TRIP REPORT!!!!!!!!!
Thursday
We left my house around six that night to go pick up Cath and head to our grandmother’s house in Jackson, TN. I finished packing mere seconds before we left – it was all very rushed. We got to Cath’s house and it turns out she wasn’t feeling well at all. I started panicking a bit! Her mother kept telling her as we loaded her stuff into the car that if she didn’t feel well, to stay at my grandmother’s and they’d come get her the next day. Cath was completely out of it, so she wasn’t saying much. She slept during the hour ride to our grandmother’s house. It was near 8 when we got there, and we all went ahead and went to bed.
Friday
Two AM friday morning… yes, that’s quite early. I was already awake by 1:30… something had gone wrong with the thermostat and it was FREEZING upstairs. I got on up and got my dad and Catherine up. Catherine called her mother (yes, at 2 in the morning) and she was in there mumbling in the phone while I got ready. Dad and I went on downstairs and ate donuts. Cath came down a few minutes later and called her mom AGAIN. I started telling her that once she got there she’d be fine (I figured it was airplane jitters – she doesn’t like airplanes. I think I was right.) Cath decided to go, much to my relief. We got in the car and were on our way to the Nashville Airport by 2:30.
(The monkey at Mema’s house)
We got to the airport around 4:30 – our plane was taking off at 6:17. Cath slept the whole way there. She got to feeling a bit better inside the airport, but was asleep and using my shoulder as a pillow once we were on the plane. Our seats were crappy – in the very back, and we were seperated. Dad was across the aisle, I had the aisle seat on the otherside and Cath had the middle seat. The nice lady who had the window seat asked me if I wanted it, and of course I gladly said YES!
I was reading The Fellowship of the Ring, and other than that the first flight was uneventful. We got to Charlotte and found our next terminal. The terminal was in a part they were remodeling, and I felt like I was in some little airport in India waiting on my flight. Cath slept and I read some more while we waited. The next plane turned out to be very small, and we were in the very back again, but at least we were all together this time. We reached Durham a little after 11. I was very happy to see my bags again (I have a fear of them getting lost)! Turned out to be rather warm in Durham, as I found out while we were waiting outside for a shuttle from the hotel. I was wearing jeans and a t-shirt – Cath was in jeans and a sweatshirt and said she was fine! The shuttle driver was insane, I swear. I’ve never seen anyone drive like that. We finally got headed for the hotel when he got a call that he had missed a pickup – we had to turn around and go all the way back and find his missed pickup. Annoying! I wanted to get to the con! It had already started!
We checked in and went to our room. I threw my suitcase out on the bed and immediately got all my clothes everywhere as I searched for my Selphie costume pieces. Cath changed into her Rinoa costume. I was too excited to worry with my hair, so I just put it in two low pigtails.
I didn’t take many pics Friday, mostly because I kept forgetting. For a while we just walked around, looking at costumes and talking. We finally headed into the dealer’s room, and I was immediately glad Cath had my wallet so I wouldn’t be spending my money on anything and everything.
At two we went to the Tsukasa Kotobuki panel. It was interesting, but distracting because it was so cold in there. (I suppose it wouldn’t have been had I not been wearing a short yellow dress). We skipped the autograph session and wandered around some more, and finally went to the Evangelion panel for a little while. Then, I think, we probably went back to the dealer’s room, and then got seats for the Yuu Watase panel. Cath was feeling much better by now, still a little off. If we had known that the autographs were going to be given row-by-row, we could have sat a lot closet, but me being me, I wanted to sit closer to the back.
I doodled in my sketchbook, and when the panel was over, Cath and I wrote an incredibly stupid fanfic while waiting on autographs. Our turn finally came… Cath had her sign her Animazement program (having nothing else), and I got her to sign my Fushigi Yuugi 1 that I had brought along with me. She really IS cute as a button, and still so nice and polite after having such a rough day!
I wanted to go see karaoke, but instead we walked around a bit more then went upstairs. I got a Reese’s and a Coke out of the machine, and we went on to bed… we were just a tad tired, as you can imagine!
Saturday
I woke up before our wakeup call and wandered around the room. Suddenly the alarm on the clock went off. Cath picked up the phone and started going, “Hello? Hello?”
“Cath, it’s the CLOCK,” dad and I both said.
We all went ahead and got up. Cath put on her Ocha “costume” and I got into my Beatrix costume. I wanted to order room service for breakfast so I could eat before putting on all the parts of my costume, but dad said that he wanted to eat downstairs at the buffet. I quickly finished getting dressed and went on downstairs. I felt sort of stupid sitting there at that fancy table in my eyepatch and big gloves. I had realised how loose my gloves were when I put them on that morning, so dad helped me safety pin them on tighter… so I couldn’t take them off to eat. Yikes. I also had to safety pin my boot covers in three places, and they still looked like crap. I didn’t get to finish my hair, either. I ate very little, even tho all I’d had to eat the day before was a donut, some coffee, half a slice of cheesecake and 2 reese’s. Cath ate pretty much nothing -she was feeling much better, but had no appetite. We headed on out and walked around for a while.
(COSP mailing list… I was too late to jump in so I just took some photos)
Dad joined us a little while later. He had decided to come to the convention today, so he got registered and got a pass and all that. We went in and got seats for the Sushi demonstration. Dad was looking forward to this – he set up the video camera so he could record and everything. cath and I doodled on little pieces of paper that had been left around. I tried to show cath how to draw… LOL We sat thru the sushi demonstration… and was disappointed that no one in the audience got ANY. That was enough so that every person in there could have had a piece, but nooo.
Dad went off to watch Dormitory Iron Chef, while Cath and I walked around. That’s mostly what we did. We would go in the dealer’s room, buy stuff, take it back upstairs, walk around, sit, walk around, go in the dealer’s room, buy stuff, take it upstairs, walk around, sit, walk around… you get the idea. I got sick of wearing my Beatrix costume, so I went upstairs and changed back into my more comfortable Selphie costume.
We went ahead and got in line for the Cosplay Contest. I had my sketchbook this time, so I doodled while we waited. We got pretty good seats… dad, for some reason, did not come find us in line and stand with us like we expected. He just got in line farther back and had to sit several rows back from us by himself. Silly!
The cosplay contest was very amusing. The costumes were great… the manga fairies that won were gorgeous, the Lain’s Knights was very funny… there was a bunch of other stuff I wanted to mention, but I can’t think of it right offhand. I need to go back and watch our video. We got to watch the winning Music Videos while the judges conferred – we definitely liked the ‘Pretty Fly for a White Guy’ with Tuxedo Mask, Vash and Carrot the best. I think Cath thought it was the funniest thing she’d ever seen. If anyone knows where I can download it, let me know! I wasn’t familiar with the other series that won a couple of prizes, but the Cowboy Bebop ones were really well done.
The awards were presented, and Cath tried to take a few pics of that, but they didn’t really come out. Nekomi won for her Ryoko costume, way to go! 😀 We walked around for a long time in the hall after the contest, looking at the costumes. I was on my third camera at this time, and unfortunately it was a different camera than the last two I’d had, and I didn’t realise I had to turn the flash on! So none of my after-cosplay contest photos came out ><;
I went upstairs and changed into my Britan outfit for a while. Cath then started whining about going to the dance, which I didn’t really want to go to. She talked me into changing back into my Selphie costume, and we went downstairs.
I must admit, I’d never really been to a real dance before. I mean, one where dance music is played and people actually dance. Last time was my prom four years ago, and I spent the entire time out in the hallway popping balloons. I had more fun watching the dancers than dancing. I would have had a great time just sitting there watching, but Cath refused to dance alone. There were some guys there who could really dance – there were really cool to watch!! We danced with some other people, and at one point Cath got asked to dance, and she kept motioning for me to come rescue her, but what did she expect me to do? Walk away from the guy I was dancing with and cut in? LOL Dad actually came down for a few minutes, at least he didn’t bring his camera. I finally talked Cath into leaving around 1.
It MUST have been after the dance, I’m sure it wasn’t before, and I’m sure it wasn’t Friday… but we wandered around every floor looking for Reese’s. I’d gotten the last one out of the machine on our floor the day before, so we went searching for other machines. Yeah, it WAS saturday – i was in normal clothes for once. It was in between the dance and cosplay contest. I finally had to go downstairs and buy out of the gift store. I also got the last ones there :]
Sunday
Sunday I was up before the wake up call again. This time I had something to do – the pantyhose I’d used to cover my Sakura wings had gotten a run and needed to be sewn up. Dad let us order room service this time, so I didn’t have to try to eat downstairs in my Sakura wings. I was able to eat in my PJs, yay!
Cath put on her kimino and we headed downstairs. It was very different from Saturday – seemed like no one was down there. And I was the only costumer I saw for a while! Having nothing else to do, we walked around the hotel, then got in line for the dealer’s room… even tho we didn’t have much money left! We went on in and Cath had to walk behind me to keep my wings from knocking into anything. I spent the last of my major money on CardCaptor Sakura mangas, and I spent the rest of the day buying a new pin with the few dollars I had left everytime I went in. Cath decided she wanted to buy Sailormoon’s star locket, so we left the dealer’s room and she went and found the ATM. She discovered her paycheck had arrived, so she had plenty of money! Just a few minutes before I had seen something I had always wanted… Wolfwood sunglasses. They were way out of my range at that point (if I had seen ’em the day before, however…), but suddenly an idea popped into my head. Cath agreed to buy the sunglasses for me in exchange for what she owed me for the plane tickets! I spent the next hour telling her what a wonderful cousin she is! (and it was easier on me this way… it wasn’t like I was actually spending the money… you know!)
We had to go upstairs and get our stuff so we could check out at noon. It was very hard carrying that heavy suitbag and backpack downstairs while wearing wings. We managed it and checked our suitcases, while dad went and sat in the bar area with all our sacks and backpacks and things. We wandered around more, and finally went and got seated for the Closing Ceremonies. We didn’t win a thing, but one of my tickets was four numbers away from one that DID win.
After that it was over… ! We went and sat in the bar area with dad, and he got a pizza and we ate. I went and changed in the bathroom – a real challenge, trying to change in one of those stalls. As soon as I came out, Cath dragged me over and we got our picture taken with Tsukasa Kotobuki. Then we had to sit for an hour doing nothing. I doodled, Cath wrote her name over and over.
We caught our plane back, and had a nice little layover in Charlotte. We ate dinner there and caught our next plane. Cath was feeling just fine now, and we were reading CardCaptor Sakura manga. We got on the plane, and we passed Ronnie Milsap sitting in first class. “That’s Ronnie Milsap,” Dad said. Cath and I said, “who?” Dad, of course, had to say, “Keep up the good work, Ronnie!” And Ronnie said “thanks.”
Catherine kept going on about how the guy sitting in front of us was an “8.” We got to see lightning in the sky as we reached Nashville -really cool.
We got into Jackson around 12:30 or 1… I don’t remember, because I finally fell asleep in the car. We spent the night at my grandmother’s, and Cath and Dad headed home the next day. I stayed for the week, just because :]
(she’ll kill me for posting this one)