Day 2c: Epcot!!

"Food, glorious food!
Eat right through the menu.
Just loosen your belt
Two inches and then you
Work up a new appetite.
In this interlude --
The food,"

Yes, dear readers, it was now time for our pub luncheon. The Rose and Crown beckoned and we heeded the call. After approaching the podium and being handed one of those pagers familiar to any denizen of a chain restaurant we sat and tried to read the menu posted outside. However, we were unable to, due to.... CONDENSATION. It was OK, we weren't stuck outside for too long before we were led inside the pub. 

Upon entering the restaurant, the diner is first met by (what I can only assume is...) a standard English pub. Bar counter, booths and things of that nature. We were taken right past the pub portion and into the area that I would assume is more like a British dining room. Once seated we were asked for our drink orders. Lauren ordered Darjeeling tea, which was delivered in a classy wooden tea service box and after seriously debating a straight Guinness or a black and tan, I wound up with a Sprite. As the drinks were served, we were also treated to a big basket of cheese bread, served atop a facsimile of the Daily Mail. It was delicious, but we only lightly snacked upon it, not wanting to ruin our appetites for the North Sea lunch in which we were about to indulge.

Not too long after the drinks came our meals. Lauren ordered a cottage pie, which was essentially a shepherd's pie. She loved it even though it did contain lamb, which she has formerly claimed to dislike. Matter of fact, I believe she ate nearly the whole thing, a trend which, rare in our real life, became the rule for most of our

Disney World meals.

I had an order of bangers and mash, which was amazing as well. The bangers popped when bitten and the mashed potatoes were creamy and delicious. I quite literally cleaned my plate. After the main courses, we decided that we owed it to ourselves to order dessert. After perusing the menu to eliminate desserts which contained elements that we (read: me) would not eat, we decided on a sticky toffee pudding.

It was, like the rest of the meal, amazing! Much to my confusion, it was not a pudding, as we Americans know pudding. It was more of a cake-y substance with some sort of sauce (I suspected rum) on top. Needless to say, the pudding was completely devoured. 

The interesting thing about British food is that it was designed to just sort of sit in ones stomach, to provide sustenance for those long cold nights aboard the ship, and darn it if they didn't get that part right! However, when going to try and traverse a theme park after such hearty food... well, let's just say easier said then done!

We managed to remove ourselves somehow and waddled out, to continue our whirlwind journey of the world.

Day 2b: Epcot!

Well, we still had a wee bit of time to kill before our ADR's at The Rose and Crown, so we decided to meander through the first few nations of the World Showcase.

First up, the great nation of Canadia! Representing all that is frozen, moose-like...oh, and maple syrup!! I found all of these things to be grossly underrepresented in the Canadian pavilion. However, there was a cart in the forefront of the nation selling various Canadian trinkets, in addition to the flannel and...bottles of beer containing baby mice? It was at this Canadian frontier outpost that we found the item that would be the motivating factor in the remainder of our World Showcase jaunts later that day. The item that would urge us forward to Norway, Mexico and Morocco. This item? The Epcot World Showcase Passport and sticker book. While designed primarily for children or the mentally inept, we took a shine to it immediately!

The book contained a pseudo-passport (I can only assume it is not authentic. Do you think authentic passports contain watermarks of Mickey Mouse? Weigh in at the comment section and help me decide!) and several sheets of stickers. One for each country... whether they deserved it or not! I will let you, gentle reader, decide who the offending countries are! Anyhow, in addition to placing the stickers in the book, a daunting task unto itsself, the bearer is invited to visit the KidCot stations around the Showcase to find real authentic foreigners who would cheerfully sign your book and write some sort of slogan in their native tongue. Aside from England, Canada, France, America and Mexico, we have no idea what they said. Personally, I'm all for the theory that they were just strings of profanity. Only time will tell. 

Passport clutched in our hot little collective hands we ascended the steps of Canada to the Hotel du Canada, some totem poles and a large gift shop. No KidCot station though! In order to find the station, we needed to go down past La Cellier (where we had lunch reservations later in the week), through a cave near the O Canada film. Behind a waterfall was the station.

After our real life encounter with real life Canadians, we decided that less was more and headed just a hop skip and a jump over to the UK...but not before Lauren was eaten by a totem pole. 

Canadian totem poles: the silent killers.

England was like the Holy Grail of countries for us (read:Lauren) As she points out in her own report, she is quite the little Anglophile. Having never been herself...or myself either for that matter, Epcot was the closest thing we had going. 

We realized that we still had a bit of time before our lunch at the Rose and Crown, so we kind of poked around the pavilion and watched a hilarious group of street performers do their version of King Arthur and the Holy Grail, when out of nowhere, a sound resonated in my ear. Lo! Was this the mighty trumpet of the angels themselves? Also, it wasn't really a trumpet... it sounded more like a jangly guitar! 'Twas the British Invasion--a Beatle tribute group and I, of course, planted myself down right in front. I believe at this point, that Lauren was exploring the tea shoppe, but in all honesty... it was a blur. Then, all too soon, the set ended and somehow it managed to be time for our lunch.