Since we were all still pretty tired from our first day, we decided to take it nice and easy. Here we are on the riverboat, enjoying a nice ride around “Thunder Mesa.” (Damn those ears look good! Unfortunately my hair’s blowing in Snookums’s face.)

Big Thunder Mountain was the only big ride left to ride, and boy was it a doozy. Unlike the U.S. version, it’s entirely contained on an island surrounded by water! You get on your train on the land side, and as soon as you leave the station you plunge into a dark tunnel that takes you UNDER the lagoon and out to the mountain. Here we are chugging up a hill. (Again, I look terrible, and again, Snookums looks cute. Damn photogenic Aussie.)

And this is eMan and Anne sitting in the seat ahead of us. Aren’t they cute? Anne doesn’t speak a lot of English, but eMan’s year in England has made him pretty much fluent and he functioned as the translater all day. (Oh, in case you’re wondering, Cecile and Kristen took the train back to Paris the first night.)

We headed back to the middle of the park to catch “Mickey’s ImagiNations Parade.” The Mouse himself kicked it off on this fantastical float. Each one had a different Disney character and represented a different part of the world. The North American float had Goofy wearing the Statue of Liberty’s crown, Mount Rushmore, several moose and bears and eagles, some Native Americans, the space shuttle, the “Hollywood” sign, and a slot machine. Yes, that’s how the rest of the world thinks of us. (“It’s a Small World” was even worse.)

Here’s Snookums trying unsuccessfully to pull Excalibur from the anvil on the stone. Aww, it’s okay Snookums. More impressive was the fact that he even GOT to the sword; a legion of little boys were camped out on it when we got there and refused to move. (Hey, wait a minute! I thought Excalibur was given to Arthur by the Lady of the Lake? If that’s the case, what happened to the original sword? And why has EuroDisney mislabelled it?)

I think this is supposed to be Snow White’s wishing well, so here I am singing to my own reflection. Actually I’m just contemplating the massive lollipop Snookums got me. I worked on that thing for HOURS, and it never got any smaller! It was like an everlasting gobstopper or something!

Right before we headed out of the park for good, Snookums and I ducked into “Dapper Dan’s Old Time Barbershop” to get him a shave and a haircut. Unfortunately Michel, the little French guy running the shop, spoke very little English, so we decided to just go with the shave rather than risk some type of hair disaster. So here he is giving Snookums the whole treatment, from the hot towels to the straight-edge shave to the aftershave massage.

And that was it for Disney! We picked up our bags and headed back to the train, weighed down by all our souvenirs and stuffed animals. Instead of heading straight back to Cecile’s place though, we headed somewhere else…

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