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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 ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
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.
I had a ploughman's
Holly had livers
After that we decided to have a quick explore before we went to bed
There's all sorts of sculptures like this around the hotel
And fountains
There's a river that runs through the hotel. A FREAKING RIVER! You can go on a boat tour. INSIDE THE HOTEL.
And everything is inside this greenhouse/conservatory so you never get rained on
I know I posted this before but it really was good fortune that we stumbled across this. The light show starts on the hour between 6 and 10 and only lasts 15 mins. We totally discovered it by accident
We happened upon this sign so naturally Holly wanted to go. Cowboy!Dean and Cas obv.
After that we headed to bed and crashed
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 withmorganoconner at lunchtime.
We had breakfast and then did some shopping
Holly, like me, loves pancakes and there was only one place in the complex that served them for breakfast. Unfortunately they were blueberry pancakes which I don't like so I opted for the waffle served with strawberries and cream. OMG SO GOOD. I cannot put into words how good it was.
After that we decided to tour the hotel in daylight
This is where we had breakfast. Even looking at it now I can't believe how pretty it is
Holly only had one wish for this trip (okay, apart from meeting Jared, Jensen and Richard) and that was to buy a Stetson. This seemed like a cool place to start. They had loads of cool shirts with wing motifs and Holly managed to find one on sale.
Not long after thatmorganoconner arrived. It's really sweet actually. I only met her very briefly at Chicon (outside of Richard's meet and greet I mean) but we all got along so well! She and Holly became con BFFs and they're going to Rome together now. N'AWW!
So once Morgan had dumped her stuff we grabbed some lunch and then decided to do a boat tour of the hotel (and how weird does that sound!)
When we bought our tickets we had a few coins in change so we decided we would toss them in the river some time during the tour and make a wish.
The red line is where the flood water was up to
This little shopping area was designed to look like New Orleans and the city even donated some signs for decoration
So just past here there was a Japanese wishing tree which was sent over to bring good luck and good wishes. Of course this was where we had to throw our coins. Holly and I wished for Sebastian to come to A7 (what, a photo with him and Misha together is now on my bucketlist) and Morgan wished for it too for us. LOL.
One thing I thought was really cool was that when the hotel opened they sent little bottles all over the world and asked people to send back water from rivers, lakes etc. They had something in the region of 1200 responses so it really is an international and multi-cultural river
One of the signs from NoLa
The two resident ducks, Ben and Jerry. Original Ben died in the floor but one of the hospital staff rescued Ben and look after him at home until the hotel re-opened.
In the evening we met up withsqueemonster and headed out for dinner. It was somewhere outside the hotel which meant *gasp* going outside OMG. SO glad we did though. The place was amazing. It was called Caney Fork and we liked it so much we went back again at the end of the week.
I finally got to meetkriari , blue_fjords and qthelights . YAY!
This resturant was fab! I ordered steak and gator but they were out of gator so I had catfish instead. SO GOOD! And the drinks! I ordered a rum and coke and it was 3/4 to 1/4 and it only cost $4. Best place ever!
And for dessert I had s'mores! I have wanted to try s'mores since my first trip to the US in 2003. I was massively full from dinner but I made room.
blue_fjords showed me how to make them and we tucked in. Seriously, how can anyon not like food that involves chocolate, marshmallow and fire!
morganoconner had chocolate pie in honour of Gabriel of course ;)
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.
I had a ploughman's
Holly had livers
After that we decided to have a quick explore before we went to bed
There's all sorts of sculptures like this around the hotel
And fountains
There's a river that runs through the hotel. A FREAKING RIVER! You can go on a boat tour. INSIDE THE HOTEL.
And everything is inside this greenhouse/conservatory so you never get rained on
I know I posted this before but it really was good fortune that we stumbled across this. The light show starts on the hour between 6 and 10 and only lasts 15 mins. We totally discovered it by accident
We happened upon this sign so naturally Holly wanted to go. Cowboy!Dean and Cas obv.
After that we headed to bed and crashed
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
Holly, like me, loves pancakes and there was only one place in the complex that served them for breakfast. Unfortunately they were blueberry pancakes which I don't like so I opted for the waffle served with strawberries and cream. OMG SO GOOD. I cannot put into words how good it was.
After that we decided to tour the hotel in daylight
This is where we had breakfast. Even looking at it now I can't believe how pretty it is
Holly only had one wish for this trip (okay, apart from meeting Jared, Jensen and Richard) and that was to buy a Stetson. This seemed like a cool place to start. They had loads of cool shirts with wing motifs and Holly managed to find one on sale.
Not long after that
morganoconner arrived. It's really sweet actually. I only met her very briefly at Chicon (outside of Richard's meet and greet I mean) but we all got along so well! She and Holly became con BFFs and they're going to Rome together now. N'AWW!So once Morgan had dumped her stuff we grabbed some lunch and then decided to do a boat tour of the hotel (and how weird does that sound!)
When we bought our tickets we had a few coins in change so we decided we would toss them in the river some time during the tour and make a wish.
The red line is where the flood water was up to
This little shopping area was designed to look like New Orleans and the city even donated some signs for decoration
So just past here there was a Japanese wishing tree which was sent over to bring good luck and good wishes. Of course this was where we had to throw our coins. Holly and I wished for Sebastian to come to A7 (what, a photo with him and Misha together is now on my bucketlist) and Morgan wished for it too for us. LOL.
One thing I thought was really cool was that when the hotel opened they sent little bottles all over the world and asked people to send back water from rivers, lakes etc. They had something in the region of 1200 responses so it really is an international and multi-cultural river
One of the signs from NoLa
The two resident ducks, Ben and Jerry. Original Ben died in the floor but one of the hospital staff rescued Ben and look after him at home until the hotel re-opened.
In the evening we met up with
squeemonster and headed out for dinner. It was somewhere outside the hotel which meant *gasp* going outside OMG. SO glad we did though. The place was amazing. It was called Caney Fork and we liked it so much we went back again at the end of the week.I finally got to meet
kriari , blue_fjords and qthelights . YAY!This resturant was fab! I ordered steak and gator but they were out of gator so I had catfish instead. SO GOOD! And the drinks! I ordered a rum and coke and it was 3/4 to 1/4 and it only cost $4. Best place ever!
And for dessert I had s'mores! I have wanted to try s'mores since my first trip to the US in 2003. I was massively full from dinner but I made room.
blue_fjords showed me how to make them and we tucked in. Seriously, how can anyon not like food that involves chocolate, marshmallow and fire!morganoconner had chocolate pie in honour of Gabriel of course ;)