13 August 2008

Terminus, part two: Thursday 7 August 2008

Obviously, the start of the epic five days of awesomeness. I’m still uberly upset that I couldn’t go to Wrock Chicago, because it sounded amazing and I would have loved to get a whole entire day of wrock!!!! But, that can’t be changed now, so I’ll just get on to the first day of Terminus. It started with me waking up at 6:00 in the morning, getting ready/eating, and making sure I had everything packed….then the hour and fifteen minute drive to the Denver Airport (groan). Leslie almost lost her suitcase (!) but someone had just taken it off the shuttle and left it by the curb. Well…I’m sure most of y’all know the airport routine, so I won’t go into that. We left about 40 minutes late, though, and got in…pretty much on time. I met Mary Rose at the airport (squee!) and we all rode the el to the airport…

Ahem. Once at the hotel, we couldn’t get our room because the Bears had reserved rooms with late check-out and the rooms weren’t done being cleaned yet! Aaaaaargh!!!! It ended up taking us two and a half hours to get our room…but, we got a free fridge, free appetizers, free fitness room, and somehow got upgraded to two bathrooms. Mostly because Leslie is persuasive, but also because I think the Hilton Chicago now hates everyone who was at Terminus and just didn’t want to see us anymore. However, getting checked in for Terminus, then picking up my presentation and volunteer stuff, was really easy. And, volunteer training, while not super exciting, was fun because I met a few people there right off the bat.

I will fully admit that Thursday wasn’t exactly an epic day of awesome, but it was still pretty dang awesome. The arrival dinner was fantastic: amazing food, great people to talk to around me at the Kohilo table, funny speeches…and, of course, fangirling Sue!!!!!! =] I got a picture with her, and even though my eyes are half closed in the picture, I treasure it because it’s with Sue.

As I said in my “Immediately after the fact” post, Terminus felt amazing. Even on the first day, I was immediately touched by how friendly everyone was and how close the fandom was…You’d think Sue would be sick of pictures and people fangirling her, but she was a doll about it. And pretty much everyone I was with that first day talked to me, a genuine, heartfelt conversation. The joy and love and happiness that I felt that first night definitely started off the week on an awesome footing. =] It was so much fun: We did the wave (=]) and got yelled at for being too loud so did “spirit fingers” instead. Honestly, how can 1500 Harry Potter fans be quiet? And that’s what I love about this fandom. Our enthusiasm and love and joy.

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