Happiest place on Earth

Well, I did it. I went to Disneyland! Aly and I met Amy and Thomas in Anaheim and went to the happiest place on Earth. This was an end-of-the-summer, last-chance-before-law-school, kind-of-close-to-our-anniversary trip.

Just inside the gates! Amy and Thomas have "Just Married" buttons on, and Aly and I have two-year anniversary pins. People congratulated us all day. If you look at just our legs, then just our torsos, it seems like some sort of impossible cube or M.C. Escher painting. Aly and Amy are standing side-by-side, but their toes are almost directly facing each other! You'll also notice I'm the only one not sporting Vans. Give it time.

Lunch and a show at the Golden Horseshoe. Some advice: Go see Billy Hill and the Hillbillies. Just watch out, they may call you up on stage, make you play a solo on the fiddle, and might encourage you to dance around to the music. They'll call you by name, and reference you in jokes for the rest of the show. For the rest of the day, many strangers at Disneyland will know your name, call you by name, and say hello. All of this happened to Aldog.

The iconic Splash Mountain. I wonder how these photo sales go now that everyone in the world has a camera within reach. Everyone was taking pictures of the screens (and screams). All of the rides were very well done and fun to do.

Aly and Amy posing at Minnie's house. Walking into ToonTown was a jarring experience. The cartoon hills in the background made me lose the horizon. The sky itself looked painted, and wondered if I had walked into a dome, like on the Truman Show. Disneyland does a great job of transporting you to another world.

Aly and I Googled, Cha-Cha'd, Yelped, and UrbanSpooned our way to finding a good restaurant in Anaheim. The internets told us to go to this Italian place called Mama Cozza's. The facade of the building looks like it's part of a strip mall. There was no indication that the place we were going into was a restaurant and not an old Blockbuster or a vacuum shop. Inside it was great. It had the classic checkered tablecloths and pictures of Italians all over the walls. Turns out, Guy Fieri brought his show Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives to the restaurant a few weeks ago. We got what he recommended. I think we forgot that Guy is sort of a glutton. My entree was mostly gravy, but still pretty good. I think a safe move like chicken parmesan would have been delicious. I loved the cannoli for dessert. The staff take pride in giving you a great dining experience. They bring you out a relish tray when you get there, give you bread when you want it, keep the drinks full, and give you orange slices at the end of the meal. We passed on the complimentary shots.

Riding the Monorail after a long day. We sat up with the conductor in this giant glass bubble and zipped around the park. Thanks to Dawn for getting us out the door. Thanks to Aly for marrying me two years ago. It was a great trip.