So, San Diego report!
Wednesday!
We got up at 4AM, went over to Ash’s house and picked her up. We got to the airport a little before 5 and got checked in. Nothing was open so we just had to sit around. We ended up in like, the loser part of the airport I’d never been in before. So we’re sitting there, and this lady working for Northwest makes an announce that all large bags and suitcases would have to be checked (anything larger than a briefcase, she said). So I’m like, my laptop backpack is about the size of a briefcase, so I’m cool, so I continued to sit there. Well, she comes out from behind her podium to start putting tags on people’s suitcases and actually wags her little finger at me to come over there and check my backpack. That’s what got me, she just made that ‘come here’ motion like I’m a child in trouble, instead of doing the proper thing and coming over to me and telling me that my bag was too large would I please check it… had she done that I would have had no problem. So I told her I couldn’t check this, it was my laptop bag. You know what she tells me? “You’ll just have to carry your laptop.” W…T…F?
By the way, this lady totally ended up being full of BS, as we rode the exact same type of plane back from Detroit to Memphis on the way back and they had no problem with my backpack, it fit just fine in the overhead compartment.
So I managed to stuff my (huge, oversized) laptop into Ash’s laptop backpack, along with all my important stuff, and I took it over to her to get a tag on it, and I… actually didn’t say thank you, which is like a big deal for me, because even if I’m mad I’ll still usually say thank you. Ash said when I came and sat back down with my back to her, and she came walking by to go back to the podium, she gave me this death stare. WTF!
And THEN… our flight was delayed by 30 minutes. We were on the plane and they had something repaired and had to wait on it to be cleared. Ash and I were slightly panicked by this, because we only had a 50 minute layover in Minneapolis. Well we managed to get to Minneapolis on time (I don’t know how!!) we had to run all over that gigantic airport (I swear we power walked at least a mile) to find our next gate – we got there just as they were loading our aisle. Whew!
Trip to San Diego was uneventful, except that I managed to get some really neat shots of the Grand Canyon as we were flying over it.
Got our luggage (thank GOD! Remember last year they lost our luggage) and got a cab to our hotel. Got checked in – floor 19! Our room wasn’t ready yet so we went and had lunch. Then got our room. Our room was exactly the same as last year, just as nice. We called and got my boxes brought up, I unpacked a bit, hung stuff up, and then we went swimming.
It ended up being a mite chilly, so we didn’t stay long, we went back to the room and took a nap, until we woke up, got dressed, and went over to preview night. We went to get our badges – and there was no line. We walked right up. Pretty cool. Then we got in line for the dealer’s room – we waited there for about 30 minutes until it opened and we went in. I carried the video camera around the whole time, so I didn’t take any still pics that night. Ash bought the Super Grover she wanted, and I got my Anakin lightsaber. Then, back to the room and early to bed.
Thursday
I got up and we decided to order room service! š Oh my god it was good!
I put on Arwen and we headed over. Spent the day mostly wandering. Arwen’s train was just long enough that it fit comfortably over my arm, so I didn’t have too much trouble walking around in it. Eventually it got hot, though, so about lunchtime we went back over and I changed into Ozma, and we went back over and wandered some more. We headed back to the hotel around 6, perhaps… and decided to order pizza. We had seen an empty pizza box in the hall the night before and thought it sounded good (I can only eat pizza maybe 2 or 3 times a year, I generally don’t like it, but I do get cravings for it occasionally). So I looked up a Little Caesar’s in the phonebook, Ash mapquested it and we saw it was only 3 miles from us, so Ash called them. OMG. The guy who answered not only had a very thick foreign accent but was talking a mile a minute.. “Pizatgo” What? Oh, Pizza to go. Ash was on the phone with him like 10 whole minutes… he kept turning around and screaming at people in the background in whatever language it was… and they’d scream back. He finally figured out where we were and we ordered… “tendollarminimum” ok, so we ordered some breadsticks, too. He starts screaming at somebody again. Then, quiet. “Hello?” he says. Ash says “I’m here.” They repeat this process several times throughout the conversation. I totally think the guy was high or something. Suddenly he discovers he can’t deliver to us, and we’re like, thank god!!
So I call the concierge and ask HER what a good pizza place would be. She gives me a number to a nearby spot – and thank goodness, it WAS a good place. They delivered, we ate, and it was good. Then I took a shower, braided my hair, and we went to sleep.
I’ll continue later!