Chicago: Wed Night/Thursday
So, I suppose it's time I started writing up my adventures, yes? I'm holding off on the convention stuff until I get home so I can scan in my photo ops and include those too. But I can at least cover the pre-con hijinks while I have a quiet moment.
Wednesday
I couldn't have asked for a smoother journey and flight really. Everything was running on time, there was no line when I checked in at Heathrow and the plane landed 30 minutes early in Chicago. The only marginally difficult encounter I had was getting a shuttle for the airport to the hotel. I didn't realise they only ran every 30 minutes so when I saw shuttles for every other hotel turning up I was half convinced I was in the wrong place. I was a few minutes away from actually calling the hotel when the shuttle arrived so all was well in the end.
Got to the hotel and immediately headed up to my room where most of Team Assbutt was already gathered. Got glomped by harper47 and there was general squeeing and joy that after all these months of talking about it we were finally coming together.
Present at this point were me, harper47, squeemonster, qthelights and darksilvercat. We were still missing bindaroonie and wingsunfurled.
Nobody really knew where bindaroonie was (which was the theme of the weekend really) but wingsunfurled was on a later flight so we decided to wait for her and then order pizza (because it's Chicago and you have to, right?)
OMG THE PIZZA WAS EPIC!
I wasn't really hungry as I got a lot of food on the plane so I left it to the others to just order whatever they wanted. They ordered from a place called Giordano's that had been recommended by kadiel_krieger. It was called a stuffed pizza and I have never seen anything like it before. I was so amazed I started telling Matt and Richard all about it at the meet and greet *facepalm*
But look! I'm not sure if the photos do it justice but it was HUGE and looked more like a pie.
After we ate we were all pretty jetlagged and tired so we headed off to bed early ready for more adventures in the morning.
Thursday
Woke up early in the morning. Like ridiculously early. I was still running on British time so while it was 5:30am in Chicago it was lunchtime in the UK. But that was okay. I wandered downstairs and used the computer in the business center to let everyone know I had arrived safely. harper47 is a naturally early riser so she was already up and she bought me a vanilla latte so try and convince me that coffee is awesome. It was okay and I drank it all but it wasn't really my thing.
Kudos for the imaginative decorating of the water tower outside our hotel
We chilled out for a while and eventually all of Team Assbutt gathered (minus bindaroonie) for a trip to get pancakes for breakfast.
I should explain here. I love pancakes. I love them a lot. Pancakes are not a breakfast food in the UK (unless you make them from scratch and who wants to do that?) so whenever I visit the States I like to have pancakes as often as possible *g*
We had some fun trying to work out how to get the train into the city but luckily there were people at hand to help and advise. I have to say that for all the images of Americans I had in my head just about everyone I encountered was friendly and willing to help.
We did have a moment of hilarity on the train where harper47 was reading qthelights' DCBB on her phone. I asked her what part she was on and she replied in her booming theatrical voice 'MISHA IS PLEASURING HIMSELF'. The guy sitting behind us was trying really hard not to laugh. LOL.
So squeemonster took us to this awesome diner type place called The Bongo Room which did the most weird and wonderful varieties of pancakes I have ever heard of. A bunch of us got different kinds so we could try them all.
wingsunfurled got chocolate pancakes with banana and oreo
qthelights got red velvet pancakes
squeemonster got pumpkin spice pancakes and I got pretzel pancakes with white chocolate and caramel sauce. They were all SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO good!
After that we got a bit lost trying to find the place where we were supposed to be doing the architecture boat tour and cassiopeia7 called to see where we were and I had no idea. LOL! It worked out well though as we found a T-Mobile store that had cheap pay as you go phones which meant I didn't mount up a huge bill calling people to arrange meeting places etc.
And we eventually found the boat and did the tour.
I was actually amazed at the weather. I'd been warned that Chicago weather was very much like the UK in terms of weather but it's been really hot and sunny almost the whole time I've been here. It was perfect. I was actually worried I was going to get sunburned on the river but apart from turning a little pink it was all good.
I took A LOT of photos on the boat tour so I won't crash your browser by posting all of them. I'll just share my faves (and don't ask me to tell you what any of these buildings are as I honestly can't remember. I'm sure the Chicagoans on my flist can tell you)
Oh, this is everyone swapping numbers for our new phones. LOL! We are such geeks ;)
After the boat tour we FINALLY managed to meet up with cassiopeia7 (after several near-misses) and we headed to Millenium Park. I was pretty excited about this because in my fic Misha Collins Makes A Match the boys vist and Misha twitpics silly pictures of himself reflected in The Bean. Yeah, I'm a loser ;)
Millenium Park was actually smaller than I expected but I loved it. One of my favourite things about Chicago is that there is random art just dotted all over the city. But there was some really cool stuff here and The Bean was just part of that.
I don't even know what this is supposed to be. Anyone?
And here it is
It's pretty awesome
Team Assbutt reflected in The Bean
Operation 'be like Misha' begins ;)
The underside of The Bean is really awesome! Like a kaleidascope
And a random dinosaur
squeemonster really wanted to see the spitting statues as she'd been here earlier in the week and they'd been switched off
Not this time though. YAY!
Somebody pointed out that this looked like an old man's penis and after that we couldn't unsee it.
I don't know what this was but it was really damn creepy
Dinosaur again
Awesome roof
See what I mean about random art. This was on the way back to the train station
We did a booze run on the way back to the hotel (OMG AMERICAN BOTTLES ARE HUGE COMPARED TO OURS) and when we got back we FINALLY crossed paths with bindaroonie who had been downtown at the same time as us and was excited because she'd seen President Obama.
I met up with heavenreturned who was manning a food drive for Random Acts and we hung out in the lobby waiting for registration for the convention to start. At one point Richard Speight Jr walked past us and identified us as fangirls as he smiled, waved and said hi. It may have been because we were staring at him. Oops.
I also spotted Matt Cohen checking in and a little later I walked right past Aldis Hodge without even realising it was him. LOL.
So I eventuallly got registered after sitting and watching the EPIC line slowly dwindle down. Honestly, I have no idea why people queue for these things. It's not like you get better seats for registering early.
But this brings me to my first Creation complaint of the weekend. Now I had heard bad things about them from various people and they were entirely justified. Now, don't get me wrong, I had a blast at the con but I did not have any positive encounters with the staff there at all (apart from the people selling stuff. Evidently they put the nice people in the places that involve taking money).
So, because I had a gold ticket I could register whenever I wanted. However, I was with people who had standard passes so I figured I'd just wait with them and keep them company. According to the schedule the standard tickets could register at the end of the night. So we waited, and waited and waited.
Finally, when there was nobody at all in the line qthelights and I went up to see if she could register. She was told that standard tickets could only be done the next day. Naturally she was pissed. Hell, I was pissed for her!
So we went away and she pulled up a copy of the programme and went back again, showing them that is said in black and white that she could register now. Again the woman tried to send her away and claimed that that they didn't even have standard tickets at the desk so there was nothing that could be done but she said qthelights could go and talk to them if she wanted. I went with her, ready to yell on her behalf if needed, and the woman behind the desk barely batted an eyelash and said of course she could register now. So all of that hassle and upset was for nothing. Poor heavenreturned has a cane and was in tears of pain from having to wait around for so long only to be told she would have to get in line again in the morning. They eventually let her register too.
Egads it was a saga though!
So that was it. By the time everyone had got registered it was almost midnight so we headed off to bed ready to start the con proper in the morning
(and that report will come on Thursday when I'm home)
Wednesday
I couldn't have asked for a smoother journey and flight really. Everything was running on time, there was no line when I checked in at Heathrow and the plane landed 30 minutes early in Chicago. The only marginally difficult encounter I had was getting a shuttle for the airport to the hotel. I didn't realise they only ran every 30 minutes so when I saw shuttles for every other hotel turning up I was half convinced I was in the wrong place. I was a few minutes away from actually calling the hotel when the shuttle arrived so all was well in the end.
Got to the hotel and immediately headed up to my room where most of Team Assbutt was already gathered. Got glomped by harper47 and there was general squeeing and joy that after all these months of talking about it we were finally coming together.
Present at this point were me, harper47, squeemonster, qthelights and darksilvercat. We were still missing bindaroonie and wingsunfurled.
Nobody really knew where bindaroonie was (which was the theme of the weekend really) but wingsunfurled was on a later flight so we decided to wait for her and then order pizza (because it's Chicago and you have to, right?)
OMG THE PIZZA WAS EPIC!
I wasn't really hungry as I got a lot of food on the plane so I left it to the others to just order whatever they wanted. They ordered from a place called Giordano's that had been recommended by kadiel_krieger. It was called a stuffed pizza and I have never seen anything like it before. I was so amazed I started telling Matt and Richard all about it at the meet and greet *facepalm*
But look! I'm not sure if the photos do it justice but it was HUGE and looked more like a pie.
After we ate we were all pretty jetlagged and tired so we headed off to bed early ready for more adventures in the morning.
Thursday
Woke up early in the morning. Like ridiculously early. I was still running on British time so while it was 5:30am in Chicago it was lunchtime in the UK. But that was okay. I wandered downstairs and used the computer in the business center to let everyone know I had arrived safely. harper47 is a naturally early riser so she was already up and she bought me a vanilla latte so try and convince me that coffee is awesome. It was okay and I drank it all but it wasn't really my thing.
Kudos for the imaginative decorating of the water tower outside our hotel
We chilled out for a while and eventually all of Team Assbutt gathered (minus bindaroonie) for a trip to get pancakes for breakfast.
I should explain here. I love pancakes. I love them a lot. Pancakes are not a breakfast food in the UK (unless you make them from scratch and who wants to do that?) so whenever I visit the States I like to have pancakes as often as possible *g*
We had some fun trying to work out how to get the train into the city but luckily there were people at hand to help and advise. I have to say that for all the images of Americans I had in my head just about everyone I encountered was friendly and willing to help.
We did have a moment of hilarity on the train where harper47 was reading qthelights' DCBB on her phone. I asked her what part she was on and she replied in her booming theatrical voice 'MISHA IS PLEASURING HIMSELF'. The guy sitting behind us was trying really hard not to laugh. LOL.
So squeemonster took us to this awesome diner type place called The Bongo Room which did the most weird and wonderful varieties of pancakes I have ever heard of. A bunch of us got different kinds so we could try them all.
wingsunfurled got chocolate pancakes with banana and oreo
qthelights got red velvet pancakes
squeemonster got pumpkin spice pancakes and I got pretzel pancakes with white chocolate and caramel sauce. They were all SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO good!
After that we got a bit lost trying to find the place where we were supposed to be doing the architecture boat tour and cassiopeia7 called to see where we were and I had no idea. LOL! It worked out well though as we found a T-Mobile store that had cheap pay as you go phones which meant I didn't mount up a huge bill calling people to arrange meeting places etc.
And we eventually found the boat and did the tour.
I was actually amazed at the weather. I'd been warned that Chicago weather was very much like the UK in terms of weather but it's been really hot and sunny almost the whole time I've been here. It was perfect. I was actually worried I was going to get sunburned on the river but apart from turning a little pink it was all good.
I took A LOT of photos on the boat tour so I won't crash your browser by posting all of them. I'll just share my faves (and don't ask me to tell you what any of these buildings are as I honestly can't remember. I'm sure the Chicagoans on my flist can tell you)
Oh, this is everyone swapping numbers for our new phones. LOL! We are such geeks ;)
After the boat tour we FINALLY managed to meet up with cassiopeia7 (after several near-misses) and we headed to Millenium Park. I was pretty excited about this because in my fic Misha Collins Makes A Match the boys vist and Misha twitpics silly pictures of himself reflected in The Bean. Yeah, I'm a loser ;)
Millenium Park was actually smaller than I expected but I loved it. One of my favourite things about Chicago is that there is random art just dotted all over the city. But there was some really cool stuff here and The Bean was just part of that.
I don't even know what this is supposed to be. Anyone?
And here it is
It's pretty awesome
Team Assbutt reflected in The Bean
Operation 'be like Misha' begins ;)
The underside of The Bean is really awesome! Like a kaleidascope
And a random dinosaur
squeemonster really wanted to see the spitting statues as she'd been here earlier in the week and they'd been switched off
Not this time though. YAY!
Somebody pointed out that this looked like an old man's penis and after that we couldn't unsee it.
I don't know what this was but it was really damn creepy
Dinosaur again
Awesome roof
See what I mean about random art. This was on the way back to the train station
We did a booze run on the way back to the hotel (OMG AMERICAN BOTTLES ARE HUGE COMPARED TO OURS) and when we got back we FINALLY crossed paths with bindaroonie who had been downtown at the same time as us and was excited because she'd seen President Obama.
I met up with heavenreturned who was manning a food drive for Random Acts and we hung out in the lobby waiting for registration for the convention to start. At one point Richard Speight Jr walked past us and identified us as fangirls as he smiled, waved and said hi. It may have been because we were staring at him. Oops.
I also spotted Matt Cohen checking in and a little later I walked right past Aldis Hodge without even realising it was him. LOL.
So I eventuallly got registered after sitting and watching the EPIC line slowly dwindle down. Honestly, I have no idea why people queue for these things. It's not like you get better seats for registering early.
But this brings me to my first Creation complaint of the weekend. Now I had heard bad things about them from various people and they were entirely justified. Now, don't get me wrong, I had a blast at the con but I did not have any positive encounters with the staff there at all (apart from the people selling stuff. Evidently they put the nice people in the places that involve taking money).
So, because I had a gold ticket I could register whenever I wanted. However, I was with people who had standard passes so I figured I'd just wait with them and keep them company. According to the schedule the standard tickets could register at the end of the night. So we waited, and waited and waited.
Finally, when there was nobody at all in the line qthelights and I went up to see if she could register. She was told that standard tickets could only be done the next day. Naturally she was pissed. Hell, I was pissed for her!
So we went away and she pulled up a copy of the programme and went back again, showing them that is said in black and white that she could register now. Again the woman tried to send her away and claimed that that they didn't even have standard tickets at the desk so there was nothing that could be done but she said qthelights could go and talk to them if she wanted. I went with her, ready to yell on her behalf if needed, and the woman behind the desk barely batted an eyelash and said of course she could register now. So all of that hassle and upset was for nothing. Poor heavenreturned has a cane and was in tears of pain from having to wait around for so long only to be told she would have to get in line again in the morning. They eventually let her register too.
Egads it was a saga though!
So that was it. By the time everyone had got registered it was almost midnight so we headed off to bed ready to start the con proper in the morning
(and that report will come on Thursday when I'm home)