last year to the current band council, surrendering total ownership of the page I had started, but I'm very happy with those running it now. Since I don't run the page anymore, and I only update my own cover photo and profile picture when I head to Disney (it's a thing I've been doing haha), it never even crossed my mind that there might be a similar countdown for this trip, especially since we didn't do one last year. 

But like I said, they keep surprising me! 

Yep, they're doing a similar countdown for the Disney trip. Can I just say PROUD ALUMNI!?! 

Have a magical day!

(Note: This blog post was written on May 24 due to finals).

Day 268: My Disney Collection V5

Hello all! It's time for another edition of My Disney Collection. Again, as I said last time, you should have this down, but if you're just joining us, here's the basics: I write a blog called Everyday Disney, and I try to write everyday. If I can't write I go back and make it up, but in reality I have one blog post for every day of the year. Either way, I have several series of posts going on, one about my favorite Youtube Videos, one on my favorite Disney things and then this one. The My Disney Collection Series, which now has FIVE parts, and if you haven't seen the others or want a refresher, here's the previous ones!  (V1 V2 V3 V4). Just click one of links right there.

This volume of the My Disney Collection series focuses around something that all of us Disney Parks fans seem to have: a pin collection. Like everyone else I have a whole bunch of pins, and I won't be able to talk about every single one, but I will show you them all and mention a few of my favorites.

We'll start with a transition set from the last Disney Collection Volume, Epcot pins. Now back when I went to the D23 Expo in 2011 I was able to get my hands on some awesome pins, including these two beauties right here. The one on the left if a Walt Disney Imagineering pin. I have no clue if there's any importance otherwise to it, but it's beautiful and I like to think it's special. The other is a 1980's pin that I picked up. Equally beautiful, and certainly one of my more treasured pieces.

Speaking of the D23 Expo, that's where I got these next couple of pins. You can see my Disney Geek pin right there, which I actually used as a part of my FBLA speech my senior year. And below you can see my D23 Expo pin as well as my treasured 1st visit to Disneyland pin. I've always wanted one of those, and now I have one!

Back to Epcot pins, since I have a lot of those. Of course, as you could tell from the last post, I got just about all I could from the 30th anniversary merchandise, and that certainly includes pins. They had a mystery set of 30th anniversary pins with Figment, so I have the Living Seas pin and the Horizons pin from that. Below is a special one I picked up back in July 2013 when there was still a bit of stuff left from the celebration. It's one of my favorite pins because it opens and on the inside you have the characters standing looking at the globe from Illuminations and the saying "To all who come to this place of joy, hope and friendship, Welcome" from the dedication of Epcot. 

Next is another set of pins I got at D23, which was put out by Walt Disney Imagineering. My brother has the entire set of Epcot Symbol pins but I just got this one, which I really do adore. I mean, I do love Spaceship Earth, after all.

Finally getting out of some of the Epcot stuff, I have a collection of Holiday pins. My family often times would go to Disney for Thanksgiving, and that means that Holiday pins are out, and sometimes they have pins specifically for thanksgiving as well. I almost always get the pin from Old Key West, because doing anything else would just seem wrong. 

Then we move on to the next shadow box, which is also pretty much completely filled with pins. Below you can see a few of my favorites as well, including my Mickey Aviator Pin, the Elle Badge from Up (Honestly my favorite pin of all time) and my I Mickey New York pin that I got from the Disney Store in New York when I went in 2012. 

And then we come to our last specific set I'll talk about, although there are tons of other pins that I have. Back in November 2012 I was searching for one set of pins (actually I had been searching in January as well), and I just wasn't finding them. After searching all of January I just figured they weren't made anymore and gave up. But then my parents went on Tower of Terror. Now my brother and I generally just sit that one out and instead go around taking pictures or go on Star Tours or something. Well it just so happened that we headed into the store at the end of ToT that time and we were over by the pins when he goes "Hey Lizzie, it's Han Solo!" and I was like "WHAT" and he was like "Look" and he pointed right at that pin down below this. He had found the sole Han Solo pin (lol...no pun intended). Of course I bought the entire set right away and have loved them ever since. Can't get much better than Han and Leia and Chewie on Pirates! 

And that concludes the pins. Down below you can see my entire three shadowboxes. The third one is new, since I officially ran out of room in the first two after my trip in July, so now I have a third. It's kind of interesting trying to get them all to fit, both in the boxes and then on my shelves, but I make it work. Pins are never a bad thing, after all.

If there's a pin you'd like to see more closely, just let me know and I'd be happy to share a picture with you! 

In the next volume of my Disney Collection I'll share the Disney in my closet, which honestly has gone from zero to tons in the last year or so. It's actually kind of ridiculous. And then after that I honestly don't know what I'll do, but it will be December, so most likely it will be a holiday edition! You don't know me at all if you don't think I don't have Disney Christmas Decorations! 

The month isn't over, so here's today's Frumpstagram post with the title "Regal." Honestly nothing is more grand than Club 33!

Here's today's Disney History: 2009: The final performance at the Adventurers Club at Pleasure Island, Florida takes place as part of Congaloosh 2009 (a weekend long convention to celebrate the popular Adventurers Club). 

Have a magical day!