Here is the rest.
As mentioned at the end of the previous post, following the closing down of BotCon, a few of us went on to do more things. So here they are!
This post is actually image-heavy, as opposed to links-to-images heavy.
As stated, I had grabbed my luggage and said goodbye to Luna, and so Becca and I were headed back downstairs, where we were going to meet Okami, Oasis, and, uh. Ben? Was his name Ben? Let's pretend it was. Anyway, we threw my stuff and ourselves into Becca's car, and then we were off! I took a few shots of the hotel as we drove away, and also one of the road system before us, and then also one of some fancy building we went past.
We were headed to a place called Medieval Times, where they feed you food but provide no silverware and also parade horses around in front of you and attack you with birds. AWESOME! So we arrived at the castle and I took more pictures, yay!
Becca and I had obtained tickets already, but the other three had not, and Okami had talked us into upgrading, anyway, so we all visited the ticket counter. But we got it all sorted eventually, and then we were free to go in!
They put paper crowns on our heads (we got yellow ones) and had us pose with the princess (someone has that picture, either Okami or Becca…), and also had us choose any alcohol we may want with dinner (we ended up getting mead). There was an option to put on costumes and pose for more pictures, but we decided to skip that. Instead, we just filed directly into the waiting area, where there was a bar and a giftshop and all sorts of random stuff. I bought a pen that lights up every other time you click it for a coworker (since her and I and the woman I bought Hubcap for were the only three people working all week and were all ready to die… Prizes!), and then one for myself, too, because they're neat shut up. Becca was sad they did not have orange princess head-pieces.
Also we attacked the royal falconer and his pretty pretty deathbird. But mostly we just stood around waiting for them to let us in.
In the second to last shot above, you can see some kinda balcony - that is where the, uh. Announcer-guy stood to welcome us and then tell us which doors to go through. And then we were filed in and led to our seats! We were in the front row in the Kingdom of Navarra!
… the backs of our chairs did not match our knights garb. And here is the table setting!
And then the pretty horses came out to play!
Then this guy did more talking and introduced all the knights. OURS WAS FIRST, HAHA! Yay, Yellow Knight!
THE EVIL AND DISHONOURABLE BLUE KNIGHT
Our ally, the Black and White Knight!
Red and Yellow was friends with Blue.
But just Red was our friend!
And Green was not.
And then everyone paraded around and did fancy steps and stuff and it was all cool and entertaining.
BIRD MAN! They had to call him a few times, haha. And then he released the deathbird! And she flew all around and around the arena right over our heads - they warned you not to stand up, haha. I managed to get a ghost-bird picture, hee. And then he brought the deathbird back down and that was the end of the bird show.
NEXT: MOAR HORSES
And also food. We had focaccia and dragon's blood soup (ie, tomato bisque) earlier, but now the main course: BABY DRAGON (ie half a chicken). It was delicious. :3 I can see why dragons are so hard to find these days. (We also got dragon claws - yummy potato wedges - and some dragon bones - some unnecessary ribs, they were not that good.)
Anyway horses.
Here is our knight throwing flowers into the crowd! He mostly threw them to the small children, which was adorable, but our group got a couple, too.
And now they try to skewer things (but not each other).
OH NO A MESSENGER FROM ANOTHER KINGDOM?
More Knights doing Things. Riding around.
Then they lowered netting and JOUSTING occurred! And then more fighting, too. Fights TO THE DEATH!
Nooo, Yellow Knight! The Blue Knight was dishonourable (king's call, not mine) and cheating! And he killed our Yellow Knight. :(
So the Black and White Knight came out to settle the score and he FINISHED THE BASTARD, YAH! He also went on to defeat the bad guy and save the day. Huzzah, Black and White Knight!
And then we all celebrated and ate fresh dragon droppings (apple strudel).
MAGICAL RESURRECTION! They are all better now. Oh, and there's our server/wench clapping in the second picture.
Wasn't kidding about the mead. Even I drank some! It was by far the least-offensive alcoholic beverage I've consumed, but it was still alcoholic, and I could not finish my small glass of it.
Here are a few shots of the arena after most everyone else had left:
So, dinner's over. I'd got a room for Sunday night at a Best Western near the airport, since I had an early flight out and this way I could sleep a little longer. They dropped me off and we all said goodbye, goodbye! And I checked into my oddly fancy room (I only spent like $50…) and… went straight to bed, basically, because oh my goodness so exhausted.
AND THEN I WOKE UP TOO EARLY and got my free shuttle to the airport and security happened (though it was an easy and hassle-free run, this time, yay!). Actually, haha, I was in line behind a group of fellow con-goers, and while our bags were going through the x-ray machine, the woman watching it was like, 'okay, guys, I gotta ask. I'm seeing these … things in all of your bags, what the hell are they? I mean, obviously not anything dangerous, but wtf?' And we all thought that was funny and explained they were plastic toy robots that turned into vehicles and stuff.
AND THEN I SAT AROUND THE AIRPORT AND TRIED NOT TO FALL ASLEEP AGAIN. Also there was a chair with a leg rest?
Odd.
The guys from the security line ended up being on the same flight, as well (and, again, they were right in front of me, haha, it amused me), and as we all tried to fit our stuff into the plane, they were joking how the "I'm not squishing my bag!!" was code for "I've just been to BotCon."
And then I was back at LaGuardia and starving but the food was all unholy expensive, so fuck that. It worked out okay, though, 'cause when my mother picked me up once I got back to BTV, she had anticipated this and brought me a delicious sandwich. So that was awesome.
And then I went home (well, then I went to work and got my schedule for the week and kinda cried) and threw all my stuff on the floor, sent the suitcase home with Mom, and slept some more. Yay!
AND SO ENDED MY DALLAS BOTCON ADVENTURE
My only regret is that I was entirely unable to meet up with Wyntir. :< Maybe next time there will be phone service enough that I can place phone calls and we can arrange something?
(Seriously, it was ridiculous. At one point, I tried to call my taxi and cancel my pick-up Sunday afternoon, and I couldn't do it! So I had to text someone all the information and have them do it.)
NEXT: REAL LIFE THINGS
[Crossposted from DW. Comments:
]
This post is actually image-heavy, as opposed to links-to-images heavy.
As stated, I had grabbed my luggage and said goodbye to Luna, and so Becca and I were headed back downstairs, where we were going to meet Okami, Oasis, and, uh. Ben? Was his name Ben? Let's pretend it was. Anyway, we threw my stuff and ourselves into Becca's car, and then we were off! I took a few shots of the hotel as we drove away, and also one of the road system before us, and then also one of some fancy building we went past.
We were headed to a place called Medieval Times, where they feed you food but provide no silverware and also parade horses around in front of you and attack you with birds. AWESOME! So we arrived at the castle and I took more pictures, yay!
Becca and I had obtained tickets already, but the other three had not, and Okami had talked us into upgrading, anyway, so we all visited the ticket counter. But we got it all sorted eventually, and then we were free to go in!
They put paper crowns on our heads (we got yellow ones) and had us pose with the princess (someone has that picture, either Okami or Becca…), and also had us choose any alcohol we may want with dinner (we ended up getting mead). There was an option to put on costumes and pose for more pictures, but we decided to skip that. Instead, we just filed directly into the waiting area, where there was a bar and a giftshop and all sorts of random stuff. I bought a pen that lights up every other time you click it for a coworker (since her and I and the woman I bought Hubcap for were the only three people working all week and were all ready to die… Prizes!), and then one for myself, too, because they're neat shut up. Becca was sad they did not have orange princess head-pieces.
Also we attacked the royal falconer and his pretty pretty deathbird. But mostly we just stood around waiting for them to let us in.
In the second to last shot above, you can see some kinda balcony - that is where the, uh. Announcer-guy stood to welcome us and then tell us which doors to go through. And then we were filed in and led to our seats! We were in the front row in the Kingdom of Navarra!
… the backs of our chairs did not match our knights garb. And here is the table setting!
And then the pretty horses came out to play!
Then this guy did more talking and introduced all the knights. OURS WAS FIRST, HAHA! Yay, Yellow Knight!
THE EVIL AND DISHONOURABLE BLUE KNIGHT
Our ally, the Black and White Knight!
Red and Yellow was friends with Blue.
But just Red was our friend!
And Green was not.
And then everyone paraded around and did fancy steps and stuff and it was all cool and entertaining.
BIRD MAN! They had to call him a few times, haha. And then he released the deathbird! And she flew all around and around the arena right over our heads - they warned you not to stand up, haha. I managed to get a ghost-bird picture, hee. And then he brought the deathbird back down and that was the end of the bird show.
NEXT: MOAR HORSES
And also food. We had focaccia and dragon's blood soup (ie, tomato bisque) earlier, but now the main course: BABY DRAGON (ie half a chicken). It was delicious. :3 I can see why dragons are so hard to find these days. (We also got dragon claws - yummy potato wedges - and some dragon bones - some unnecessary ribs, they were not that good.)
Anyway horses.
Here is our knight throwing flowers into the crowd! He mostly threw them to the small children, which was adorable, but our group got a couple, too.
And now they try to skewer things (but not each other).
OH NO A MESSENGER FROM ANOTHER KINGDOM?
More Knights doing Things. Riding around.
Then they lowered netting and JOUSTING occurred! And then more fighting, too. Fights TO THE DEATH!
Nooo, Yellow Knight! The Blue Knight was dishonourable (king's call, not mine) and cheating! And he killed our Yellow Knight. :(
So the Black and White Knight came out to settle the score and he FINISHED THE BASTARD, YAH! He also went on to defeat the bad guy and save the day. Huzzah, Black and White Knight!
And then we all celebrated and ate fresh dragon droppings (apple strudel).
MAGICAL RESURRECTION! They are all better now. Oh, and there's our server/wench clapping in the second picture.
Wasn't kidding about the mead. Even I drank some! It was by far the least-offensive alcoholic beverage I've consumed, but it was still alcoholic, and I could not finish my small glass of it.
Here are a few shots of the arena after most everyone else had left:
So, dinner's over. I'd got a room for Sunday night at a Best Western near the airport, since I had an early flight out and this way I could sleep a little longer. They dropped me off and we all said goodbye, goodbye! And I checked into my oddly fancy room (I only spent like $50…) and… went straight to bed, basically, because oh my goodness so exhausted.
AND THEN I WOKE UP TOO EARLY and got my free shuttle to the airport and security happened (though it was an easy and hassle-free run, this time, yay!). Actually, haha, I was in line behind a group of fellow con-goers, and while our bags were going through the x-ray machine, the woman watching it was like, 'okay, guys, I gotta ask. I'm seeing these … things in all of your bags, what the hell are they? I mean, obviously not anything dangerous, but wtf?' And we all thought that was funny and explained they were plastic toy robots that turned into vehicles and stuff.
AND THEN I SAT AROUND THE AIRPORT AND TRIED NOT TO FALL ASLEEP AGAIN. Also there was a chair with a leg rest?
Odd.
The guys from the security line ended up being on the same flight, as well (and, again, they were right in front of me, haha, it amused me), and as we all tried to fit our stuff into the plane, they were joking how the "I'm not squishing my bag!!" was code for "I've just been to BotCon."
And then I was back at LaGuardia and starving but the food was all unholy expensive, so fuck that. It worked out okay, though, 'cause when my mother picked me up once I got back to BTV, she had anticipated this and brought me a delicious sandwich. So that was awesome.
And then I went home (well, then I went to work and got my schedule for the week and kinda cried) and threw all my stuff on the floor, sent the suitcase home with Mom, and slept some more. Yay!
AND SO ENDED MY DALLAS BOTCON ADVENTURE
My only regret is that I was entirely unable to meet up with Wyntir. :< Maybe next time there will be phone service enough that I can place phone calls and we can arrange something?
(Seriously, it was ridiculous. At one point, I tried to call my taxi and cancel my pick-up Sunday afternoon, and I couldn't do it! So I had to text someone all the information and have them do it.)
NEXT: REAL LIFE THINGS
[Crossposted from DW. Comments:
]