It's been 3 days since JIBcon ended and I'm still kind of in shock - I can't quite believe that last weekend happened :P. Rome was my first ever convention experience, in any fandom, and it was pretty amazing!
I arrived in Rome with my friend from home last Monday for 3 days in the city before the con began on Friday. It was a busy, hectic and tiring 3 days and unfortunately it rained for the first 2 of them. But we had fun - we saw the Coliseum, Roman Forum and Palatino, visited the Vatican Museums and Sistine Chapel, caught the lsat 5 minutes of the Pope's address in St. Peter's Square, tossed coins into the Trevi Fountain, put our hands in La Bocca della Verità... and ate a ton of pasta, pizza and gelato :).
On Friday morning, I said goodbye to my friend at the aiport, met my con roommate and we headed over to the convention where we met up with a few other girls I'd met online :). The first afternoon was a good start to the con - although my seat was quite far back in the panel room, I could see pretty well anyway. I didn't have any photo ops that day, and I wasn't bothered about getting any autographs, so I watched all the panels. Ty decided to crash pretty much all of them right from the beginning, lol. The panels were a lot of fun, but of course the real reason I was there (J2) weren't going to be there until the next day.
Saturday morning came, and unfortunately, I wasn't feeling well due to dinner the night before being way too rich... add to that the fact that I was nervous, and I wasn't feeling my best :P. The opening ceremony began, but as we all know, there was someone important missing - the room went pretty quiet and serious when Jensen explained that Jared had had to leave and was really sorry :(. It was such a shame that he wasn't able to attend the con, especially as he'd come all the way to Italy a couple of days earlier, but I have to admit that it wasn't the end of the world for me since my main reason for going was Jensen (I'd been most worried that he would have to cancel because of the baby or something) :P. In fact, it was almost a blessing in disguise in terms of my photos because I had bought Jared/Misha photo and a Jensen/Misha photo, but they had scheduled the photo sessions at the same time as the respective Jensen and Jared solo panels. I had only bought that one photo with Jared, but I wasn't going to miss the Jensen solo panel to get it, so I had been facing the prospect of having to miss out on the photo op (and I'd paid all that money for it) :(. In the end though, I was able to exchange the Jared/Misha photo for a single Misha and a double Matt/Ty photo instead.
The day began with panels from Matt, followed by Ty and Rob. I could have gone for my Jensen photo first thing, but I wanted to see the panels, and there was another photo session later on which didn't clash with anything... possibly a big mistake though, because I was nervous about the photo for most of the day :P. After Rob and Ty, Jensen came on for a solo panel instead of the J2 one. Ty had broken the rules earlier by bringing fans in from outside the panel room and getting them to sit on the floor, and told the rest of us to move up to the front. No one told me to move after the first 2 panels (which I would have done if asked cos I felt a bit guilty about sitting in someone else's seat), so I stayed sitting in that seat for Jensen's panel too.
I've managed to upload my videos from that panel (the quality isn't as good as on the camera though because I had to make them smaller):
Click to view
Click to view
After Jensen's panel, it was the Ty/Matt photo op, which I was nervous for because I'm not all that comfortable with the idea of 'photo ops' (being just a random fan in a long chain of photos) and I didn't know what I was going to do or say for the photo. So, I basically just went up to them and said 'I don't know what I want to do'. They were really sweet and said 'Yeah, you do. Yeah, you do.' Matt guided me to a spot and told me to 'stand right there' and then they kinda squished me between them:
After the photo op, we had lunch and then it was time for my photo op with Jensen. I was so nervous for it, it was unbelievable - butterflies in my stomach, heart pounding etc. - which was odd, because I have no trouble standing up and giving military briefings to dozens of air force pilots every day at work :P. My main worry was what on earth I was going to do when it was my turn for the photo. I had no idea what to say or anything. When we got into the photo op room I could barely even look at him because if I did I thought I might just freeze - I think it was the shock of actually seeing him up close and in person :P. Anyway, it was finally my turn and I just about managed to walk up to him and make brief eye-contact. He said 'Hi, how are you?' and all I could say was 'I'm good, thanks' and then stand beside him for the photo. He put his hand on my back and I did the same and then it was over. At the time I didn't think the photo was that good because of the nerves but actually maybe it's better than I originally thought:
Photo op over and done, I was able to sit back and enjoy the rest of the day. I caught the end of Sebastian and Brock's panel (I'm not a Seb fan at all, and couldn't stand his panels) and then Jensen and Ty did their joint panel. I was back in my proper seat, so I couldn't see so well. The Jensen/Ty panel was really good, and I got all of it on video too :). Misha was up next - another great panel, but the evening came to a bit of an abrupt end because Jared was supposed to be up last, but they just cancelled the panel and didn't replace it with anything. We grabbed some dinner at the hotel, and then headed to Jason's evening concert (which was good, albeit quite mellow), before going to bed (I was exhausted after feeling unwell and not sleeping well).
Sunday morning dawned and I was feeling much better and more comfortable with being at the con. I wore heels that day, which I really should have done on Saturday, because I'm only 5'2" and all the guests are so much taller than me (at least I didn't have to content with a Jared photo though :P). The day started a bit slow because the first panel was cancelled (it was supposed to be Jared's solo one), but that was okay because I could get my Jensen/Misha photo instead. I'm not really sure what happened in the photo op room, but just before it was my turn they closed the door for about 5 minutes, and then when we were allowed in for the photos, the guys seemed a bit tense and barely spoke to us - I wondered if someone had done something a bit out of line and had ruffled or offended them. As a result, I don't think it's the best photo - Misha's leaning at a strange angle and Jensen kinda looks a bit moody (the photos that were taken with them before us had lots of hugs from them, but they didn't seem to be hugging anyone after that):
After the photo, I went to Ty's next panel, which was another great one, followed by Jensen's second solo panel. I enjoyed both of them, but started feeling nervous again halfway through Jensen's... because I had my Jensen Meet and Greet coming up right after it!
We actually got to the Meet and Greet room last out of all the girls, so ended up with the last 2 seats along the table, but actually that was okay, because it was less nervewracking than being right next to Jensen (and also we could see him head-on). He came into the room, asked how we were doing, and took a seat, and strangely enough I actually felt the most relaxed and comfortable that I'd been in the entire weekend - no nerves at all. The M&G set-up is really good because when you're in that room, you just feel like regular people having a chat :).
The questions started and I didn't raise my hand at first because it looked like Jensen was working his way up the table from his end, but then he started taking questions from other people. I waited a while, but then noticed that the con staff were getting ready to say 'last question', so I quickly put my hand up - I'd been saving my question for months and I wasn't going to miss the opportunity to ask it. Jensen caught my eye, but then turned to the staff and asked 'last question?', and another girl put her hand up too... thankfully, he'd been about to nod for my question so he went back to me and not her :P.
Isaid that I wanted to ask about stunts on the show because my brother is a stuntman (he was like 'oh cool' when I said that) and then I asked what the working relationship was between he and Jared and their stunt doubles. His reaction was 'See, now why can't all the questions be like that?' - which was just what I had been hoping for, lol, because I'd been trying desperately to come up with a question that was unique and not something he got asked all the time. He told me about his and Jared's doubles (Todd and Mike) and how sometimes Todd would get a bit annoyed because he would get all dressed and ready to do a stunt and then Jensen would end up doing it instead :P. I had been wondering about that, since I know my brother would probably want to do every possible stunt himself, lol. He also said 'You can tell your brother this:' and then relayed an anecdote about how he'd been in a bar once and some guys were about to pick a fight, so he called Todd for advice, who dropped everything, got on his bike and raced over to take on the guys for him :P. Turned out the fight had been prevented before he got there though.
The whole time he was answering my question he held eye contact with me (I'm amazed I managed not to look away because I'm not very good at holding eye contact with people) and I could feel my cheeks twitching from grinning so much, lol. The M&G ended then, but those couple of minutes made my weekend - I was on a Jensen high for the rest of the day! It's crazy - I went from being cool and collected on Friday to fangirling on Sunday!
I had been planning to get my single Misha photo op done after the M&G, because there should have been 10 minutes left of his session afterwards, but then I found that they'd finished early due to no more people waiting. I wasn't going to worry about it, because the photo was really just the replacement for the Misha/Jared one, but I talked to the registration desk anyway to see if there was anything I could do about missing it. At first they told me there was nothing they could do about it, but then another staff member said I could come back at the beginning of the group photo ops to get a single Misha photo done... so I had the picture taken with Matt, Rob, Brock, Sebastian, Ty and Richard standing right there :P:
The final afternoon of panels started with Misha (which should have been Jared/MIsha), which involved a hilarious sketch trying to act out a season 8 scene with a fan, and Misha fighting a fan with a lightsaber. Sebastian was up next, but I deliberately missed the panel because I can't stand his innuendos, ego and lack of ability to answer questions. The second to last panel was Matt and Brock which was pretty funny... but what we'd all been waiting for was the final panel: Jensen and Misha. I had been slightly worried that we wouldn't get another great moment like last year's resume moment, but this one didn't disappoint! The panel was amazing, and only added to my convention/Jensen high. The 'quickfire' question round was hilarious, and I loved how Jensen took a video of us for Jared :). The closing ceremony was poignant and wonderful at the same time... and then it was all over and I could hardly believe it.
The weekend was rounded off with an awesome Steve concert - a perfect ending to the day - and then a trip to the bar for cocktails. I couldn't sleep at all on Sunday night because I was playing the events of the con over and over in my head. Monday morning came around all too quickly and suddenly I was on a plane, then a bus, and then back in my car, driving home, and a few hours later I was back at work, trying desperately to cling to the con experience :(. I've barely had any sleep since Sunday now because I've still been in a bit of a post-con haze, lol.
All in all, JIB Con was an incredible experience and I wish it could have gone on even longer (I would have loved to have been able to stay and go to the Jailbreak Club for Jason and Rob's gig on Monday, but I had to be back at work on Tuesday morning).
Of course, it wasn't quite the same without Jared being there too... but now I have even more reason to go back next year!