When I was younger, I absolutely hated the characters at Disneyland. Like, run-away-kicking-and-screaming-if-they-were-even-in-the-same-room-as-me hated them. When I go to a Disney park now though, it's 100% my favourite thing to do. I know the queues are normally very long and it might not be as exciting to some people as the rides, but I love how it's a different experience every single time and that I can have an interaction completely unique to me. But I know that some people don't like meeting characters because they find it really awkward, or don't know what to do when they meet them, so here are some of my tips for meeting characters at the Disney parks.

Get an autograph book

I think some people think that autograph books are just for children but they're definitely not. Not only are they something that you can keep after your holiday to remember all the characters that you've met, but they're also a great way to start an interaction with a character. If you're a bit nervous then saying 'could you sign this for me?' (please don't just shove it in their face!) is the perfect way to get things going with them. Some of them have really fun autographs as well, so you could start a conversation with them about how cool their signature is and go from there.

Wear character specific clothes/ears

Obviously you can't wear a different character specific outfit for every single character you meet, but if there's a certain character that you know you are going to meet that day then wearing something to do with them or their movie is the perfect way to get a good interaction. The character will normally notice it themselves and ask you about it (or point to it if they can't talk) but if they don't, don't hesitate to show it to them and ask if they like it. Some of my best character interactions have come out of wearing certain character ears, and I often keep 2 pairs of ears in my bag at once. Marie from the Aristocats is my favourite childhood character, so I have a pair of Marie ears that I wear whenever I meet her. When I went to Disneyland Paris last year, I was wearing them in the queue and she came over to me whilst we were waiting and gave me a big hug and fussed over me before it was even my turn to meet her!

A lot of people find it really awkward to talk to the fur characters because they can't talk back to you, but that doesn't mean you can't have a great interaction with them. As long as you don't ask them ridiculously complicated questions, they are able to answer you with gestures and movement and you can easily have a full conversation with them. If you're not sure what to say, simple things like telling Minnie Mouse that you like her dress or asking Chip and Dale if they've had any acorns today are perfect ways to start up a conversation. There's nothing worse than seeing someone queue for an hour just to walk up to a character, pose for a picture and leave without saying a word!

Suspend your disbelief

Let's be honest, as adults we all know that the characters at the Disney parks are just people in costumes. But, if you want to have a good interaction with them, you need to forget about that and act as if you really are talking to Winnie the Pooh or Peter Pan. It might seem a bit silly at first but you'll feel so much less awkward and you'll get a much better character interaction out of it. No one is going to think that you look stupid, these people are paid to be those characters and most of them absolutely love what they do. They know their characters inside out and will be much more responsive to you if you treat them like the character that they are.

Thanks for reading and I hope these tips help!

Amy xxx

Some of my favourite posts I've done are photo diaries from various trips and holidays. I love going through all of my photos and being able to share some of my favourite ones on my blog. In September 2015, a few months before I started my blog, I went to Copenhagen with my family for a few days and I realised that I have never shared any of my photos from the trip, neither on my blog nor anywhere else. I had a really lovely time there, it was such a beautiful city and we even took a train over to Sweden for a morning too. I thought it would be such as shame to not share any of my pictures so here are a few of my favourites. 

Feminism: The advocacy of women's rights on the ground of the equality of the sexes

There is no doubt in my mind that I am a feminist; as a woman I want to be able to do anything that a man can do, and not have my gender stop me from achieving my goals and dreams. No, I don't want to be better than a man, or have more opportunities than men, I just want equality (because that's literally the definition of feminism). Whilst it's clear that we have come a long way in the fight towards true gender equality, there's no denying that there is still so much further to go; there is still a gender pay gap, many women still don't have the right to free speech and men are still scrutinised for showing any kind of emotion. But, as important as these issues and many others are, I don't want to dwell on the negatives, but instead talk about all of the positives that have come from today. 

Today has shown me that there are so many women out there who want to celebrate and lift up other women without expecting anything in return. 

Today has reaffirmed my belief that feminist icons and role models come in all shapes and sizes, all races, all sexualities, all careers paths and all ages. 

Today has confirmed that it is so important to stand together with other women, instead of competing with one another.

Today has reiterated that there are thousands of women unapologetically doing what they love, running their own businesses, writing incredible blogs, being mothers and literally anything else you could think of.

Today I have learnt to never apologise for who I am and to never second guess my abilities or ideas.

Today has taught me that I can do anything I set my mind to, not in-spite of the fact that I am a woman, but BECAUSE I am a woman.

So if you don't know, and by this point I'm pretty sure about 99% of the population do, I'm going to be doing the Walt Disney World cultural exchange program this summer. If you don't know what that is, basically I will spending 2 and a half months working in one of the restaurants at Disney World in Florida! Because I'm going to be working in America, I needed to go and get a visa, so I thought I would tell you about my experience of applying for and going to get my visa.

Before I could book my appointment, I needed to apply for my visa online. This was possibly the most stressful part of the whole process as I had to answer so many questions and fill in all of my details... I was so worried I would put something in wrong and mess it all up! You don't have to do the application all in one go, as long as you remember your application ID you can save it and finish it another time, so I completed mine over about 3 days. Once I'd finished filling in everything, the last step was to take a visa photo; this is basically the same rules as a passport photo except it has to be square. For this I just took a selfie in front of my white bedroom wall and used that! 

After I'd completed my application I could book my appointment at the US embassy. When you go to get your visa, you have to give them your passport as part of the process and it then gets sent back to you with your visa. Because i'm going away in April, I wanted to book my appointment as soon as possible to make sure I had my passport back in time so I actually booked it for just 2 days later. This was really simple to do and only took about 10 minutes. I then had to pay my SEVIS fee (I'm not entirely sure what this is, I just know I had to do it!) and I was all ready to go!

So the day of my visa appointment arrived and after an incredibly stressful morning in which my alarm didn't go off and my phone didn't charge, I got the 6:15 train into London in order to make my 8:30am time slot. I had so many documents with me and I was sure that I had left something incredibly important at home but it all went absolutely fine. When I got to Euston I met the girl who is hopefully going to be my roommate when we are in America and we got the tube over to the embassy together. She was so lovely and I cannot wait to spend my summer with her! 

We actually got to the embassy at about 8am but we had to queue outside for half an hour anyway, in which time they checked we had all the necessary documents with us and we went through security. Once we got inside we were given a little ticket and were told to wait until our number was called. This actually took way less time than we thought it would, and whilst we were waiting we realised the Warwick Davis was there getting a visa as well! After about 15 minutes my number was called and I went up to one of the booths. After giving them all of my documents and taking my fingerprints, I went through to another part of the building to have my 'interview'. This was a lot more informal than I thought it would be and only lasted about 5 minutes. I was asked what I would be doing in America and what my plans were for when I come back and that was it... I had a visa! They tell you at the end of your interview if you have been accepted or not and I had, so now I just need to wait for it to be sent back to me. We had heard loads of horror stories of people waiting in the embassy for hours so we were pretty surprised that within an hour and a half of arriving in London we had already finished!

I can't believe that tomorrow is only 100 days until I leave and now I have my visa everything seems so official and real! Before I went to get my visa I had no clue what it involved so I hope this was helpful to anyone currently getting a visa too!

Thanks for reading!

Amy xxx

I can't believe February is already over, it seems like only a few days ago that I was writing my January favourites post! This year is just going so quickly and it's crazy that it's only 108 days until I fly to Orlando for the whole summer! (Read all about that here) Last month I said I really wanted to do a favourites post every month and so far I'm sticking to it, so here are my favourites for February 2017: