Disneyland: An amateur's quest for the perfect churro

Some people find a sort of thrill when telling people something incredible that they’ve done. They’re excited, so they want to share. My Instagram feed is full of people cheering at Justin Bieber’s concert, sitting in airplanes flying over the ocean, and walking through the streets of a big city. I’m not sure if it’s due to my desire to be different from everyone else or the fact I’m perfectly content with my seemingly boring lifestyle, but I get a thrill from telling people things I haven’t done.  The Dark Knight? Haven’t seen it. I live in Utah? Never gone skiing. The Backstreet Boys? I didn’t listen to them until college. The responses are always part shock, part despair, part panic. EVERY. TIME.

Disneyland is the same. The last time I went to Disneyland was when I was four years old. I have few memories of the event, but my family lovingly retells the story of me begging to go on the Monorail, which instead of being an actual ride at Disneyland with twists and turns and loop de loops, is just a boring train. Instead of going on a daring adventure with Indiana Jones or through the dark at hyper speed in Space Mountain, I wanted to ride something similar to the amazing adventures of a daily commute like TRAX. The first evening my family departed Disneyland nothing could be heard over the wails of “I WANT TO RIDE THE MONORAIL!! I WANT TO RIDE THE MONORAIL!!!” I can only imagine this was one of the many times my parents pretended not to know me in public. Luckily good prevailed the next morning and we rode the monorail.

Whenever I tell people that this is essentially my only memory of Disneyland, the reaction is priceless, especially if I’m talking with an avid Disney-goer.  Once people have gotten over the shock, they try to catch me up to speed on everything I’ve missed including Dole Whips, Cars Land, and fast passes with exact statistics on exactly how many minutes they’ve waited at each ride. When Emmie suggested we go with our friend Karlee over spring break, I figured it was finally time to catch up with the rest of the world. Upon arriving at Disneyland, I soon realized Disneyland was much different than I thought.

Expensive Churros: If there’s one thing I’ve heard about Disneyland, it’s the churros. I was told that Disney was home to the most expensive churro to exist, and that I would certainly be spending a lot of money on food. My parents told me. My coworkers told me. My friends told me. I even saw it on TV! For the amount of times I was told, I figured the price was astronomical. Yeah, I would talk about how expensive a churro was too if it was $20. Or $50. Or $75. So when I got in line and they told me the churro was only $5, I laughed because I had been saving up my churro fund for years, with my own churro investment bank, with hopes to someday have a churro 401K. So instead of spending an entire year’s worth of rent on half a churro,  I bought 80 of them instead. (Don’t get me wrong, they’re still expensive. Feel free to donate to my churro foundation to help churro-less people in need.)

Waiting in Line: Another thing people always discuss about Disneyland is waiting for rides. Whenever my dad and I went to the store together and had to wait in a lengthy line he would always quip, “You’ve always wanted to go to Disneyland, right? It’s exactly like this!” After hearing I was going to Disneyland, I had multiple people in a hurried rage tell me the exact order of rides to go on first and which fast passes to get in order to wait in the smallest lines possible. So, I came to Disneyland thinking I would be waiting for HOURS for our first ride. I didn’t even take motion sickness medicine in the morning with my breakfast because I thought we would arrive at the park and have to wait for at least an hour. (Sidenote: Yeah, I take motion sickness medicine because I’m practically a grandma. If you have any other questions, feel free to meet me in between my BINGO games) Imagine my panic and all the stares from the other park goers when Emmie told me we’d be on a ride within 15 minutes of walking into the park and me shrieking, “I’M GOING TO BARF ON EVERYONE!” (Another sidenote: I totally didn’t barf on anyone. Major let down.) 

People watching: I adore people watching. I couldn’t wait to see all the parents dragging their kids on leashes and overly excited Disney fanatics and overhear bizarre conversations. You know how there are always those weirdos wearing ponchos that are perfect for people watching? It was definitely us. And it was definitely awesome.

Making Decisions: It is no secret to those close to me that I have a difficult time making certain decisions. I attribute this mostly to the fact that I enjoy doing a lot of things. I like to eat most foods, so I have a hard time picking restaurants. I had a hard time picking which rides to go on because all of them sounded good to me. (With the obvious exception of It’s a Small World—that’s one ride I could’ve recreated by myself by listening to ‘It’s a Small World’ 80 times on repeat and driving around my apartment complex while banging my head on the steering wheel) It got to the point that Karlee and Emmie told me I HAD to make decisions. This was obviously the worst moment on the trip,  narrowly beating out when we waited 30 minutes in a gas station Yermo to use the bathroom. The obvious solution was to start making poor decisions. I let them know I wanted to ride the monorail as our next attraction, and was hoping we could sleep in the car that night instead of pay for our hotel room. Immediately my decision making powers were relinquished for the entire trip and I was happy as a clam.

Dole Whip: If there are 7 billion people on this planet, how is it possible that there were 8 billion people in the line for Dole Whips at all times?! At least it gave us plenty of time to work on the lyrics to our new best-selling single. 

One thing is for sure: once our single is released, you’ll be able to purchase tickets to our concerts wherever $50 churros are sold.