I’ve been spending a lot of time for various reasons at landmarks or sorts, some famous the world over, others only famous to people who care about fancy Hollywood crap like me. (See? I admit it. I care.) Landmarks like the Four Seasons Hotel, and the Beverly Hilton, and the… well, luxury hotels mostly. What can I say? I love a good lobby ballroom.

But yesterday, I found myself accepting a last-minute invitation to the landmark to end all landmarks in California: Disney Land. The last and only time I’d been to the Happiest Place on Earth was my freshman year of college when, hours after returning from spring break and in the midst of an ambitious drug detox, my friends woke me at 8 a.m., threw me in the car and drove me to Anaheim. I proceeded to have a first-class freak-out in Toon Town. That place is just… yikes.

This time around I was more in my right mind, and an early morning rainstorm that scared away a lot of other visitors had given way to a lovely, breezy day. Smaller crowds meant shorter lines, meaning more time on the Mountain triumvirate of Space, Splash and Thunder. And this time I got to see the oddity that is California Adventure, built since my last visit. It’s a theme park about all the great things you could do in California! If only you were there! Oh… wait.

Visiting with an insider gives you great perspective, like now I know that California Adventure cost about $1 billion to build, and now, just a few years later, they’re spending another billion to fix it. Because it needs fixing. At least thematically. BUT! California Adventure is the one area that serves booze, so there’s always that.

By far the most delightful discovery of the day came in the safety video for Star Tours, a “Star Wars”-themed ride where you board a shuttle for some Lucas-sanctioned vacation. In the video, when they get to the part about no flash photography, a kid takes a picture of Chewbacca sitting behind him. Everyone freaks out. Blink and you’ll miss Admiral Ackbar, that pillar of leadership and grace under fire, raising his arm to strike the child. Awesomeness.

(Also, the ride itself features your shuttle — which inexplicably has guns mounted on the front — helping out in the destruction of the Death Star. So, you might not make it to your final destination, but you still get to help kill hundreds of thousands of government employees.)

And the least delightful discovery? Outside the “It’s a Small World” ride, they play the damn song on a loop. They don’t even have the decency to wait until you’re inside to torture you with it. Or at least to set up a bar nearby. That’s just cruel.

“Drinking in L.A.” is Ned Ehrbar’s look at life as a bleary-eyed East Coast refugee in sunny Southern California. You can see Ned’s other work here, and you’re more than welcome to follow him on Twitter, as awful as that sounds.”