It IS a Small World, After All

Welcome to my refurbished blog! I went back and forth between several different names and I think this is just about perfect. I love going places, doing things, talking about them. I would say I have wanderlust, which is partially true. For starters, I like to wander. Ha. And I crave new experiences and would much rather go to a museum than hang out on the beach. The only reason I'm not really a card-carrying member of the travel club is that I actually hate the process of traveling. Quite the conundrum. But I still have adventures. They just tend to be kind of close to home!

My first post on my updated blog was actually inspired by something that happened just last night that gave me an idea that I might run with. Or I might not. You never know... my mind likes to wander, too ;)

I actually DID travel this weekend. I took a little road tripe to Pittsburgh, which is a bit over three hours away from Buffalo. The reason for this particular trip was two-fold. I spent the majority of the day at the Pittsburgh Zoo and then headed to PNC Park to see my Chicago Cubs take on the Pittsburgh Pirates. I'm happy to say I wasn't the only Cubs fan there. I was actually surrounded by them. Sitting behind me was a dad and his two kids, all cheering for the Cubbies. After a foul ball wound up hitting the little boy (he was fine and quite happy about it), I discovered that in this crowd of close to 40,000 people these fans were also from Buffalo!

I pondered this on my way home and it reminded me of my recent trip to Disney. I encountered three different people during my trip who were from towns close to me:

I met up with some friends at the Grand Floridian for afternoon tea. Our waitress was from Latrobe, Pennsylvania which isn't too far from where we all met.

My first day in the parks, I went to Hollywood Studios. I got there before the park opened and the Cast Member who was preventing everyone from running toward Toy Story Mania was from Buffalo. (A suburb, actually, but his name tag said "Buffalo".) We chatted for a while about Buffalo foods before the park officially opened.

On my Magic Kingdom day, I headed immediately for Peter Pan's Flight where I was greeted by a Cast Member who was literally from the suburb I live in! His name was Stan and he lived not too far from me when he still lived in the area. We took a selfie and I thought it was a great way to start the day.

I'm so glad I took that selfie and remembered Stan's name. And I will definitely include this information in the Disney photo book I'm working on. But then I thought it might be cool to take it a step further and I think my next trip to The World will include a new project! I'm going to make an autograph book titled "It's a Small World" and have the Cast Members who are from my town autograph my book! Maybe I'll even carry something with me from Buffalo to give to them. (My Hollywood Studios encounter DID ask me why I didn't bring him a pizza!) I think that would be a fun memento to look back on and see just how small our world really is!