Arriving in Orlando!

Hello, blogland!  I'm writing to you now from the living room of my new apartment in Orlando!  I'll leave those details for the next post, though.  I have so much to write about check-in that I will do a separate post about it (including finally telling you my work location!)

Due to my last post sounding so sad and whiney, I hoped to update again before I left with a much more excited "I can't believe the time is here!" bit.  But that never happened.  There was just so much to do!

Friday was a day full of errands, including getting my hair cut and a stop at the bank.  Not terribly exciting.  It was the last night that my family spent together so we went out to dinner after some shopping.  The weirdest part of leaving my family is that I won't see my sister for so long.  My parents can come visit me now and then if they want to, but with Laura's school schedule I don't think I'll see her again until December.  For me, being the older sister comes with this strange idea that the younger one can be frozen in time.

Anyway, Saturday was another busy packing day.  I got up at 6am just to get myself prepared for the next few early mornings and got straight to work.  I can't even tell you how many loads of laundry I did throughout the packing process.  That was the step that took the longest actually, just waiting for stuff to come out of the dryer so I could pack it.  I used Space Bags for all the big stuff like towels, sheets, pillows, and my comforter.  This was a big help when it came to maximizing space in my car, but I can tell you that most of these things were terribly wrinkled when I opened the bags.  Silly infomercials.  I wanted to completely finish packing in the afternoon, which kinda sorta happened.  The last thing left to pack was my books, but other than that I was pretty set.

So I went over to Rob's house for the night after packing was finished because he won't be able to come visit me while I'm here.  We had a dinner date a couple of nights before so I was expecting Saturday to be very low-key.  At about 5pm I was really exhausted because I didn't get much sleep the night before.  So Rob told me to lay down for a nap and then he'd wake me up in half an hour so we could eat dinner.

Flash forward to about 5:30.  I woke up to someone jabbing me in the shoulder, and when I opened my eyes I saw Rob sitting a few feet away.  So who was jabbing at me?  I turned my head and saw my best friend!  It was pretty great since she lives a few hours away so we don't see each other often (our St. Augustine trip had to be cancelled :-( ).  We started chatting and a few minutes later one of my former roommates walked in!  More chatting ensued, and then one of my friends from high school walked in with his fiancee!  They've been together for a couple of years but I haven't actually met her because they live in Atlanta.  Anyway, long story short: Surprise going-away party!  I was very excited AND totally surprised, which never happens.  We had a great evening with pizza, cookie cake, and Shaun of the Dead, and Rob was so awesomely sweet to put it together for me!  And all who drove miles to see me are awesome too. :-D

Unfortunately we couldn't visit as long as I wanted to because I needed to be up super-early!  Everyone was gone by 1:15am so Rob and I (or maybe just me.  Rob doesn't sleep well lately) snoozed until 5am, when I rubbed my eyes and prepared to leave.  I left at 6am and headed home first.

At the last minute, my parents decided they wanted to go with me to Orlando to check in.  So Dad drove in a car behind me and Mom rode with me.  In retrospect it's probably good that someone else was with me who I could talk to, because I was feeling very sleepy for some of the drive.  We got to Orlando around 2:30pm, but hit terrible traffic on I-4 and were stuck for an hour.  It was a slow drive but we finally made it to our exit. More traffic, and then we got to the hotel!  We stayed at the Holiday Inn Sunspree which is basically across the street from Vista Way, where I needed to be for check-in.  If you are still looking for a place to stay before check-in, I recommend this hotel!  The rooms were very spacious and comfortable.  I think I would have been lonely in there by myself, haha.  Two of my now-roommates were staying there too, so I met up with one of them to go to Downtown Disney.  Some of the D-Fam got together and we sat around Earl of Sandwich chatting for awhile.  Then Molly and I went back to the hotel and I pretty much crashed into my bed.

Monday morning I walked down with Molly and Elyse (another one of my roommates) to Vista Way at 7am. We got in line and waited for about twenty minutes.  There was already a line and it grew while we waited.  They started letting us in about 7:30, but my memory just could be fuzzy and it might have been closer to 7:45.  But you'll have to wait for the next installment, because this post is long enough!  Soon to come: Check-In Day for the CP!