ESTA Bank Holiday

Having had glorious (relatively speaking) weather all week whilst working, the bank holiday weekend brings with it a November style climate and I sit looking out at sideways rain and people walking past dressed like the folks who used to get involved in the back lot tour at MGM in the boat scene.

Some cliches are cliches for a reason. As another example, yesterday I did some painting…yep the bedroom again. This time it was only a few minutes of a job, following my Dad helping me (code for I stood watching) fill a couple of last bits. Oh and of course I went to the tip. I am the living embodiment of a British bank holiday weekend in flabby form.

We’re 93 days out from our trip and the need to change the flabby part of the above becomes more pressing. Louise recently invested in an exercise bike and I have already worked up a real sweat with it. But since assembling it I haven’t been near it to be honest. I have made plans to do so of course, by buying the cable that was missing from the spare room’s TV so that I can watch it whilst peddling. That is half the battle surely? Now, it is all set up and ready to go I am literally shedding the pounds already, right?

My relationship with exercise is sort of hate, hate with a side portion of guilt. I have started walking every lunchtime at work again with the winter weather possibly behind us. It’s only half an hour or so but add that to the half hour of walking the dogs after work and that makes a whole hour of me doing stuff I’d rather not, but it is for the greater good I guess.

During last week Emily introduced me to a new You Tube thing that has some good stuff for those who are obsessed with food. The channel is called Delish and whilst a lot of the content is less interesting to me, being recipes and such, they do have a good few that are right up my street.  I particularly enjoyed the ones where they eat the entire menu at the likes of IHOP, Cheesecake Factory and Applebees.

There are also some good ones involving all the snacks at Magic Kingdom, Universal and Disneyland. For a rainy bank holiday weekend, it’s ideal. Tell them I sent you.

The first one I saw was a good one. It involved the many snacks and of course alcoholic drinks at World Showcase. Enoy.

The fact that this one blog post goes from exercise bikes to life threatening amounts of food so easily sort of sums up my life quite well.

My new passport arrived at the start of the week. Despite them saying it would take three weeks, it took three and a half days. Clearly nobody is travelling anywhere these days. Having wept over the horrific ageing shown in the respective photos again, I then went off to the ESTA site to update mine and Louise’s with our new passport details.

You probably all knew this, but that isn’t possible. Even though we all got new ESTAs last year and should have had them last for two years, upon trying to edit mine, I saw that it expired alongside my old passport in a few days. So I had to bite the bullet and the $28 and apply for brand new ones for the two of us. I always forget the level of detail these buggers ask for and it took longer than I thought it would. I should at some point log back on and make sure we have moved from Pending to Approved.

Here’s a question for someone who knows their stuff. Am I able to update our US accommodation details on the ESTAs for those who don’t have new passports? I mean, I could go to the website and try but that would mean me going getting Emily’s passport from her bedroom in the attic and that’s not happening right now. This is the equivalent of those who post questions like “My child only turned three four years ago, can I pretend they are three and not pay for park tickets?” on all those WDW Facebook groups. They are of course one click away from Google but hey.

My guilt just forced me to Google that and I think the answer is no, you don’t need to/can’t update your US address but if you know better, hit me up, as the youngsters say.

Enjoy the bank holiday Monday if you get one. You might need a cagoule.

Till the next time……