Chicago - Wincon

[hils]

So after working out with cassiopeia7 that it was pretty much impossible to get from her place to the Wincon hotel using public transport I made arrangements to meet sinnerforhire at the airport instead and four of us got the shuttle to the hotel. Bit of a hassle where they wouldn't give us the Wincon discount but split between the four of us it was still only $13 each so I can't complain too much really.

So we got there and checked in and then headed out for food because neither of us had eaten. There's a mall just opposite the hotel so we hit Subway and it was good.

In the evening we headed down to the Sports Bar in the hotel (is that an American thing? A sports bar? Over here we just have pubs. LOL) where lots of Winconners had gathered. I don't know what happens to me but in situations where I don't know anyone I turn into a social butterfly. I went to every table of fangirls and introduced myself and loitered for a bit and chatted. Totally fail at remembering the names of anyone I spoke to apart from coiledsoul, ethrosdemon and missyjack so if you were one of the people talking to the crazy Brit that was me ;)

Unfortunately by this time the con crud from Chicon was really starting to kick in so after being sociable and having some food I was about ready to sleep so I snuck off.

But before I could actually get to sleep I got a message from dauntdraws telling me to come up to her room and hang out. We'd met at Chicon as she was sitting between me and harper47 and squeemonster. Small world. So we had an impromptu pyjama party and hung out and watched Sherlock until about 2am. Funtimes. LOL

Breakfast the next morning was awesome. It was a buffet but they had french toast which I LOVE. Almost as much as pancakes (which they didn't have until the day I left) ;)

After that sinnerforhire and I were sitting in the lobby watching for people arriving when we were recruited to deliver programmes. This led to us being recruited to help fill swag bags but it was nice as I got to talk to people (and tweet about how we had been press-ganged into a Wincon sweatshop *g*)

But sadly I really wasn't feeling well at all by this point so once the bags were done I headed up to my room to have a rest. Then cantarina1 arrived and came up to say hi. Aww! It was a mini Team Heaven gathering (even though neither of us actually belong to spnland now which is how we met).

Hung out in the Roadhouse (or lounge area if you will) for a while and then we were all ordered to go to the con suite and drink cocktails. LOL! I was supposed to be manning the reg desk but wendy had decided to stick around which let me off the hook. And there was free booze going ;)

Oh, and we had a little Smallville gathering where I met up with talitha78 and svmadelyn. It was lovely. They are both so adorable! I miss my Clex boys sometimes :(

Let me tell you I don't know who made those cocktails but they packed a punch! You could barely taste the fruit juice over the vodka ;)

So I had another sociable time chatting to people. Again I don't really remember who but I do remember squeeing with aggybird about Sherlock and Merlin and talking to flawedamethyst and saltnburnbaby about the quirky Americans (they were two Brits who I happened across).

During the cocktail party vichan let me know she had arrived to I hurried off to flail and drag her to the party *g*

Except then I lost her. LOL!

I blame the booze.

But I ended up at a Gabriel viewing party with kijikun and I think to start we were the only people there but as time passed more and more people arrived and I had pixi stix. Yum!

Oh, Gabriel, god bless you for uniting us with your sheer awesome.

I had to leave before Hammer of the Gods started because I don't think I can watch that episode again ever. I still get sad when I hear or see things that remind me of Gabriel. Yeah, I'm a freak for getting overly-attached to a character who was only in four episodes.

Luckily during this evening I found out my panel was at 2pm the next day and not 11am like I thought. No idea where I got that from but it meant I had time to wake up and sober up ;)

Breakfast on Friday I had Froot Loops because I'd never had them before. They were...um...sugary ;) And didn't really taste like fruit at all



We had the opening ceremony which was awesome and then we had a pre-panel gathering which mostly consisted of us flailing and saying 'What shall we do?' and aggybird telling us amusing stories about when she was visiting the UK and thought she had free porn when it was in fact just post-watershed TV ;)

We were pretty much good to go after that and luc_darling even skipped class so she could arrive in time for my panel *g*

It went really well *beams*

I was SO nervous right up until we started and then it was just like the panels I've done at writerconuk only with awesome co-panelists to support me. I hope everyone enjoyed it as much as I did.

Afterwards I stuck around for Pimp Your Fandom (which was really interesting actually) and the vid show which most of you know resulted in a crisis of conscience re my views on Wincest ;)

Slightly embarassing moment where eliza_jane came over to say hi only I didn't realise it was her so she was chatting away and I was just staring blankly like a total moron *facepalm* But we sorted it out in the end. LOL

After that vichan, luc_darling and I decided to do a booze and drugs run (not those kind of drugs - I needed cold meds). We headed out to a...um...I don't know what it was called actually but it was a Walmart sort of place. We'd call it a supermarket.

During this outing I learned that you can't buy Sudafed in the US without having your details entered into the system in case you're using it to make Meths (IDEK!) and that the bottles of booze are HUGE compared to ours. I bought a rather large bottle of cheap wine (which tasted like shit but I only bought it to get drunk) and the girls stocked up on other things and then we headed out in search of dinner.

We wound up in a diner across the road which looked like exactly the sort of place Sam and Dean would frequent.


In my head they were sitting at the empty table on the right. Don't know why but as soon as I saw it that where I had them sitting


So of course we all ordered burgers


And I HAD to try the deep-fried ice-cream because WHAT?

We made it back just in time for SPN \o/ vorpalblades joined us and we drank and laughed a lot (it was Weekend At Bobby's) and then vichan and vorpalblades watched the vampire!Dean preview several million times complete with RL flailing and squeeing. It was an epic thing to behold ;)

And then we commenced work on our badfic. You think the finished thing was bad btw? You didn't see the things we left out! LOL! Including abuse of bible verses. We are so going to Hell.

I don't even remember what we did after that. Oh, I know. vichan went down for a smoke and never came back ;) Apparently cute cops were involved. Ask her. So eventually I went to bed because I was too drunk and tired to go looking for her.

Saturday came and I believe this was the day of the evil food. I twitted about it at length. Biscuits and gravy for breakfast. WTF America?! It was disgusting!

So I quickly put that unpleasant experience behind me and headed to a really awesome and informative workshop by wendy and lazy_daze on modding fic exchanges and bigbangs. I actually took notes on this one! I'd already been thinking of changes that needed to be made to deancasbigbang so it was really great to talk through the issues I'd been having and thrash out ideas with people who have been doing stuff like this for a long time.

Sent wendy a PM later thanking her for all the help. She also paused the workshop for regular 'Sam breaks' where she held up pictures of Jared wearing increasingly less amounts of clothing. I approved. A lot.

So after that vichan, luc_darling and I finished off our badfic while vichan multi-tasked and made a tin-hat for the pagent at the same time. Now, I didn't see the winning entry for the tin-hats but Vi's was awesome! I don't have a picture of it but it was a peen with wings next to a bunny with a knife through it to represent Castiel/Anya.


Tin-hats being crafted


vichan working on our badfic masterpiece

Fic idol happened and let me tell you some of those stories will linger. (JDM/Dolphin and Dignity Pants to name but two) I believe there's going to be an audio-track of them all being read so I'll link you to that when it materialises.

Winprom was in the evening so we all got dressed up in our pretties. vichan and I decided to get our prom picture together.


Vi looking like Angelina and me looking like a grinning idiot :-s

Sadly the con crud was still hitting me hard so I really wasn't feeling in the party mood. beadslut (who I didn't know) came up to me and thanked me for reccing her bigbang fic a couple of months back. Aww! So sweet. She came up later to check I was okay because I was apparently looking a bit miserable. Sorry if I harshed anyone's squee :(

I stuck around until after the raffle and then decided to head to bed. Yes, I am a party pooper. Next time I won't be doing two cons in two consecutive weeks.

Sunday was pretty relaxed for me and I think I needed it. Skipped out on all the panels apart from the closing ceremony and instead chilled out and then went to a Merlin viewing with chaneen and aggybird. God, I love that show so much! It's really hooking me back again this year after I was rather disappointed with most of S2. And Colin's acting is blowing me away every week!

Oh, and I saw this monstrosity



In the evening we all headed over for a straggler's dinner. Except not many people had actually left so there wound up being about 70 of us going. LOL! We split up into groups and we had fun talking about Screaming Orgasms amongst other things *g*. I was with a good crowd of people including kijikun and luc_darling.

When we got back to the hotel I had to say goodbye to kijikun and luc_darling which made me very sad. That's how awesome Wincon is, you guys. I only knew Kiji through deancasbigbang and a very brief meeting at Chicon and I didn't know Luc at all but I felt like I was saying goodbye to two of my dearest friends. Fandom brings people together like that and Wincon is the RL facilitator of it. I really hope I can get the funds together to fly over for next year.

Monday came and we said goodbye to pretty much everyone else and it was sad. sinnerforhire and I headed to the Cheesecake Factory to console ourselves


It's VERY different to the one in downtown Chicago


I had banana cheesecake this time and OMG it was even nicer than the white chocolate one I had

We spent the evening playing on the internet in our room and I started sorting out my Chicon photos and formatting fics for my eReader for the plane home. It was nice. I really just wanted to do nothing at this point.

Tuesday was incredibly relaxed. We started off watching SPN on TNT (Skin and Hook Man) which prompted a loooong discussion on Twitter all through breakfast about whether Sam was hotter in the earlier or later seasons (the correct answer is later but apparently I am the only one who shares this opinion. We all agreed that younger Dean was hotter though)

We then decided that for late lunch/early dinner we would check out the MacDonalds down the road from our hotel. Rumour had it that because it was next to the regional HQ it was the cleanest, poshest MacDonalds ever seen and that it even had a fireplace

Well, of course we had to see this!

Naturally, because my twitter feed is made of fail (just kidding! Love you guys) when I got back I had requests for a photo of said fireplace so I had to promise to go back before my flight. LOL!

But yes, it was very clean and did have a fireplace.

I spent the rest of the evening formatting videos of Chicon so I could watch them on my iPod on the plane. This turned out to be a total waste of time but more on that later.

Wednesday came and when I woke up I did not feel well at all! It was the worst I had felt since I started to get sick. My throat hurt, my head ached and I had a fever :(

Said goodbye to sinnerforhire who had a really early flight to catch and stumbled down for breakfast. The lovely waitress, Kathy, saw me coming and had my Earl Grey tea waiting for me. She was awesome. Had a nice chat with her before I left and I gave her a decent tip for being awesome.

I headed back to MacDonalds to abuse their fast wifi and download the J2M panel from Chicon. After that it was time to check out and catch my shuttle to the airport.


MacDonalds fireplace for those who doubted me


And this was the outside


And this was our hotel

I had to go through the body scanner x-ray machine and I had to crack a smile as it reminded me of Misha at his meet and greet telling us to opt out so we could get felt up instead. But by this point I felt really, really awful so I stopped in at one of the shops and bought some Nyquil.

Had about an hour to wait until boarding so I chatted to hsapiens on the phone until I ran out of credit. It was nice. Although in retrospect bitching about Creation was possibly not the most productive use of my minutes. We did talk about Misha though and how hot Jared is in real life ;)

So I popped two Nyquil just before we boarded and that stuff is good. Fell asleep before we took off. Woke up just long enough to eat my plane meal and then slept again until we landed. Didn't feel much better for it sadly, especially since it had been about 18c in Chicago and was 1c in the UK when we landed at 5am.

And that was the end of my vacation.