It's a small world, after all

Whew! Recovering from my maiden voyage to Disneyland with my friend Shannon. Spent 14+ hours at Disneyland and affiliated communities and about 8 hours at Universal Studios just up the road in Hollywood. I knew that they had long lines at Disney, but I did not know that they make the lines part of the ride. I.e. they put lots of cool little doodads in the lines for you to look at while you wait for your five minutes on the ride. That made things bearable. The fast pass system also made the lines bearable because most of the fast past lines went very, very quickly (Splash Mountain being the exception.). Funniest moment at D-land: While we were watching the water/light show at the River area that night, some little girl shouted out: "It's Snow White! It's Snow White!" (Or whoever the character was, I forget.) To which her mother (or evil stepmonster, perhaps) replied: "Yes, dreams do come true... for her!" Shannon and I were both stifling giggles at that point. I mean geez, lady, leave your issues at the gate, willya? Universal Studios was a lot more entertaining than I expected (I didn't really know what to expect, actually). The tour was really cool (we got to ride through the wreckage of a 747 from the upcoming War of the Worlds remake). And rides/attractions were fun too. In the Waterworld show the blow stuff up, splash the audience with water and do a lot of really dangerous looking stuff. I hope the actors have a good health care plan. The walk through Universal City was really cool, too. All the stores have these giant, cartoonlike facades to reinforce all the stereotypes people from other countries get about America from Hollywood. Complete sensory overload. Saw the largest stratocaster I've ever seen (4-5 stories high, I'd estimate) at the Hard Rock Cafe there. Here are a couple pictures from the trip. More later.