Nashcon: Wednesday & Thursday

It was kind of weird travelling with someone else as the last time I few to the US not alone I was with jacqui_hw to attend Slayercruise in 2005. It was fun though! littlehollyleaf and I talked SPN pretty much the whole flight and we watched The Adjustment Bureau with no sound. Holly narrated the plot using SPN characters so Matt Damon was Dean, the girl was Sam, the agent was Castiel and the agent's boss was Michael. We just ignored the stuff where Matt Damon and the girl were lovers and we turned it into Dean/Cas. Funtimes *g*.

To get us in the con mood we watched the breakfast and J2M panel from Chicon on my iPod and I played Holly one of the songs from Misha's Mix CD that I think would make a good Dean/Cas vid. Is that inappropriate? LOL!

So we got to Atlanta and got through security with no major issues. I think they tend to be nicer and less suspicious when it's not someone travelling alone. But that airport is HUGE! It must have taken us a good 30 mins to walk to the gate for our connecting flight.

So we just kind of sat around for a while but we didn't really have to wait that long for our plane as it had taken us such a long time to get there. Yes, there was a shuttle but I didn't realise how far it was and tbh it was kind of nice to stretch our legs a little.

The flight to Nashville was ridic short. Just over an hour and we barely seemed to be in the air at all. Best part (okay, maybe not) of the flight was when we landed in Nashville and Holly looked out of the window and said 'What. Are. Those?'. They were bugs. HUGE bugs. I've never seen anything like it before. Turns out they are cicadas (thanks, Misha) and they look kind of like flying grasshoppers. It also turned out that they only come out every 13 years. Our timing sucks. LOL! So that was a lovely welcome to Nashville ;)

We picked up our bags and had a lovely, friendly cab driver who took us to the hotel.

OMG I have to ramble about the hotel for a minute. It is HUGE! Seriously, it's like a cruise ship on land. It's got 11 bars and restaurants, a load of shops, and a HUGE conference center. Seriously, there were 3 other conventions running at the same time as ours. Obv our was the best though.

Holly and I went up to our room almost in a daze at the sheer scale of the whole thing.

After that we decided to go and get some food and ended up in this awesome Irish pub called Findlay's. The food was amazing! In fact all the food we had in the hotel complex was amazing.

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On Thursday I was awake at 5am as I was still running on UK time. Holly, the wench, managed to sleep until about 9. I was insanely jealous *g*

We had a pretty lazy morning as we had made plans to meet up with morganoconner at lunchtime.

We had breakfast and then did some shopping

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The red line is where the flood water was up to( Pics )

Nashcon: Friday

sinnerforhire joined us late on Thursday so getting ready on Friday took some doing as there were four of us needing access to the bathroom for showering and whatnot. Managed to sleep until 7am so that was a marked improvement on the day before.

I wore...a dress! And it wasn't even a special occasion. LOL! I don't think there's any proper photos of it but I did twitpic one here

So once we were all ready we grabbed some breakfast and did another explore of the hotel for sinnerforhire while we waited for people to arrive for our big group lunch

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Nashcon: Saturday

There was definitely a weird vibe about this con. A lot of people said the same thing but they couldn't put their finger on why. In the end we decided it was a mix of J2 being there before Misha and the fact that the hotel was SO huge you could walk from one end to the other without running into anyone you know. That's sort of what the con experience is about for me.

So when I woke up on Saturday morning I was really not in the mood at all. I was tired and not in the least bit excited about seeing Jared and Jensen. This is unlike the breakfast at Chicon last year where I was so nervous I couldn't eat anything.

Again, it was the weird scheduling. Usually the breakfast is on Sunday morning so it felt kind of weird doing it on a Saturday.

It was fun in th end though and at least the lack of nerves meant I could actually enjoy some of the nice food that was included in the gold ticket

The breakfast itself was kind of fun, mostly because Jared unveiled his Twitter account and then proceeded to talk about it while Jensen pretended to fall asleep.

Jared: Jensen, tell them what your reaction was when I told you what I'd done
Jensen: Just one word. 'Seriously?'

So Jared said that Gen had helpd him set up his account and it had taken them AGES to find a version of his name that wasn't already taken by one of the faker accounts. In the end he had to go for JarPad. Which is short at least.

I never actually saw what Jared's original Twitter avatar was but he took a photo of Jensen during the breakfast and that's now what he's using. It was actually Jensen's idea. LOL. He was mocking Jared for having whatever it was before and then he said 'You should use a picture of me'

And thus this pic came into being

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The only other thing I really remember is Jensen saying Shania Twain had been on the same flight as them to Nashville and the flight attendant had seen her name on the list, thought Danneel was Shania and told her that she loved her music. LOL.

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Nashcon: Sunday

Well, the day started off the way it continued really. I woke up at 8am so I'd only slept 4 hours and tweeted that it was too early in the day for Misha (his photo op was the first thing on my schedule). 30 seconds later he tweeted this so we must have been tweeting at pretty much the same time

When a Tennessee cicada comes out of a 13-year hibernation, it goes straight for the gold. http://twitvid.com/T1NN2

I laughed so hard I woke everyone else up. LOL. Oops.

So after that I was feeling a littl more in the mood for convention shenanigans. I got ready and met lizajaneok and xenachakram12 for breakfast. It was awesome! A buffet with just about everything on there. Except pancakes. But they had waffles and french toast which more than made up for it. Again, I obv wasn't nervous because I ate a whole plate of food.

It was during this that things got slightly surreal.

I spotted Richard in the same restaurant as us having breakfast with his parents. Didn't make a fuss or anything. Just commented to Lisa and Jenni that he was there and then carried on as normal.

Then, about five minutes later I happened to glance up and I had to do a double take. Saw this guy walking along and thought 'heh, that guy looks a bit like Misha'. Then I saw he was being followed by a group of people and two cops and I realised it was Misha. LOL. Turns out he'd taken his meet and greet on a walking tour of the hotel.

Amazing.

And this was just after we'd been speculating what he was going to be wearing at the con that day.

So we finished our breakfast and headed up to the photo op area.

So, I don't know if you're aware but someone on tumblr was trying to start an Operation Kill God. I'm not really sure why and I'm not sure there was really anything in it but naturally Creation wanted to err on the side of caution so they'd hired extra security for Misha including, as I just mentioned, a couple of cops.

We were told under no circumstances were we to hug Misha or attempt to give him gifts during the photo ops.

Misha seemed to be taking it in his stride though and he even snarked about it during his panel.

So, anway, my photo with Misha. Is it bad that I can't actually remember what we talked about. I remember him asking me if I was Hils and then I'm sure we said something else but I honestly can't remember :-s

Then we spent a minute trying to work out how to pose the photo but I think it came out really well. Lisa and I have been planning it for months so it's a good job really. LOL



Straight after that we went to Guy Bee's panel. Absolutely fascinating. I really wish they'd get more writers and directors from the show to go to these cons. I mean I love meeting the actors of course but I find the technical and creative processes really interesting too.

He talked a lot about Frontierland as that was his most recent ep and said he's doing 3 for S7 too.

Straight after that was the panel with Richard, Chad and Brock. This one had a lot of energy to it. Richard said he didn't want people standing in line at a microphone and instead he got people to stay in their seats and raise their hands and he came over with a microphone. He was really good at making sure Brock was involved as much as possible to his credit Brock was a lot more relaxed than he was in Chicago. I think doing panels with other people help him a lot.

Nothing of note in this panel really. Everyone was really respectful and had questions for all three of the boys. Towards the end everyone was asking for hugs but it sort of became a thing so no one really minded.

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Nashcon: Monday & Tuesday

Monday started with much sadness as we said goodbye to sinnerforhire and morganoconner. Our room seemed very quiet without them :(

We took things easy for a while and then met up with squeemonster, lizajaneok and xenachakram12 at lunchtime. Squee very kindly offerd to drive us into Nashville so we could do some sightseeing.

First off though was lunch. I wish I could remember the place we went to as it was cheap and really good. It was a southern food buffet place and I got to try fried chicken, sweet potatoes, carrot and raisin salad, more catfish and lots of other yummy goodies.

We made a quick pit-stop at Target so Lisa could get some tennis shoes and then it was on to Nashville.

We headed for the area Richard recommended and the first thing we saw was a random act of kindness as the guy parked next to us gave his paid parking stub to someone who had just arrived. Parking was only $3 for the whole day but it was still a nice thing to see.

Straight after that we saw this sign and LOLed

( I hear he's on a tortilla in Mexico )

And that was it. Vacation over :(

It was a lot of fun but I have to say I enjoyed the non-con (wait, that's not right). The non-convention parts of the trip most of all. I loved the incredible hotel and hanging out with all my friends. The con was fun, but it definitely lacked the spark that some of the other conventions I've been to have had.

And, sadly, I don't think I will be heading back to the US any time soon as I don't think I can afford it. Unless I go and stay with one of my friends and don't have to fork out for a hotel ;)

But A7 is in just over 4 months and I have a feeling it's going to be EPIC