Whew! So after a few days of driving back from Chicago, juggling work, and a drive up to Philly and back to pick up a relative from the airport, I'm finally ready to settle in and dish on my MFF experience this year.

Before the con even kicked off, I headed up to Wisconsin for a day to hang out with my pal Covah. After a short lil shopping spree to pick up Christmas and con stuff (Midwestern older couple running a Christmas tree place hnnnng) we had dinner at Wells Brothers in Racine, which supposedly has some of the best pizza in Wisconsin/the country. I'll start by saying that the atmosphere was absolutely perfect - a cozy dining room decorated fully inside for Christmas, accompanied by a swirling snow storm outside. But does the pizza live up to its reputation? It has the cracker-style thin crust that Marylanders like myself will be familiar with from Ledo's, which I really like because I can down the whole thing without feeling the carb regret later. Sauce was great, cheese was great, and bonus points for having good Canadian bacon as a topping - even if Covah's not a fan, I very much am. I'd give it like, an 8/10. Very good pizza, would have again. As usual Covah has excellent taste and introduced me to some new YouTube binges, like a guy who stays at interesting hotels all over the world. Gotta try that TWA hotel near JFK at some point!

The next morning we had breakfast at a relatively new place called Anna's in downtown Kenosha with views of the lake...even if we didn't get one of those seats :( I had a great mocha and a delicious croissant, highly recommend it if you're in the area.

Okay, con time. First thing's first, MFF was SUPER busy. It's showing that without a bigger venue the con should probably be capped around 20k. It's crazy I'm saying that, too. What's bigger, downtown Chicago?

The Artist's Alley was a madhouse to the point where  Xenoscape (more on that in a sec) and I struggled to see most of the tables unless we were right on top of them. They did a timed entry thing to the Dealer's Den to where we couldn't even get in until after 5 PM. We made it into the rave Saturday night but they hit capacity soon after and I heard the line got pretty long. While we had surprisingly good luck with restaurants this year (probably because they're so fucking expensive), and MFF clearly has their act together when it comes to the reg line, as I'm sure a lot of you know the room lottery left a lot of people unhappy. Shoutout to  MagicalArco who did win the lottery but couldn't go, meaning that our room could be in main this year.

My roomies were three people I hadn't been with before,  SyLoX,  zmaster587 (Xavier), and Tripp.  Kyle_Fluffington also crashed with us most of the con. All were a pleasure to room with - we had a small room party that went very well, we hung out when we could, and overall they were just really laid back and fun to be around. A++ would room with again.

At the same time I was fortunate to show  Xenoscape around his first furry con, and as I explained to him soon after we met, I had to overcome my fanboyishness over his art first! But I think I managed to give him the complete MFF experience, and in return I have a fun sketch of Tegon I'll post in a bit. He was also extremely chill and I'm hoping we can convince him to come to another con next year like FWA.

On Thursday, a decent-sized group of us headed into Chicago on the train to check out the Bean and the lakeshore. I've done the Bean before but I had never actually been underneath, where there's a whole other experience with all the reflections bouncing off each other - super cool! We also kind of stumbled upon this year's Christkindlmarket, and of course I couldn't resist a hot chocolate in a souvenir mug. Cold as hell out there, though. A group of pigeons were huddling around a heater flame, it was super cute.

That evening Covah had to run out for more shiz, so I accompanied him to a Japanese grocery store a little ways away. OMG, it was less of a grocery store and more of a mall! It had a bookstore, a food court, I was in heaven. Even got a few presents for peeps, including  ArgentVZ...*shhh*! He also showed me Meijer for the first time, which I always thought was a grocery store...wish we had those on the east coast to give us something other than just Wal-Mart and Target.

The macro meet was on Friday, and I was grateful to catch up with so many macro furs, including  blackie94 who was visiting America for the first time. Lots of folks seemed to be interested in joint commissions, and I'm more than happy to share the wealth with my Nommz tokens, as long as you bring your OC and an idea! Got some pics, which I'll be sharing on my Twitter and Bluesky soon...oh, did you know I now have a Bluesky now?  MattytheMouse had a little model of Amanda with a size ray I got in my palm - can a derg squee!?

Finally, on my way out the door, I decided to stop by the 100gecs tree. Did you know that the album cover for 1000gecs was shot at a business park about 10 mins away in Des Plaines? Anyway, I knew that sometimes people had trouble with a security guard so I parked on the berm and kind of ran up to the tree. I couldn't believe it, but within seconds they were sounding an alarm and yelling at me, no joke. I got as good a pic as I could and got the hell out of there. Crazy, but a good memory!

Food reviews:

I took Xeno to that pizza place that replaced Hofbrauhaus on Thursday night. They have an amazing pizza tomato soup - and with some shareable breadsticks to dip - *chef's kiss*. I wasn't feeling 100% at the time, but from what I had it was great. Nice bar-ish atmosphere too.

We also ate at Fat Rosie's around the corner at some point, and - even barring my affection for a restaurant named after a fat donkey - they had really solid (if a tad pricey) tex-mex. I had the chipotle chicken - highly recommended - and we shared a tortilla/queso+chorizo dip for an app that was just soooo good.

Finally we joined a group that was on its way to the Sugar Factory...and yes, I was tempted to get that gold-plated meal thing...but conspicuous consumption seemed a bit gauche, ya know? First of all, they totally lead you to drink lots of booze because before I knew it I had a giant sharable strawberry lemonade vodka with gummy sharks in front of me and I thought it was supposed to be a single serving! BUT, two things in their favor. First of all, they're like the Cheesecake Factory. They have EVERYTHING, and I mean everything, on their menu. Second, I was impressed by how well they cooked the steak I ordered. A little overdone maybe, but, like, to get a decent cut at a place that specializes in pretty patties is not bad at all. But yeah. Xeno will tell you I had a good time.

And that pretty much sums up MFF! Super fun time. Next con will be NYFB, at least it looks that way, at the end of this month, and then probably FWA. In April I plan to take a two week road trip to head to Coachella and back, so otherwise I need to save for that. See ya next time!