magicalmartha | Now all I want to do is watch The Little Mermaid

The California trip was super fun. The best part was the whole day Gina let me spend at Disneyland; I don't know how much she actually wanted to go, but I really really did, and she took the whole thing in good humor.

The last time I was at Disneyland, I was eight years old. I was not expecting this trip to compare to how amazingly magical it was for me as a child; I just wanted to experience some nostalgia, have some laughs, maybe some quick thrills on the more mature rides. But I learned a valuable lesson: Disney has built their empire not only on pleasing small children, but on making everyone of any age ever feel and remember EXACTLY what it was like to be that eight year old.

We hit most of the rides in the park (Indiana Jones and Pirates of the Caribbean were first, because we got there early and it was the ONLY time of day that a wait of under an hour was guaranteed), and while some of them did not hold the same wonder for me now as a 22-year-old as they did for me as a child (oh, Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, we'll always have yesteryear), two of them were every bit as enchanting as I remember them being.

I want to meet whoever it was that designed the Peter Pan and Space Mountain rides, for completely different reasons: Peter Pan is a richly whimsical ride, sailing above a miniaturized London complete with tiny moving-car lights on the road. The stars surrounding the Never Land island are floating in three dimensions (I THINK because each light is on the end of different sized black wires, but it's hard to see in the dark) and every section of the ride is colorful and engaging. Space Mountain is pretty simple by contrast; the only visuals are some star lighting effects and awesome 70s techno, but that's ALL you can see. There's a track...somewhere. Space Mountain was breathtaking because at any moment I felt like I might go hurtling off the track into space, and I felt that with excitement, not terror.

The other highlight of the day was the fireworks show, which featured explosions loosely choreographed to the Disney orchestra and chorus singing selections from films which, while not necessarily my favorites, definitely excelled at pulling my heartstrings. As cheesy as it got, I was sniffling a little by the end.

Last week we also stopped by the LA Ink tattoo studio, High Voltage, which was pretty hardcore. I was a little sad I didn't get the chance to fangirl at my favorite artists, but to be fair Kim Saigh doesn't work there any more and Hannah and Corey probably have better things to do than to be fawned over by a silly girl.

It was a good trip. I'd go again.