The End
Once the rain stopped (and we listened to the Dapper Dans again while sitting inside Casey's) we started to meander through the shops. We knew we had to leave but neither of us really wanted to go.
I took this before we left Casey's:
Jem ended up buying a Stitch stuffed animal that she had wanted all trip and I bought some jewelry.
Just before we left I took this picture. Now, let's have a conversation about this, shall we?
It looks fine when it's small but then I got home and noticed the poor woman missing the back of her head and the kid in red that looks like they're missing something. Oh well, I just wanted to capture that last moment in Magic Kingdom.
We made our way back to the Caribbean Beach bus stop. It was only us and an older man who was going back to rest while his wife continued looking around the park. He was very nice and we had a very enjoyable conversation with him.
But we had a LONG conversation with him.
Because guys? It took close to a half hour-forty minutes for our bus to come. We left with plenty of time to get our luggage when we got back and now we were stuck waiting. And it had started to downpour again. We had just made it under the cover before it started.
But yeah, bus service went downhill as the days went by. I know it was the middle of the day (sort of, close to five) but very twenty minutes then something way more reliable like a bus should be able to too. We got back to Caribbean Beach about ten or fifteen minutes before our bus was scheduled to show up. I waited for our carry-ons and shifted things between my carry-on and my park bag while Jem went to the bathroom to quickly change into her airport clothes.
She came out about a minute before our bus showed up and we were quickly off to the airport
She did have enough time for me to snap a picture of her cuddling her new Stitch though
When we got there we had time to kill. We went up to window shop before we went through security. Which was a bad idea because right at the top of the stairs? Was the NASA store.
So, I don't know if you've picked up on it, but Jem's a little obsessed with space. She watches all the launches, she watches all the astronaut biographies, the documentaries, everything. For Christmas her prized possession was a Neil Degrasse Tyson book.
So yeah, she loves space.
We walked in and walked around while she geeked out (we were the only ones in there). We had to leave only because I had to use the bathroom and we have a code taught to us by both her mother and chaperoning for my father's select choir: when one goes to the bathroom, everyone takes advantage of it.
We headed back in and we were honestly in there for about twenty minutes. I think Jem bought more stuff in there than she did over a week in Disney.
Seriously, she got a travel coffee mug, a t-shirt, two keychains, and that sleeve of patches she's holding (they're either Gemini or Mercury, I can't remember which she ended up buying, I just remember I found the Gemini ones). She may have gotten some other things as well but I don't think she did.
I got my revenge though. We walked across the hall to the Universal store and I spent quite a bit of time looking around at all the Harry Potter merch. Not that she dislikes Harry Potter (or I dislike space) but it's definitely something I'm more in love with than her and vice versa. This is what I ended up getting (as modeled by my fantastic Duffy bear):
A chocolate frog and a Ravenclaw Prefect badge. Not as over the top but I needed to be able to fit everything in my bags and the only other things I wanted were gigantic.
We also stopped by the Earport and Jem picked up some things her mother had wanted. She also managed to get the backpack that they were selling for spending $25 and up or whatever the price distinction was. I think the CM actually managed to sell it for her without her buying that much, because the only place we spent enough to get it during the trip was at a kiosk that didn't have them. So we moved things around in her bags so that she could use that (bigger) bag for her personal item and went back out.
We still had time to kill before we even thought about going through security so we wandered back from the Earport to the security checkpoint we needed to go through and found the Sanrio store. We looked around inside before finally deciding to bite the bullet and go through security.
I got through fine, Jem was chosen for a random check. I got laughed at by the security guard here though. I spent a year and a bit traveling between England and America, usually with stops in Iceland or Ireland or Canada in the process, so I've gotten very used to traveling. I also just kind of flip my foot back, catch my shoe, and put it in the tray. I guess he'd never seen someone do that before because he laughed and proceeded to loudly tell all the other people working around him about how I flipped my shoe off.
Anyway, security was fast minus those two little things, we were at our gate in no time. They had just broken the news about Robin Williams so it was kind of surreal sitting at the gate listening to the news report about it.
Our flight home was fine and uneventful. I don't know what I did probably listened to podcasts and tried to sleep. We got back to Boston sometime around midnight and got our bags. Then we waited around for my parents, who were waiting around the corner at a different baggage carousel. Apparently the sign had the wrong carousel number on it and when I called him he didn't realize that there were more on the other side.
They dropped us off at our apartment and I think we both just collapsed into bed. It had been a long day, but so worth it.
). If it will keep me cool...I will wear it no matter how uncool I look 
