Thursday, Oct. 4: Here we are in Orlando again, this time for the Epcot Food & Wine Festival. Last night, we entered the park after 4:30, picked up our event guidebook, and proceeded toward World Showcase. We veered to the right toward Canada, passing a cluster of festival booths with Latin American offerings that were new this year: Peru, Argentina, Dominican Republic. But we wanted dinner, not just tastes, so we headed to Chefs de France café in the France pavilion. With our Disney Dining Experience membership card, we are entitled to 20% off most sit-down restaurants in WDW. We each got a glass of red wine, house salad, and split a dinner with roast duck, a sweet potato mousse of some sort, and green beans. Very delicious and more than enough for both of us. By sharing a meal, we saved about $30 for another entree with tax and tip.

Friday, Oct. 5: This morning, we entered Epcot around 10am, the weather steamy hot and rainy. After taking a quick look at the goods for sale in the Festival Marketplace, we strolled over to Norway where I bought several books as research for my current WIP. I’m reading up on Norse legends, ancient runes, trolls and such, so I was excited to find this material in the shop. They have lots of stuff on Vikings, i.e. toy helmuts and swords, books and silver jewelry, plus plenty of troll dolls (starting at $25 and up) but no sets of casting runes which I would have liked to see. Oh well. I guess the Vikings are more popular with children.

After paying over seven dollars each to sample leek and potato soup and a thin potato pancake at the Irish booth, along with a drink of Bunratty mead, we ate lunch at the food court inside The Land Pavilion. Tired of the heat and crowds, and expecting a furniture delivery at our condo, we left. It’s so nice having a place near Disney. With our annual passes, we can visit the parks at any hour and come "home" to rest. Tonight we are dining at Raglan Road, the Irish Pub in Downtown Disney Marketplace. Then tomorrow we are spending a full day at the Epcot Food & Wine Festival with our kids. The only downside is that I'll gain more weight!