So, yesterday, amid tidying the house for Mom to come over for dinner, and getting a haircut, My Sweetie and I made great progress on the vacation planning front. We've booked our hotel for Azkatraz, it's literally next door to the conference hotel, and cheaper both in the room rates and the parking (go Super 8 with CAA discount!)

We also visited ( Read more... )

A couple of my fandom friends have recently posted about the depression they experienced upon having to go home from Terminus, and I just wanted to say that: I HAVE THE ANSWER!!! That's right folks, I've figured out how to not hate real life when you have to go home after an HP con!

I should start by admitting that of the three HP cons I've attended ( Read more... )

Well... we're home. I even went to karaoke last night, although it was mostly for the principle of the thing (I was zoned enough that Grank was joking about having to defend his brain from my zombie attack.) This post will be long and far from comprehensive, so I'm cutting it multiple times.

We had two days in Chicago prior to the beginning of ( Read more... )

Okay, we're now on our last day in London, and it's only just occurred to us that staying in a hotel half a block off Hyde Park, we really had to VISIT Hyde Park before we leave. That's next on the agenda.

We succumbed to the scary and decided NOT to rent a car after all. Instead we took an organized bus tour that included Stonehenge, Glastonbury, ( Read more... )

We're back in London. Accio is over, and I didn't win even ONE autographed book. *sigh* To be realistic about it, the ones that were auctioned were all bought by the same person at a total cost of about 2100 pounds. Not dollars. POUNDS!!! Only six and seven were raffled, and I only had enough ready cash to buy one ticket for each. So I didn't win ( Read more... )

So, here I am posting from Edinburgh. We rode on the Hogwarts Express today, hiked the highlands yesterday (to the location used for the First Task in GOF) and tomorrow we visit Alnwick (pronounced "annick") Castle, which was the location of the first flying lesson way back in PS (SS for you Americanites). We'll also be playing land-based Quidditch ( Read more... )

Well yes, at long last, I've managed to find an internet cafe and time to post. We're in Oxford right now and today we toured Gloucester Cathedral, Lacock Abbey, and New College (where the incredible bouncing ferret scene was filmed, among others). Tomorrow we fly up to Scotland, where we'll be visiting Fort William and Edinburgh. Woo ( Read more... )