games in the ESPN zone in Downtown Disney, having got free credits with
our park pass. We discovered a horseracing game involving riding a rocking
horse that was so vibratory that it did cheer us up.... almost too much!
We later found out that there has not been rain in LA at Christmas for 20
years - we were honoured! However, it did help us to feel like we were at
home, and by now we were so used to our personal rain cloud that we would
have missed it. Honest. Boxing Day arrived with beautiful sunshine - of
course. I felt very sorry for people who had only had yesterday in the parks, at
least we still had three days left and we intended to use them to the full.
Emma and I are seasoned theme park visitors and we attack them with
a level of preparation worthy of a military campaign in order to see and do
everything - except the rides where height restrictions thwart us. With this in
mind we returned to California Adventures and quickly did the few rides we
had skipped before. We also soaked up the holiday atmosphere, which was
intensified by the proximity of Rose Bowl - an important American Football
event involving a local team and taking place on New Year's Day. In
celebration of this all visitors were invited to have temporary tattoos with the
team emblems on. We accepted this invitation - we never turn down a freebie
- and Emma drew lots of stares by having her tattoo on her cheek. All the US
tourists wanted to talk about was the game, but we knew nothing about it.
Except that was when they wanted to talk about Diana, Charles and Camilla -
a subject we knew, and cared, even less about.
In order to make up for having missed parades, fireworks, etc. on the
previous two days we embarked on the following crazy timetable on Boxing