I’ve been a zombie all day. I feel like I haven’t slept in days and I’m so sore!
But yes it was all worth it!
Friday we got up at 4:30 and started getting ready. Cath got to my house around 5:30 and we took off to pick Ash up. We got to the airport, checked our baggage, and then had a couple of hours to wait. We had breakfast at McDonald’s, and then sat down at the gate for a while. The flight there was quick and easy. We got our luggage fast, hopped on the MARTA no problem and got to the hotel. Unfortunately there we hit snag #1- our room wasn’t ready, and wouldn’t be for 2 more hours. So we checked our baggage and went and got our badges. Luckily (lol) it took forever, so by the time we got our badges and stuff our room was ready (didn’t take quite 2 hours, btw)
18th floor! Whoohoo š I called down to shipping to get my boxes sent up, and they said I had four boxes. I was like, “WTF? No I should have 3” But whatever, they sent the boxes up. Well the guy got there and only had 2. I told him I should have one more. I gave him the tracking number and he went in search of it. He came back a few minutes later with it… turns out the woman in shipping who answered the phone thought my one tall box was two boxes š
Since I’d lost so much time I decided not to wear Amalthea. I put on Susan instead and we hit the dealer’s room.
We didn’t buy anything the first day, though. We mostly just wandered. Got our sheets for the masq – for some reason let them take a pic of me in Susan for the hall costume contest. Ate lunch, signed up to have our pic taken w/James Marsters, and eventually I changed out of Susan (corset was starting to bother me, and Death of Rats was getting annoying to carry) into… something else. What was it? Darn if I know… hmm… oh! It was Shadowcat, and Cath put on Jubilee (I think I may have worn something in between Susan and Shadowcat, but if I did I don’t remember). We went to look for the X-Men group to meet up with. We only found a Nightcrawler and Gambit, but they were really cool and we posed for pics with them and hung out for a while.
Then we went and changed so we could eat dinner and be at Evening in Bree on time. I almost put on Eowyn just cause it’s cooler but I stuck with Arwen because I got a new wig for it and wanted to wear it. Then I was like, ‘ugh screw the wig don’t feel like wearing a wig’ So I just pulled my hair back -no braids and left. I didn’t plan on entering the costume contest, we just wanted to go dance. So we went to Chic-fil-a and it took forEVER and I was sweltering in my Arwen costume (and was glad I hadn’t worn the wig) and then went to Evening in Bree. Cath then forced me to enter the costume contest. I didn’t think I stood a chance, but I told her if she really wanted me to then fine, go get me a number. So she did, and entered. There was a lot of good costumes there, some really beautiful dresses and cool Ringwraithes and even a Witch King. So we danced for a while, got all hot again, and then they called up all the elves for the first part of the costume contest. It was really quick! The judges finished up and announced 3rd and 2nd place, and I wasn’t either, so I was like, I told ya so. Then they said, “1st place to #7” and I just started clapping, just thinking “yay for #7… oh, wait, I’m #7”
So yeah that was cool and unexpected. I won a cool Frodo statue.
Then we were so hot and tired from all the dancing we only stayed around a bit more, then went back to the hotel room, straightened the room up, and called it a night.
Saturday
Up at 7:30 and dressed in our Powerpuff Girl costumes! We ate a quick breakfast and went down to the Hyatt lobby to meet up with everyone else for the parade. Everyone was really nice and friendly, it was fun! The walk to the parade was almost as fun as the parade itself, there was lots of staring! In the parade the cosplay.com was right behind Lou Ferrigno’s car. It was really cool walking along waving to everyone. Cath and I tried to skip every once in a while but the parade moved a bit too slow for that, lol. After the parade they had sports bottles for everyone with drinks in them, that was really cool!
We went and changed and I put on Teela, and we got lunch. We did some stuff. Again no purchases in the dealer’s room. Mostly just window shopping, at least on my part. We got our pictures with Peter Mayhew!
Pretty soon we went and got ready for the Star Wars Costume Contest. I put on Amidala and Ash put on Han and Cath her Dorme (Amidala’s Handmaiden). There were so many cool costumes, and amazing Amidalas. It was really fun, and Ash won Best Male in ROTJ! (Although her certificate said Best Female, lol) And she got some bling-bling, LMAO!
We had to leave as soon as she got her award, though, because I had to change out of Amidala and into Belldandy, so we could eat dinner and get to the cosplay contest on time. Unfortunately it took forever getting on… and then it took us 20 mins to get an elevator. We eventually had to take my wings off and go down one at a time. By the time we got down there it was past 7, and they wouldn’t let me enter. I was really bummed, because it was my last time wearing Bell.
It was too clunky to wear in the crowded conditions, so I just went and changed out of it into Lum. Then we went and got in line for Ghost of the Robot. While we were sitting by the door there was an altercation of some sort that involved a guest and the police. Yeah. Eventually they told us the Dawn line was now the Ghost of the Robot line. That sucked. We waited in line for frigging EVER and wrote a new story (if the link is broken it’s not up yet). Cath went and got cheetos and drinks for us. We finally got in, got decent seats and the show finally started about midnight. Ash got to go up into the mosh pit type area… cath and I got shooed back to our seats by a rent-a-cop. Just as we got back to our seats the band called for everyone to get in the front. We decided to stay in our seats. It was a good show. We got back over to the hotel around 1 and crashed.
Sunday
Sunday dawned costume-less because at 10 Ash and I were getting our pic taken with James Marsters. The line was really long but moved really fast. So we got our pic taken with him and he was really super nice. I shook his hand twice. I can’t wait for the pic to come. We never got his autograph, but who cares when we got a nice pic š
While we were doing that, Cath was busy getting an autograph from Noah Hathaway.
I think we did buy some stuff on Sunday. After that I went and put on Ruby Heart and wore that for a while – HOT HOT HOT costume. I stood around in the Marriott lobby for a long time in it because we were waiting on Cath to finish with her Kevin J Anderson autograph thing. It took so long we eventually got worried that she had come out and hadn’t seen us and was wandering around somewhere. So we went up to the uppermost floor and watched down for a while, looking at the Stormtroopers gathering and watching for her.
We eventually saw her come out and she came up to meet us and I went and put Teela back on. We ate lunch and hung around some. We got our pics taken with Peter Mayhew (Chewbacca). The funniest thing was Cath and his hair looked exactly alike – they are hair buddies! I think we went to do something but I can’t remember what. We went over to turn in our masq papers and got bad news – they told us we’d brought them back too late and they didn’t have room for us. Apparently when we got our sheets we were supposed to put our name on a list but we hadn’t been told that. We talked them into letting us enter, thank goodness.
We did some stuff and eventually went and put Amidala, Leia and Han on. We caught the shuttle to the civic center (and I about knocked my headdress off getting in the van) and sat backstage at the masq for a long time, chatting with other contestants and wandering around drinking lemonade. I went in the dressing room, took my hair off and put it back on much better this time.
The masquerade was great, I wish I had gotten pics of ALL the costumes. Some really funny skits and absolutely amazing costumes. Afterwards we did the camera gauntlet thing, and caught the shuttle back to the hotel. We crashed in the lobby for a while, eating snacks and stuff. I went over to the Hyatt for something – no clue what, now – but it was SO crowded. I was inching my way through the lobby trying to get to a door when this security guy (I guess? lol) yells “Let the princess through!” It was funny.
We went upstairs, I packed. We slept.
Monday
I wore Eowyn all day, and did all my shopping also. We tried all morning in vain to get Anne McCaffrey’s autograph. It was a bust. Cath did get Brad… don’t know how to spell his last name but he was Wormtongue… she got his autograph. We checked out of our room, ate lunch, and pretty soon I changed into regular clothes and we went to closing ceremonies. It was really short this year (love the fake ads and commercials that they played this year too!!). We sat for a while and eventually got our luggage, hopped on the MARTA and went to the airport. We ate at Burger King in the airport and encounted the Burger King nazi (ala the Soup Nazi). Our flight back got back early.
So yeah it was great, again.
What I bought:
Monty Python and the Holy Grail figure Prince Herbert
Monty Python and the Holy Grail figure Swamp King (Herbert’s dad)
Gollum action figure
Space Ghost patch
Last Unicorn DVD
She-Ra vol 1 (eps 1-5) DVD
Sunnydale High School sticker for my car
Ah My Goddess stickers
Honda Tohru pin, Belldandy pin, utena pin
Roger Dean calendar (although I gave it to my dad)
And I’m sure I’m missing something. but anyway. Yeah. Can’t wait for the next one.