THURSDAY
Picked up Ash, rode to grandmother’s had dinner. Ride to Nashville was pretty uneventful. Got lost in Nashville. We passed the Clarion where mtac was last year – is it closed? Looked like it. If it is, good, because it had ugly wallpaper and mean employees and icky bathrooms. Got to hotel finally, went to sleep.
FRIDAY
Got up at 4:30 AM! O_O We did the “Park’n Fly” thing, where you leave your car at the hotel and they drive you to the airport. We called it “Park’n Fly for a White Guy.”
Annoying thing – Southwest doesn’t assign seat numbers. Instead they give you a number, and then call, like, everyone who has 1-30 to come get on the plane. We had 45-47, so we were really worried we weren’t going to be able to sit together. Why not give seat numbers? That’s really stupid.
Got to the hotel and got registered really fast. We were on the second floor… better than 7th last year, but no pretty windows around the elevators. It’s hard to tell really what all we did on friday and saturday… we hopped around different panels, went in the dealer’s room a bunch of times, etc, etc.
At one point, tho, I remembered something – my aunt was going to fedex me some reese’s XD I told dad to go check at the front desk – and sure enough, she had fedexed something to us. When I saw it, it was a HUGE insulated box with medical alerts all over it! LMAO!! It was pretty embarrassing. She didn’t just send reese’s, but lots of other candy and cards and stuff. Yay! We were tired and didn’t stay long in AMVs. We watched America’s funniest home videos and it was SO FUNNY. I’m sorry, it just was. Whiney the Poo, haha. I’m sorry we missed Crazy Monkey Hell and karaoke, tho.
SATURDAY
We ordered room service for breakfast again and I just had a biscuit. I wanted someone, at some point, to order a Playtime Dog from the restaurant. We were very amused by that. And “Hottle.” Hmm. The COSP/ACP/Cos-men pics were taken outside, and it was sooo hot in that misato jacket. After COSP/ACP, I went and changed into Lulu finally and Ash put on Meryl. It took me nearly an hour to get it all on. Ash had to help me with the makeup, too! what would I do without her? Once I had Lulu on, things got tough. It wasn’t easy to walk in, though I got the hang of it eventually. It was better when I had my dad’s arm to hold on to. The wig was very heavy and I couldn’t bend over because of the corset. Sitting was, at first, out of the question, though as the day wore on I discovered I had the ability to sit lots of ways in it, lol.
AshleyV found us, and I got to have pictures made with her in her beautiful Yuna costume! Also caught Melissa a few times, and got to talk to Nekomi a bit, but that was about it. There were so many people I kept meaning to catch up with and at least say hi – a lot of people from cosp or acp and the kawaii senshi and others – but it seemed like I never really got a chance. ash and I were always either on our way somewhere or too busy acting stupid to notice a lot of time! I did get to pose with an AWESOME Auron and an equally awesome Tidus at one point!! They were so cool š And I got my pic taken with a stormtrooper once! yay!
Anyway, we discovered that people were lining up to get into the cosplay, so we got in line, too. I had already decided that I wasn’t going to enter – but then a really nice Yuna came up to me and asked if I’d like to be in the cosplay with her. I said sure. So we came up with a little thing to do on stage, changed the forms and we were ready. After I found out that they made the line for the cosplay go OUTSIDE I was *really* glad that I had gotten this chance to be in the contest! Ash said it was horrible. I really enjoyed being in the contest, even standing in line. I got to meet a lot of nice and really talented people. I’m sorry that the tap-dancing Mario didn’t get to go on – I really wanted to see that!! After our thing on stage, there were no seats left for cosplayers – so it was either stand against the wall the rest of the time, or find out if I could sit in my Lulu costume. Guess what, I learned to sit on the floor in my lulu costume, lol.
There were SO many amazing entrants – I figured if we got anything, it would be a judge’s award, and that was if we were lucky! But somehow we managed 3rd place intermediate. I’m really very proud of ourselves – the competition was so tough and there were so many people who deserved it. I know they can’t plan it in advance, but it’s hard to split a prize between people, you know? Luckily we figured it out pretty easy, but it’s gotta be tough for the larger groups. The rush out of there was horrible, and I got stepped on more times then than the entire day. I went upstairs and changed, finally. I had spent almost ten hours straight wearing Lulu, and it was starting to get really… annoying LOL I changed into Selphie cause I love that costume and it’s comfortable. We ordered pizza (yuck – I had half a slice) and then went down and checked out the dance. We didn’t stay, tho. I really wanted to see some cool dancing, but Ash didn’t want to and we were both tired… we did watch some of the tekken tournament, tho.
SUNDAY
I hate sunday of conventions. everyone is fixing to leave and it’s so sparse compared to saturday. Ash decided not to wear a costume sunday. We hung around for a while, took some stupid pictures (trying to use up the last of our film) and then got in line for the dealer’s room. At one point the dealer’s room guy came up, took my hand and led me into the dealer’s room!! So I got to be one of the first ones in there, and it was very odd seeing an almost empty dealer’s room. We spent some in the dealer’s room, then had to go back up and get our stuff together to go.
Checkout was noon. We packed everything up and I changed into normal clothes š The elevators were being stupid on sunday – we waited at the back pair for almost ten minutes, then tried the front pair. After a few minutes of waiting there, I got tired of it and decided to try the stairs. I had the two smaller rolling suitcases – small, but heavy. I managed to get one down the stairs safely – but the other I dropped at the top of the stairs and it slid the whole way. I thought it was pretty funny. So did the other people on the stairs above LOL Despite my mishap with the suitcase I beat dad and ash down. They eventually had to use the service elevator.
Dad checked our luggage and we went to the art auction. All my pieces sold and I was happy. Amazingly my stupid trigun print sold for only two bucks less than my big vash crayon piece. wassup with that? lol. But that’s four pieces I don’t have to drag around anymore. As soon as the art auction was over we had to split for the airport. We went and got our luggage but then dad couldn’t find his hat. I had to run back (barefoot- can’t run in flip flops) to the art room to see if he’d left it there – nope. He had left it in the bar area. So we hustled outside….. and waited. The shuttle took forever š
Overall
So, it was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed it. I hope next year they might think about moving to a bigger place. The overall damage?
The Tidus action figure (big!)
the Auron action figure (also big!)
Der Mond (yoshiyuki sadamoto’s artbook)
Groundwork of Evangelion 3 artbook
3 little trigun figures
Rally Vincent action figure
a misato pin, gourry pin, lulu yuna tidus rikku and auron pins
a NERV bag
wolfwood and milly keychains
a stuffed link for kevin
a sailormoon lunchbox for cath.
Not too shabby. What did I eat? Six reese’s, two half slices of pizza, one fourth of a club sandwich and a biscuit. No wonder I was hungry the whole time. LOL
Despite the fact we had fun at Animazement, I think next year we may look at A-kon instead. Plus A-kon is a little later than Animazement, which will make it easier on us getting out of school and work.
I took a lot of pictures. And there’s more coming! Once Ash gets HER film developed I’ll be adding more soon…