California Dreamin: Part 2
Aaaaaannnd morning could not come faster! It is 8AM and we are up and power moving to get breakfast and start our day at Disneyland! We end up at Starbucks, breakfast of champions (please sponsor me) And get our hineys into the park! *Dude, I am even getting over joyed writing this post it gives me all the feel good vibes just reliving it* Just to save you the time we rode so much and ran around the park even more just trying to get to all of our fast past locations in time. Our day starts winding down at Disney. I've had about 7 waters, 3 sodas, a bag of kettle corn, and a salad wrap. And suddenly it was 5 PM, dinner time!
If you haven't gotten the notion already we are living LARGE. Dinner that evening was in Disneyland at the Blue Bayou. It actually connected to the Pirates of the Caribbean ride which was cool and also weird because the people on the rides were basically watching you eat. But that didn't stop me from engorging in the tastiest food I had had all week. I started out with the Cursed Pirate, a dish that included finger foods such as, Fried octopus, calamari, crispy andouille sausage, rum soaked pineapple, haricot vert, and topped with a bit of remoulade. To keep with the seafood theme, I ordered the pan seared salmon with white cheddar mashed potatoes, spinach, tomato-caper relish, and a basil beurre blanc sauce. I just used so many fancy words I feel like Gordon Ramsey would be proud. The funny thing about the items I ordered is that I more than likely would not have eaten much if I had been able to see my food clearly. I would be poking around the "green stuff" (there's that extensive vocabulary Megan🙄 )and mushing things around. But I feel like because it was dark in the restaurant ( you literally had a flashlight that came with your menu) I couldn't see all the little things on my plate so I just ate everything pretty blindly, and honestly I have no regrets. Like I stated before it was one of the best meals I had eaten all week.
After dinner we had a good but of time to roam around, get any last minute gifts or mosey around the park before the Fantasmic show started. Honestly I did not think the show was going to be all that and a bag of chips I was like nah it's just a water show like with lights, it cant be that cool. Boy was I wrong! (there's a first for everything) We had VIP seats with a butt cushion and all (calling me lame but I enjoyed that little perk) I love animatronics and loved how they were able to display each movie in a different way. I'm a sucker for Disney characters in general so just seeing all the characters together on the Mark Twain boat at the end just made me so happy and giddy on the inside. This is actually by far one of my favorite shots I took at Disney, because it represents so many childhood memories in one photo.
After what felt like just a couple hours, we were suddenly back on the bus and driving to Pasadena to get settled in our new hotel room. A luxurious room at the Westin Pasadena that was very quaint and modern and a much needed place to relax and unwind after the crazy day.
Now to answer the pending question, What am I doing in California? Well, boys and girls, back during the holiday season Lucky Brand ran a contest for their employees that was company wide, called the Jeanius contest. The top 10 denim sellers in the ENTIRE company got to go on an all expenses paid trip to LA (where headquarters is) and meet our CEO (Hey Carlos!), discuss new merchandise and new advancements for Lucky Brand, as well as a few surprises along the way. So our big surprise was that we got to spend the day at Disney world and stay in the luxurious Grand Californian hotel!! My coworker (and good friend) and I placed #5 and #6 (I’m shooting for #3 this year 😉) so she has been my right hand women through all of this and honestly I can’t thank her enough.
ALRIGHT, now knowing this is partially a business trip is where we get to the “business” side of it. Early the next morning, the “Jeanius” winners, store managers, and district managers all headed to headquarters for a day of information overload which was one of my favorites!! I loved learning about the new technology we will be using in the coming months as well as new materials and concepts we will be presenting for the holiday season. I am a visuals person so I feed off of product knowledge and that was like 8 hours of straight up product knowledge.
Although much of the information that was shared is top secret, all I can say is that the future of Lucky Brand is so bright and I can’t wait to be apart of it!
To conclude the night we all headed over to our CEO, Carlos Alberini’s new mansion for a denim on denim dinner party! Guys, if I was a mansion this is what I would look like. I swear we have the same sense of style because I was totally vibing off of the decor and accents throughout their home.
After the party was over we headed back to the hotel to rest, as we all were heading out the following morning. after many delusional late night conversations. we all headed to bed.
For many, flights were seamless and they were home before they knew it...BUT NOT US! Breckyn and I had a rough time from the getgo, the systems were down to check bags on the airport so that took about and hour and a half longer than it should have, resulting in us sprinting across the airport for our flight to phoenix Arizona. From phoenix we were supposed to go straight to charlotte in a matter of hours...well, that wasn't exaclty what had happened. Our plane got delayed then switched terminals last minute. I kid you not I don’t think I have ever ran so fast in my life. We got on the plane and we started to pull it and fluid started coming g out of the plane. So there was a whole scene reguarding the fluid spilling out because of the high temperatures in Phoenix in which you can’t fill the tank all the way otherwise it will spill over. So that being the case, gas was spewing all over the runway causing them to delay and have to clean it up for an hour while everyone was still on the plane. Then they had to fill it back up because it lost all of its fuel. In that span of time we technically would have been close to landing in Charlotte. But nooOoOOOooO we had to wait. Time goes by and we are ready to go again. We start to taxi...TAXI!!!!! And the plane starts leaking fluid AGAIN!!! And it’s right outside my window. Now everyone has their screens closed because it’s hot but because of who I am as a person I kept it up so I can see everything going on. Good thing I did because I was the only one that saw the fluid start spewing out of the wing which resulted in the woman I front of me screaming for the flight atendent (she was a character y’all she had bright pink hair and everything). So at that point we had to stay in the plane, wait for them to clean up which was another hour and a half. Then they had to pull back in to the little parking spot and let everyone off so we could wait for a new plane...In the meantime our captain had clocked out and gone home so we had no captain and because it was late in the evening everyone else was basically gone too. So we had to wait 8 HOURS FOR ANOTHER PILOT TO FLY IN. Y’all, I was supposed to be in Charlotte at like 6, we did not get into Charlotte until 3 AM. I wanted to cry I was so tired and just wanted to get back home and sleep in my own bed.
I got home and slept till 1 PM the next day I was mentally and physically exhausted. Never had I been more sleep deprived (but also well rested) in my entire life.
And on that note that concludes my two- part series of California Dreamin' (click here for part one of the series) I hope you enjoyed it because this was hands down one of my favorite posts to make (hopefully there will be more travel posts coming soon to AToR)
As always, if there is anything you want to see on A Touch of Rosey, please don't hesitate to reach out, my DMs are always open and so is my email. I hope you guys have a great rest of your weekend and be on the lookout for more fun posts coming soon!
Later Taters,
Megan