ElecTRONica

Roommate date night tonight at the happiest place on earth! Only it wasn't quite so happy this time around. Nearly an hour into our 70-minute wait for Space Mountain "Ghost Galaxy" (which we've never done and were excited to check out!) a cast member started making the rounds: "We are experiencing technical difficulties which you are welcome to stick around for, but it's going to be at least an hour. Also, the park is now closed..." Or something like that. Lame.

So off to DCA we went. Crazy busy there, but we managed to score some 11:15 World of Color tickets--at like 7:30. So with 3 hours to go before it was time to line up, we set off to occupy ourselves. Barely managed seats on the rollercoaster before it closed for the first WoC showing. Snagged some tortillas and bread after that. And just when we were about to give up hope and call it an early night, we stumbled past the Hollywood Backlot and saw strange things: flashing lights. Loud noises. Weird projections on all the building. And a big sign over it all proclaiming, "ElecTRONica." We had no idea what we were getting ourselves into.

Walking in a trance through the flashing lights with arcade-like whirs and beeps echoing off the crowded street, we entered deeper into this whole new world of TRON. Suddenly we were there. Dancing and drinking and a mad crush of young adults, all bobbing and moving to the electronic beat. Sure, this rave was Disney-sponsored and pretty G-rated, but still quite a different scene that I was used to seeing at D-land. Or at all in my life. On raised platforms at the 4 corners of the area were dancers in space-aged suits, doing the robot to a techno beat of "Everybody was Kung-Fu Fighting." At the very back we ventured into Flynn's--an arcade resembling the one that I guess is from the movie. And taking over the MuppetVision theater was a special 3D sneak peek of "TRON: Legacy," which was, by far the coolest thing about the whole shebang.

When the roomie and I finally stumbled back out of the dark and noisy and crowded ElecTRONica, it was like we had truly emerged from the computer-generated world of TRON and could breathe fresh air again. And the real world was a welcome relief, as was the cool tram breeze blowing our techo-induced headaches away.

ElecTRONica. Been there, done that. And, it felt, slightly against my will.