Food vs. Candy

I had a big group of foreigners on my truck the other day.  In the middle of the savannah, I looked in my rearview mirror to find one of them passing candies out to the others, over three rows of them.  They were all passing the sweets around taking bits here and there.  They were all in the front three rows so I stopped the truck and asked if they could please put the food away.

Their response?

"Noo, no, eet's okay.  Ees not candy."

"Yes, I need you to please put that away.  It's bad for the animals if it accidentally falls out of the truck."

"But, no.  Ees not food.  Ees candy."

Food vs. Candy?  For the record, candy is food.

As a side note, all went well.  They did kindly put it away very shortly after when I explained that candy, too, was not good for the animals and needed to be put away because of the smells.  They even applauded for me at the end of that safari.  I was very surprised at that since I figured they'd be mad at me for making them put away their food candy.

Every day brings a new surprise, a new challenge... a new story!  I love my life!

Pictures of the Safari!

I got to see a baby pelican yesterday!  I knew the birds were nesting, but I had no idea there were babies so as I pointed out the hippos and noticed a tiny little head peeking out of the nest to ask mommy for food, I kind of got really excited.  "And over there you can see a baby pelican sticking it's head out from the nest!  That is so cool!  I've never seen that before in my life!"  I don't think the guests believed me... you know, since I also told them we were in Africa and we were planning on a full two week safari.

For the record, that's a pink backed adult pelican in the photo above.  The babies are, obviously, much smaller and their beaks are tiny.  So stinking adorable. I wonder it the one I saw hatched that day...

Oh yeah, and we have hippos. :)  It's pretty cool when they open their mouths really really wide for a breath or yawn or something.  I feel bad when I'm coming around the corner and I can see one doing that, but the guests don't get to see it because as we come closer, they close their mouths and submerge.  Ah well.

Below is a sight that nervouses us safari drivers, but in the end is actually very, very good.  White rhino crossing.  This one is in the process of walking, so all is well with the world.  This just happens to be the exact same spot I was in just a few days ago where the rhino actually decided to stop, right there where this one is.  And he just stood there, looking around.  I seriously could just see my brother's attitude in him.  "Oh, am I blocking your truck?  Oh... goodness... I just don't know what I could do about it.  Maybe I'll just stand here acting totally innocent like I have no clue that I'm making the ride go 101.

 Some more white rhinos.  The one above actually did end up joining his family, so all was well.  You can also see what our trucks look like a little from this photo.  That truck coming around the corner from where we are is actually really, really good spacing on that driver's part.  Congrats to whoever that is. :)

 This is where I drove around once and found mom elephant with baby, sitting under the water right here with nothing but the tops of the backs and their two little trunks sticking above the water.  They were side by side and their trunks were intertwined with each other.  Cutest.  Thing.  Ever!

And on a totally separate note, this is my roommate Erica and I meeting our pal Chip.  Oh, and also Dale. Heehee.

Best Safari Day EVER!

For starters, I always like my 8/8:30am shifts because the time goes by quicker and I finish early.  For example today, I was done by 2:30.  But today's shift was even better because I got to do the Magical Moment on the first safari of the day.

Basically, my job this morning was to create magic.  I went up to the front of the park to pick the lucky family.  I walked around, looking specifically for a family with several kids, because those are always my favorite families on the safaris.  There weren't a whole lot, and I didn't have tons of time, so I went right up to a family with two little boys.  I talked to them for a minute, they were waiting in line to enter the park.  I brought them right up to the front of the line and got them in fifteen minutes before park open so we could walk back to the safari together.

Not only did I get to take them on the first safari of the day, but that one little family got their own truck, and I got to spiel for them.  So we separated it out where the driver was only driving, and I was only spieling.  Because it was so different, we turned off the "normal" safari radio and I just spieled on my own, letting them know little random facts we don't always reveal to guests.  I let them know little extras like why people can't see the zebras and where hidden Mickeys are.  It was so much fun and the little boys just LOVED it!

The awesome thing about that magical moment is that I can tell that family will remember that experience forever.  The whole family loved it, and it was so classic.  Mom holding the little one on her lap and helping the kids feel comfortable, Dad taking pictures everywhere, older brother showing stuff to the little brother, and everyone absolutely amazed that they, of all people, got picked!

And at the end they got a special certificate.  To add to it, at the end this family let me know they'd never been to Animal Kingdom before.  They'd visited every park except for this one, so it was awesome that I got to be their first impression!  Absolutely loved it!

After I did that, I worked the Cheers 2 dock for a while (the person who opens Cheers 2 gets to do the First Safari family of the day), and then went on my first break.  Then I got another land and got to work Fastpass for a while.  I hadn't worked Fastpass since training and it's ridiculously rare that we get two lands in a day, so that was extra awesome!

I decided I love working Fastpass.  I love being able to fix people's problems and that's basically all I do there.  I answer questions, fix machines, and get people the Fastpasses they want.  I was really proud of my ability to fix the machines because there were several different problems I was dealing with.  Machines eating cards, the paper getting jammed, random beeping noises (a simple reset fixed that... I still don't get it).

At first I actually almost just covered the machine up and called it good since we had like eight more, but then I figured I should at least try to fix it.  I was able to keep everything going well, until near the end one of them broke.  Someone tried to jam their VISA card into it (no, the machines don't take VISA) and it freaked out the system.  I tried for the last like fifteen minutes of my shift, in which time I had another cast member come try and help me too.  He told me to just cover it up, but I was entirely convinced that I'd fix it.  But then I got bumped from that position so I told the next girl to just cover it up, and I'm fairly certain she did.

After my second break I worked the truck.  I only did two rounds before it was time to go, but they were very fun rounds.  The guests were perfect and happy.  Everyone was excited, and the whole day just went well.

As I was walking to the break room, I heard a little kid yell out my name.  I figured I didn't know any little kids in the park, so it couldn't have been me he was calling for.  But then I heard my name being yelled again and out of curiosity I turned my head.  There was little Zack, one of the two little boys in that family I had taken on the safari this morning.  Absolutely one of the cutest things ever and I was amazed that he remembered my name!  Then again, it was the same day.  I'm so glad I picked that family!  And I'm especially glad they had a good time.

My friend even gave me a ride to and from work today, just to make things better.  There's a group of us who all have pretty much the same schedule so we've all been going together.  I love my job.  So. Stinking. Much!

Animal Stops and Classes

I had my first animal stop yesterday.  And by "my" first animal stop I mean I've stopped for animals numerous times, but my truck hadn't been stopped directly by an animal until yesterday.

The first one was while I was being show op'd.  So I had to show my evaluator just how I know how to call it in.  I did it all right, even the stopping ten feet away thing, which I hate. I prefer to stop more like thirty feet away.  But I called in when the rhino was in front of my truck and the warden asked me, "How far away are you?"  So I was honest, "About twenty feet..."  "Okay make sure you're just ten feet away, don't worry, he's not gonna do anything.  Then call me back when you're ten feet away."  "Oooookay."

So I pulled up closer to the rhino and as I did so my guests started freaking out.  "Is it okay to be this close?"  "What if he attacks the truck?"  "Will he attack?"

No worries though.  I was able remain calm.  Unlike the other time I came around a corner and there was a white rhino in the road and my spiel went something like this:

"And coming around this corner here, take a good look up there at those rocks.  That seems to be a kopjeohmygosh!" (coupled with me slamming the brakes... from like 4 MPH, so it wasn't really too dramatic)

Yeah... I got laughed at that time.

Anyway, we only made the entire ride shut down for less than five minutes with my animal stop.  Which is good because sometimes the animal stops have lasted upwards of fifteen minutes.  And that's not much fun when you're on a truck in an animal safe zone (no animals within sight, even) with crying children who wanted to see crocodiles.

But all has been well so far.  Every animal stop I've ever had, I've always had wonderful, happy, excited, patient guests.  I love my job!

In other news, I started my first class today.  Organizational Leadership.  And I'm super excited.  The teacher is great.  He's an old man teacher which, in my past experience, means he's either really really good, or really really bad.  This one is really really good.  But then I always think that about teachers after the first day of class... so we'll see how this goes. :)  There will only be like four assignments in the whole class, a project, two papers, and a final group presentation.

I have to say it's very, very different than any class I've ever taken before, since it's through Disney and I went to college in Mormonville.  The rules are stricter than any class I've ever been to before, too, though.  For example, you miss two classes no prob.  You miss three, you automatically fail and they notify your work location.  Every class is business attire and you have to wear a nametag.  And there's pictures of Mickey and the parks all over the walls of the classroom.  That has nothing to do with being strict... just something random.

There are also two big screen TVs on either side of the classroom that play the news before class and during breaks.  During class he uses those as his powerpoint.  So funny.

Anyway, I think it'll be fun.  I can't wait to start the Disney Heritage class.  I love my job!

Six Hours Later

I'm thinking it's going to be one of "those" days today.

After not even six hours of sleep, I'm already very tired.  And I'm going to spend the next eight hours driving around in circles.  Then Walmart.  Then a goodbye dinner for one of my friends.

Yeah, so one of my friends is leaving.  She just can't afford to stay with the hours she's getting and the minimum wage pay and another year of school to pay off.  Which is perfectly understandable because I've been getting 30-32 hours/week as well which is the least I've ever gotten since working for Disney.  And the really stinky thing about that is that I'm in a job where I can't pick up shifts.  I used to be able to pick up extra hours, but my job doesn't allow it.  I'm just hoping that during the holidays things will pick up.

Anyway, back to my being tired.  Not only did I just go to bed six hours ago, but I spent one of those sleepless nights where I woke up every hour or so freaked out that I missed work, or missed my alarm.  So I set four alarms, just to be sure.

Then my roommate came home.  She's always extremely quiet and never wakes me up, but it woke me up.  Then I felt terrible because one of the alarms I accidentally set for 3am instead of 5am (my Ipod still thinks it's in Idaho and I can't get it to believe otherwise!).  And I totally tried to sleep through it for quite a while before I realized what it was.

Now I'm eating cereal and heading down to the bus stop to begin my awesome day of looking at cute baby animals and explaining things to people who don't speak English.

No Accident By Accident

I accidentally didn't get into an accident yesterday.

I was driving my friend home from Bed, Bath and Beyond where she had to return something.  The store is kind of far away in a part of Orlando I'm not really familiar with.  As we drove home, I accidentally pulled into the left turn lane because I thought I had to turn left at that light.  As I approached it, I realized I was making the turn one light too early.

I started complaining about how I had accidentally went to turn in the wrong place, and rolled my eyes at myself, annoyed that I'd have to go slightly out of my way.  As I complained inside my head I casually looked over to my right as I heard screeching tires and watched a car slam into the back of another, forcing it to collide with the car in front of it.  This occurred not even ten feet from my car.  Only a few seconds after I had made the "mistake" of pulling into the left turn lane.

The left turn light stayed red, as Florida lights do, for another several minutes and I hated just sitting there watching the people as they got out of their cars to check out the damage.  The front lady's car was smoking, and I started envisioning it exploding right next to my car.  The back guy's car (the one who caused it) was probably messed up the most, the hood was really smashed good.

Thank goodness I make mistakes!

On The Safari: Randoms

On Strollers: Stroller parking is one of my many jobs.  It's actually called "Pram Parking."  Because "Prams" are strollers.  Anyway, it's a fun job because it's the only job where you actually get to interact and talk with other cast members as well as guests.  It's also not such a great job because parking strollers and keeping everything looking good and organized is really, really hard.  But we encounter funny things too, every once in a while.

I can officially say that I have now had a parent attempt to leave their child in the stroller while they went on the ride.  Many parents do so jokingly.  They'll jokingly ask about babysitting and such.  But then there was that one dad.  Who pushed his stroller, with four year old in it, into our area (which is what we like them to do... just we prefer them to take the child out first), and continued down the walkway leaving his four year old happily munching on his Pringles and watching the birds fly around.

It took us a second to track him down since he just continued walking and didn't speak English.  We told him he needed to take his child with him, and he got mad at us!  He actually got mad at us because he said that we told him he wasn't allowed to take the kid with him because his kid had Pringles.  Okay, the Pringles can't go on the ride, but the kid can.  Crazy!

We ask the guests to unload their child from the stroller quickly, and/or in line to make the process as smooth as possible.  It's always annoying when a parent takes five minutes to unload their stroller because they have child, other child, certain buckles, rain shades, food, candy, cameras, purses, etc. etc. to deal with.  This is very understandable.  They are tourists and there is a lot to keep up with.  I just really appreciate it, though, when we have very simple people who have nothing but a backpack and a small foldable stroller with a kid in it.  It's always a relief.

Sometimes guests don't like us to park their strollers.  This is really annoying, but again, understandable for those with trust issues. But it's hard on us because there's a fairly specific system that we use in order to keep everything looking good and organized (and keeping it easy for guests to later find their strollers - for example: park strollers in one places, "limos" in another, foldables are together, and big clunky singles in another, etc. etc.).  But then others come in and mess it up.  But, overall, it really is a nice job.  Plus we get fans.

On Fastpasses: I am thoroughly amazed at the amount of guests who don't understand the Fastpass system.  The more I learn about it, the more I can see where people could get confused, but still.  It's always been a very simple concept for me.  You go to the ride for which you want a Fastpass, you put your park ticket in, it spits out a Fastpass that says "Return between 'A time' and 'B time'" and you return between those times to skip to the head of the line.  You can't get another Fastpass until your current one expires OR two hours from the time you got it, whichever comes first.

I had a very angry man today who showed me his Key To The World card (the card that Disney Resort guests get that is basically their room key, but they can also charge money to it in the parks... kind of like a credit card, and it is their park ticket to get in as well) and insisted that he had paid "good money" for it to have Fastpasses on it and why wouldn't I let him skip the line when he paid "good money" to skip to the front of each line for the duration of his vacation.

It doesn't work like that.  I tried to explain how it worked to him, but he was so mad he couldn't even listen.  He just walked away grumbling about how everyone changes their stories and Disney gipped him out of his "good money."  I literally couldn't even get five words out.  The funny thing is, the way Disney works, if he had just talked to me we were slow enough that I could have just given him some Fastpasses to "make up" for his anger and such.  But he wouldn't even listen to anything I had to say.  He just wanted to yell.  Lame.

It's the worst when I get people who don't speak English asking about it.  It's hard to explain in a foreign language.  But people think you have to pay extra, some think you have to have a Fastpass in order to ride the ride at all, some also get Fastpasses and then still enter through the normal line.  At the very end, right before they get on the truck, they'll pull it out... this always confuses me because I'm wondering what in the world they're thinking it's for.  Weird.  And then of course, they get mad that they paid extra and didn't get anything.

Don't worry though, I get really, really happy guests too!

On BoCo: Booking Coordinator is another really fun position, but it can get extremely boring when it's slow.  You basically stand at the front of the line scanning for food and drinks, making sure everyone is "appropriate" to ride (everyone, even children and babies has to have clothes on, including shoes, which we have to enforce sometimes because parents will strip down their kids when it's hot sometimes), and counting the guests and helping the wheelchairs and such.  I had two little kids the other day who came through and were your classic Disney kids who were unbelievably excited about everything.  "We went on Everest!  It was so much fun!"  "No, my favorite part was Dinosaur, but it was really scary."  "Yeah, she was scared, but I didn't even close my eyes even once!"  "Yes you did!  Remember, with the big dinosaur!?"  "No I didn't, it was so much fun."  "Oh oh, and we got to see Tigger!  We saw Tigger!"  "Mom, where's the autograph book, I want to show her his autograph because we really met him!"

Cutest thing EVER!

On Cute Things:  Baby elephants drinking the water together.  Rhinos rolling around in the mud.  Lions playing, pacing, and climbing.  Giraffes running (actually that looks a little more awkward than cute because their bodies are so long and gangly... it looks like it's got to be hard).  Thompson's Gazelles wagging their tails like puppies.  Baby mandrills the size of my foot running around playing with each other (okay, so my foot is an awkward thing to compare them to, but I couldn't think of anything else that's their size).  Warthogs leaning down on their elbows to eat.  Hippos freaking out at the birds that land on their backs.

I get to see this stuff.  All. The. Time. :)

On Free Stuff: Definitely one of the best parts of any poor college students life (or anyone's life, for that matter) is free food.  I love that Disney randomly has these picnic things where the managers cook for all their employees and we all pig out on the food that is served to us by our managers.  It's just great on so many different levels.  But anyway, yesterday they made hamburgers and hot dogs with Disney potato chips and every kind of dessert imaginable.  Seriously, there were so freaking many desserts.  I'm pretty sure every manger must have brought one, and some more than one. 


Anyway, along with all that free food (which in and of itself was awesome) we had a raffle with prizes.  And nearly everyone who entered won something.  I won another copy of the Toy Story 3 Commemorative Edition on BluRay and DVD.  Goody!


On Playing: I've been out playing a few times lately.  I'll try and put up pictures soon.  LOTS of pictures.  Yesterday we went to Hollywood Studios and then Beaches and Cream and then visited some resorts.  So much fun! :)

Just Living the Dream

When you work at Disney, and someone asks "Hey, what's up?"  or "Hey, how are you?"  The correct response is, "Just living the dream."

The good news is I picked up a shift so I got to work Thursday!  More hours!  But the bad news is that means I only got one day off this week.  Which means only one day to catch up on sleep.  And instead of catching up on sleep yesterday (and laundry, and groceries, and cleaning) I woke up at 7am again and went to the parks with some friends.

I know it's pathetic, but despite having worked here for the past two years, there were still some attractions I'd never been on, mainly because I had decided they were boring and lame.  So I never did them.  Yesterday, Chelsey made me do the ones in MK that were like that.  So I went to Tom Sawyer's Island, watched the Country Bears show and did the Hall of Presidents.  Surprisingly (actually, I really shouldn't have been surprised, this is Disney after all) I really enjoyed all of them.  Especially Tom Sawyer's Island.  I couldn't believe I'd never been there and now I really want to reread the books.

After MK, we went to Blizzard Beach and met up with the boys.  I did the Summit Plummit twice, which is why I'm bruised all up and down my right side today.  I think somehow I accidentally slammed my body into the right side of the slide at the bottom.  It hurts!

After that we ended up at EPCOT after a lot of confusion and meeting people and, of course, the daily thunderstorm.  We went on Soarin' and watched IllumiNations, which is basically one of the best shows ever.

Such a great day!  Unfortunately I only have pictures from the morning since I didn't have my camera in the water park and later it was pouring rain.  But take my word for it, it was fun!

So then today, I had to work at 8:15am.  But due to rotten bus schedules I got to work at 7:30am.  Meaning I left at 7am.  (I'm not complaining about getting to work early because A, I have a car and B, I work with really fun people who also get to work early and we all have fun hanging out)

I opened a truck which I haven't done since training, but I did just fine.  And I only got one ride around before being bumped for my first break.  Then, later I did a round and I came back to pick up my next group of guests and a trainer jumped into the front seat next to me.  I was in the middle of spieling and doing the ride, so I didn't really have time to ask him what was up, or why he was there.  I just kind of went with it and did my spiel.

We went through the whole ride with him and his clipboard taking notes.  I was thinking the whole time trying to figure out if I was in trouble, doing something wrong, had someone complained about me?  I had no idea!

Finally at the end I let the guests off and turned to the trainer to ask what was up.  He was doing "show control."  Apparently, it's a common thing for trainers to randomly do rides with us and listen to our spiels making sure we're still doing it right and we're not veering too far from the script and driving correctly, remembering speed limits and such.  He said I did everything just fine and complimented me.  He said the only negative thing he had was that I sounded kind of nervous, however I was still able to sound energetic and happy... just a little nervous.  Not sure how those go together.

Well of course I was nervous, I thought I was in trouble!  Although it did make me think, because while I was nervous, I thought I was doing a really good job completely hiding it, but apparently not.  Anyway, I need to work on stage fright, I guess.

Later I got to work Departure 2, which is just about my favorite position out of all of them.  It's the one where you ask how many and then assign guests a row.  It's like a never ending tetris puzzle, where the pieces are constantly not going where you want them to go, jumping out of line, or where a piece says it's a blue rectangle when in fact it's a square.

I'm not even kidding.  I would ask people, "How many in your party?"  And the first person would say three so I'd put them in a row and it would turn out there were six people.  I can understand a party of five saying they are four because one is a baby or something.  But really?  Three people being five adults and a child just doesn't make any sense to me.  And it happened a few times.

I would also tell people "Row 4" and they'd go to row 3 or something.  At one point I had assigned them to row 8 and went to the next guests to tell them where to sit, when I turned around again I found that every member of that party had happily decided they would each get their own row, taking up row 3-5... but nobody in the one where I had put them.

But it's fun.  It's like a never ending puzzle that's constantly changing and needing to be fixed.  I have to be constantly thinking and figuring stuff out and fixing things which is fun for me.  I totally love that job, as frustrating as it may be sometimes.

Anyway, I'm still living the dream!  Still loving life!  (and taking more pictures to post on here shortly!)

Reminiscent

Almost two years ago my grandpa died.  I never wrote about it on here.  Those feelings and such were kept for my private, more personal journal.  (yes, I don't actually put every single detail of my life on here)

Anyway, the day my grandpa died, I had to work.  I didn't want to call in, and while I was sad, there was no reason to miss work over it.  But I was kind of out of it and distracted all day.  I forgot my ID to log into the computer at one point, and due to my mistakes I had to call my manager to come fix my login.  After messing up so many times it locks you out and you have to have a manager come.

I felt terrible because I knew my manager was extremely busy, but he also happened to be an extremely nice manager.  So I called him and told him I locked myself out of the computer, and he very kindly dropped what he was doing to come help me.  We walked backstage into the office in the back.

As my manager got onto the computer, he was typing here and there as my mind stayed in fogland.  Then, I heard the printer start to go and he turned around with a piece of paper, "Did you see the picture of the new baby giraffes in Animal Kingdom?"  He handed me the paper of the two babies and I nearly started to cry.  Seeing the picture of the baby giraffes just made me feel more emotional.

All ended up well.  My account was fixed, I didn't make any more mistakes, and I eventually told my manager all about what happened.  But I never knew at that time that one day I'd be working in Animal Kingdom.  In fact, I'd be seeing those giraffes every single day on the Savannah.  And every time I'd see them, nearly two years later, I'd remember my grandpa and the day he died and how much I love and miss him.

Who knew a giraffe could mean so much?

This Job Is Messing With My Life

-When I close any door or gate I have to double and triple check that it is, indeed, entirely secure

-I freak out if people get into my car, or out of it, before I had the chance to put it in park and turn on the parking brake

-I keep spotting random animals by the side of the road and feel the need to get excited and talk about them.

-Speaking of the car, my car seems entirely too tiny, and I can't get over how cute and little the steering wheel of my Accord is.  It feels like I'm sitting on the ground using a donut to steer.

-I keep using words like "Jambo" "Karibuni" and "Kwaharini" when saying hello or goodbye.

-Being covered in sweat just feels natural.  And rain?  That doesn't even phase me anymore.

-I keep talking in my totally weird tour guide voice.

-I have to drink lots and lots and lots of water.  All the time.  I come home and I'm still thirsty.  I drink three cups of water before (and again during) any meal.

-I feel the need to honk twice at intersections before I begin motion.

-New words have been added to my vocabulary, or have gained new meaning for me, for example: prams, reserve warden, Kilimanjaro 12, FLIK cards, Pride Rock, 103, Jabali, BoCo, Departure 3, Cheers, Safi River, and more.

I freaking love every second of it!  Every. Single. Second.  I love my job.

Tidbits Of My Life!

The reason for lack of pictures is lack of desire to take pictures of myself after work... because I look like this:

But, since you asked, there ya go!  Me in my hot costume.  Literally.. it's hot.  It's covered in sweat, just like my entire body in this picture and my hair is a frizzy mess due to constant sweat and sticking sticky headphones on my head all day.  Blech!

Speaking of my costume, take a look at my patch on my right arm.  The one that says where I work.  That's not really a patch.  We call it our "target."  Because when you do stupid things you get punched there.  My first trainer told me about it, and warned me about an older woman who's a trainer who likes to punch her trainees in their targets when they make mistakes.  I was fortunate enough not to have her as my trainer.

However, I was unfortunate enough to sit beside her in the break room one day.  She started telling a story to the people across the table about a trainee she had who went up on the curb.  "And so I punched him!  Right in his target!" She said.  And she punched me!  Me! I was the innocent bystander listening to her story!  So funny.

Below is a picture of how FLIK cards should not be dealt with.  (no worries, this picture was taken well before park open)  Those cards were a stinking crazy mess.  And instead of helping, I thought I'd take pictures!

I don't really have any more pictures.  Legal pictures that is.  Since technically all backstage pictures are off limits, and that's the only time I have to take pictures of the trucks.  But suffice it to say, they are coming!

So, more random tidbits of my life:

I was driving the truck around empty the other day (reason explained later).  The animals tend to do more interesting things when there are no guests in the truck, I've noticed.  Except that one time the hippos let out these huge loud noises and yawned really big.  That was awesome and the guests went crazy.  Totally got an applause at the end of that one!  But I digress.  So the other day the mommy elephant and her baby (we have a lot of those, but a particular pair...) were hanging out under the water super close to the truck with nothing but their little trunks sticking up out of the water, and they were intertwined together.  So stinking cute!

Then the lion actually stood up as I came around and started walking towards me.  It actually kind of frightens me when the really big animals walk right towards my truck.  Particularly the white rhino since they actually can come right up to the truck.  But anyway, it was the first time in my life, I think, when I actually thought that a lion looked slightly scary instead of relating him to a soft, gentle Mufasa or Aslan.  This lion looked almost ravenous!

While I'm on about lions, the male and female were cuddling today under the tree.  Well, cuddling as much as lions can cuddle.  Super cute.  Again, they only did that when I was driving alone.  When I had guests most of the day I didn't see them at all, and the few times I did see the male he was just laying there.  Then at one point, the male sat up and moved his head and my whole truck freaked out.  It was soooo funny!

There's a part of the safari when music comes on.  Every once in a while I'll say something like, "Oh!  This is one of my favorites!  Sing along, if you know it!"  No one knows the song, it's just some random Swahili song.  And no one ever sings along, and really I don't expect them to.  I just say it to say it.  However, one time I said that and three little kids in the back started "singing."  Cutest sound EVER!  They were trying so hard and I had to turn off my mic I was laughing so much.

I had a little girl who was very concerned today that we keep the lions so close to the addax, and don't lions eat them!?  How do we prevent the lions and cheetahs from eating all the rest of the animals?  She was so concerned, but I assured her that the addax were safe.  I left out the part that in real life, that's just how it works.  Sad, really.

My favorite guests are the parents with little kids.  My least favorite, I recently decided are teenage boys and Brazilian tour groups.

Teenage boys because they spend the whole ride screaming about how "I just saw the elephant peeing! Hahaha, did you see that!?  He was peeing! Hey, hey talk about how it was peeing!"  and "Is that real?  I don't think that's real.  In fact I'm pretty sure it's fake.  Why do you pretend that's real?  You shouldn't lie.  Are you sure that thing's real?  It looks manmade!"

And the Brazilian tour groups because they spend the whole ride singing "La Cucuracha" over the sound of my voice.  I'm not even kidding you! That literally happened today!  30 of them.  Got the truck to themselves, and not a single one spoke a lick of English.  I just gave up spieling because they were too busy singing their songs (they really did break into a chorus of 'La Cucuracha' for quite a while through Ituri Forest) and yelling about the "olifants!"  The only English word they did know was "Stop!"  But they kept yelling at me to stop in places where I couldn't stop.  So annoying.  But for some reason, this group applauded at the end too.

Lots of groups applause at the end!  I love it when that happens!  It feels great!

To explain what I said earlier, we have some shifts where we drive empty trucks around at the end of the day.  That's because the park is closed, so the ride is closed.  But the animals need to stay out longer and the animals are trained that when the trucks stop, it's time to go in.  However, the animals can tell the time of day anyway, and often I'll find them standing by their gates anyway.  The lion paces a lot at that time of day.

This is really long, so I'm going to finish it here.  But there are just a lot of random things about my job I'll have to document at some point.  For the record, I love it!  I love my job!  And I'm scared to be so incredibly happy and satisfied with my life at this point because I'm scared that means something bad is going to happen soon.

But that's just a part of my personality. :)