Survivor

Yesterday was an incredible day for many reasons. First, we went back to Epcot for the second day in a row in order to shop and eat some more. Oh, yeah, it's good.

I shopped in England, France, the USA, and Germany yesterday. We are DONE!! I have only to finish a few things online for a few people, but all the actual shopping at Epcot is finished. I had sent an email months ago to all of my family and some friends asking which country at Epcot was most interesting to them. I asked them to pick one and that's where I went to get a holiday present for them. It was a lot of fun for Mark and me because there were shops in those countries that we had never explored. I hope people like what we picked out for them from their country of choice, but more than that, we had a BALL going into all the stores and exploring them in detail, looking for that one special present.

As for eating, we are still going two more times just for fun and eating, so we spaced our food and drink out a bit. Mark and I both started off with Mai Tais from Hawaii and Mark also ate poke, a raw tuna dish on seaweed salad that is extremely representative of that state. It's literally their "comfort food." While he ate that, I had salmon from Canada. We both also bought our favorite griddled cheese from Greece for the third time, but it was not prepared well this time. The cook barely left it on the griddle, so it came out cold and not crusty on the bottom. Bummer. Had it been like that the first time, we would not have gone back for a second time.

The next thing I had was the Godiva liqueur iced coffee from Belgium. We also bought several boxes of the chocolate truffles to take home for later. The coffee wasn't very alcoholic or very big, but it was extremely delicious. I might have to have another one of those tomorrow! Mark got his cannoli from Italy, and we both had the cheese fondue with sourdough bread from the Cheese Board booth. Neither of us cared for any of those items. That concluded my eating and drinking for the day, but Mark rounded off his afternoon with a Berry Colada from the Caribbean booth. I will probably get that Friday when we go back. It looked great.

So shopping and eating was one thing that made yesterday great. The second thing was meeting our Facebook friends Barbara and Al. Mark's cousin had set Barbara and me up as FB friends because she knew us both and knew that we both shared a love of Disney. I must say Barbara and Al are MUCH bigger fans than Mark and I , if you can believe that! She has posted so many pictures on FB of the two of them at Disney with various friends, eating wonderful foods, including the Mickey ice cream bars. So yesterday, through FB messaging, we just decided it was finally time to meet.

She called me on the cell while I was shopping in the USA gift shop. We met a few minutes later in Italy! I recognized them right away from all the pictures of them I had seen on Facebook. Wow! It was so much fun. We all hit it off right away and were never at a lack for conversation.

We have more in common than just Disney. Barbara and Mark actually graduated from the SAME high school in Brooklyn, in the SAME year! Neither of them remembers the other from those years, but still...what are the odds? Also they both met through computer dating back in the early 1970s, like we did! It was a different company and different type of plan, but still...what are the odds? They are the ONLY other couple we have EVER met who used a dating service in the early 70s. Most people didn't even know they existed back then. One more coincidence: we share birthday months. Barbara and I are both August birthdays, and Mark and Al are both March birthdays. So I think we are destined to be friends.

We spent the rest of the afternoon together before it was time to go to dinner with some other friends. That's the third great thing about yesterday. We were invited to dinner at the home of another couple we had met around the pool. We actually had met them a few years ago, but now that we live here, they called to invite us to dinner at their home. Right now, there is another friend of ours, Susan, who is staying with them for her job. She is actually from the northern VA area, which is where we met her first, but now she is working in Kissimmee and staying with Fred and Lana. The five of us shared a fantastic salmon dinner that Lana prepared. Great food, great company, great conversation.

Susan is a breast cancer survivor. She and I have had several conversations about that when we run into each other now and then. Last night she presented me with a fantastic cross stitch sampler, all framed in glass ready to hang on the wall! It is now on the wall in the kitchen, just to my left as I sit at the table using the laptop. I can see it every day. On the back, she hand wrote me a lovely note: "Becky, You are now part of a sisterhood of SURVIVORS. Keep our love and support in your heart. If the day comes that you want to pass this on to another survivor, feel free. The chain of survivor support is strong. Love, Susan." WOW! Amazing, right? Thanks, Susan, I love it!!

Yes, yesterday was a great day: eating and shopping at Epcot, meeting Barbara and Al, having dinner with Fred, Lana, and Susan, and receiving the fantastic "Survivor" sampler. Days like yesterday don't come along all the time, so I am really savoring the memory this morning.