My sincere apologies to my loyal readers for my brief absence. For the last two months or so, I've been working with a broken computer screen...as in the right hand half didn't work at all and so everything was squished into the left hand side. I had finally had enough, and took the laptop in for repair. It took a bit longer than expected, but I am happy to report that I have a fully functional screen once again. And so we continue the vacation adventure:
After a somewhat disappointing and VERY rainy day in Epcot, we headed over to the "countries" side of Epcot where we had decided to try something new...we had dinner reservations at Germany's "Biergarten" restaurant.
Right off the bat, I have to say that this was Andrew's pick. I had many reservations, due in large part to a very bad childhood memory of a miserably hot day, a migraine, an upset stomach and a similar German restaurant in Busch Gardens. It didn't end well. But I decided that I would give it a try because that's the kind of good sport that I am. We had checked out the menu online ahead of time and it was a buffet with choices that seemed doable, so we gave it a shot.
We had traipsed through the rain and puddles with our soaking wet stroller and rain ponchos and waited for our table, which we would be sharing with another family. That's always a little scary because, well you know, what if they're weird? It turns out that we were escorted by a lovely little German girl (blond hair blue eyes) to a very picturesque table with a grand view of a water mill in a "German" town square. At first we were the only family there because the original family didn't show up (or maybe they saw our orange ponchos when we arrived and thought WE were the weird ones). Either way, it worked out beautifully because we ended up sitting with a family of 4 from Alabama...a Dad, Mom, 9 year old son and a grandma...and the dad was a youth pastor. They were a really nice family and it made the dinner pleasant to eat with other Christian people.
Here's another view from our table...isn't it quaint? And I don't think that was our waiter (whose name escapes me at the moment) but yes, he did have to wear that outfit!
Here's more of the restaurant. Epcot does a really nice job of making you feel like you're visiting a foreign country, or at least, what you would like it to be if you were visiting!
During our dinner, these four fellows came out and performed some fun authentic German music.
While they played, kids and anyone else who wanted to, could dance in front of the stage. Ethan decided he wanted to just as they finished their last song. Oh well.
He still had fun running around and playing with the other kids who were less-than-enthused about the schnitzel and sausages.
And here is one of my favorite pictures of my two men: toasting with their Coke Steins!
The verdict on the restaurant was....it wasn't as bad as I had feared, although Emily and Ethan didn't really care for it much. The atmosphere was fun and I found a few things that I could eat, even surprising myself a bit by actually liking the schnitzel, which if you did not know what it was (like me), is, according to our waiter, the "German version of chicken nuggets"!
After dinner, we headed over to Norway where we rode a fun little boat ride all themed around the history of Norway, which apparently is full of trolls. On the way out, there is a huge troll statue and it is a long standing tradition to have our pictures taken there. We tried to get Emily to wear a viking hat too, but after the all the rain and a disappointing dinner....it wasn't happening. Ethan was happy to oblige though!
And so our day at Epcot ended. It had finally stopped raining after dinner, but we were tired of being wet, so we went back to our hotel and relaxed.
Stay tuned for day 3!
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