Where dreams come true

The start of this week saw me heading off to the south-east for my 25th state, Florida. That means I'm now half way through my list off states, only 25 to go. Not only did I get to go rock out in the sunshine state, I also got to visit the "place where dreams come true", Disney World. This was it, the big one, the original. I'd wanted to go there since I was wee one, and now I finally got the chance. Only problem is that I've grown up since then. Well, I've at least grown up a little bit. I do still do enjoy cartoons, and find pleasure in reminiscing about my old favourite shows like: Roadrunner, Captain Planet, Scooby Doo, Smurfs, Snorks, ducktales (and yes, I do still sing their theme songs). I do also like bright colours, cheesy themes, happy people, excitement, nice restaurants and southern accents, which Disney World had in abundance. All these elements should mix well into something that I really enjoyed, but there was definitely something missing.
Here are the problems:
1. Disney world is certainly not the place to go for a 22 year old by himself. It is all family and group activities, and no one wants to deviate from their group.
2. The people are all pushy and rude. Most people have spent a lot of money to be there, and it's their big opportunity to see Disney. But that only means that people will push in front of you, won't talk to you and just be generally rude so they can get the best Disney experience for them. I don't blame really, but it sucks if you're a loner like me.
3. It's all so fake. The cheer and excitiment is so forced, and so repetitive. Everyone gets excitied about the display of fireworks and the events going on thinking it's so special, but it happens all the time is nothing different this time around. Although there are some pretty cool events on, if they wanted to make something really special, they'd find it difficult to lift it.

4.The Roads there are terrible to ride on. I don't think I've ever been to a place that's less cycling friendly. And yes, I do remember going through Kansas in RAAM, and yes it was even worse than Abbott, NM!!!!! At least in Abbott there was a cool fence to look at, rather than the ugly road signs, like the one below.

These signs really bugged me. Aside from the disgusting mix of colours and the cliche mickey mouse ears, they never told me anything I wanted to know. They point out either theme parks and hotels, which I don't want to ride to cause it will end in a dead end road; or main highways. I did end up on the freeway a couple of times, often because there was no alternative. Not good.

I did find this picture, and thought it sums up my thoughts on Disney World.

But anyway, back to the actual reason that I was there. I had the task of talking to several groups of Sanofi Aventis reps from the Southeast area of the US. This was good fun, but pretty full on and hectic. There was no sitting around waiting and hoping that the doctors would be in soon, it was full on talking, working to an exact schedule. Well, it was suppose to be to a schedule, but I couldn't quite manage to keep the allotted time frame. I had been given 30 min to make a presentation, then pack up my computer/zipp drive, then find the next room where I was talking, set up my slides and start talking. I cut down the presentation quite bit, only to find I was repeatedly answering questions regarding what I had cut out. I ended up being progressively later for each event.

It was interesting this time talking to only drug reps, and no doctors, nurses, dietitians etc. The questions certainly had a different angle to them. The questions were based more on information from me that would help sell the drug. Doctors would ask questions that would be more to do with my individual management of Type 1.
This was quite unique talking to reps like this, usually I'd talk to the rep looking after me one on one. Now it was just talking to them as part of group. Some of them did have to be reminded that it my job is to ride/race my bike, their job is to sell Apidra. When I talk, I can only talk about my experiences using Apidra, The Navigator, my OmniPod and how I use these to control my blood sugars. I'm not a sales rep, and I have to thank Mary-Jo, who I worked with in TN, for defending me on this during the week.

Although I didn't really enjoy the whole Disney World thing, I did still have a good time. The only thing that I did enjoy wasn't your typical Disney experience. After my presentations were all done I joined the entire Sanofi crew for dinner. Of course with around 700 people, putting on a dinner is no small task, and thus we had an entire bar booked out for us. Not only that, but there was a live band playing. In my previous wanderings around Disney World I found it hard to meet new people, but here it was very different. I could go up to almost anyone, introduce myself, and the next thing you know we were chatting. A lot of people were coming up and introducing themselves, and some came up and started talking as if we already met. Some of which I probably had, but only fleetingly. So there were a few people on Tuesday night I had awkward conversations with while I tried to work out who they were. As seems to be quite typical for me this year, I also had a women tell me how much I'd love to meet her daughter. This was kinda weird, especially with the opening line of "I Know you're probably married or something, but my daughter would love to meet you. Are you married?"

"Um, no, I'm not"

"My daughter would love to meet you, she loves meeting people form different countries. She's in Chile at the moment, she's 20."

So how am I suppose to react to that? Well, I was quite flattered, though it was quite weird.
Apart from Sanofi reps, and despite their daughters not being there, I did still manage to meet new people, though out of the thousands of people there, I would have thought I'd meet more than just one new friend. Unfortunately that wasn't the case this time, but just like every other time, it was a disappointment I couldn't stay longer.

But talking about meeting new people, before heading to Disney World I was told I would find my soul mate dressed as Pocahontas. Well, I doubted that very much. But I thought I would try my best to get a photo with Pocahontas. This idea was in reaction to my photo with Hannah Montana in Nebraska (see my blog in June from Tour de Cure, NE). I tried my best, but couldn't find her. Is this what my quest for a soul mate is going to end up like? I hope not. Below is what we would have looked like if I found her.

After leaving Disney World, however, I have decided that maybe I have meet my soul mate, and just haven't realised it. Or maybe I was after the wrong character. The one I should have been after is Ariel. Ginga hair, blue eyes, shell bikini... perfect.