Scoping Out the Area

This afternoon we decided to roam around a bit. First I needed to find my route to Disney University for Saturday's Traditions orientation, as suggested by the people at Casting yesterday. We found a nice back road that runs along an orange grove to get there. I also discovered that the Cast Connection and Property Control stores are right next door! So I'm hoping I can check those out when Traditions is over.

The drive only took 20 minutes from our apartment. The people at Casting suggested I leave 2 hours early on Sunday because of the marathon this weekend. But I just can't see it taking that long on this route, even with some extra traffic. I might leave an hour early.

After that we decided to check out the Florida Mall. It's HUGE! And there are multiples of so many stores in there! It's really weird. And it was super crowded. But I'm really excited because they have a Vans store. Jon got two new pairs of pants that look really good on him. We also got called locals while we were in there, so that was exciting! Jon asked how the guy working in the store was doing and he was just like, "Not too good, man. I hate these effing tourists. They completely wreck the store and it makes it harder for locals like you guys to shop." We don't look like tourists! Yaaay!

I went to Payless and picked up some shoes I'm hoping will be ok to wear to work: 

I'm a little iffy on the pair with multiple straps, but I'm not going to wear them until I talk to someone at Pop. That way I'll still be able to return them if they won't work. But the other pair should be fine, I think.

When we left the mall we started freaking out because we could not find Jon's car and legitimately thought it had been stolen. I mean, we were about to call the police. We were parked at the corner of JCPenny next to a white van in one of the first fews spots by a tree and all of that was there except for his car. So many things were racing through our minds until I realized that we didn't walk past the shoes when we came in. We had come in on the opposite corner of the store that looked exactly like that. So we headed over there and found his car. But it was a pretty terrifying moment. Guess we'll have to pay more attention to our surroundings from now on!

After we left the mall we decided to actually go to Pop Century and time the drive back to our apartment. I also needed to see where the service road I'm supposed to take to training is. When we got to Pop, we decided to just get out and walk around.

I was able to check out what everyone at the front desk was wearing. Looks like I'll be wearing a light grey skirted costume with an optional maroon sweater.

Here's where I'll be working!

We walked around Hourglass Lake and decided to take the bridge over to the Art of Animation resort since we had never been. It was really awesome! Jon and I decided that his future job needs to be a scenic painter for Walt Disney Imagineering or Universal Creative.

 

Then we walked back to Pop and headed home! It's so weird to me that this is going to be the shortest commute to any job I've ever had. It's only a 20 minute drive! I'm very excited to get started with all of this!

Jon's check-in date is getting closer and closer. He'll find out his Attractions work location on Monday!