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Confuzzled Diary Day one of four (Friday)
15 years ago
First day of the first furry conference I have ever been to! First day of the first convention I have ever been to, even, and it began much like any other day (except for the raised heartbeat in anticipation of course). I stayed in bed until around 10:30AM, lazying my way to breakfast until I ultimately got on the train at 14:13. I arrived at the airport at around 14:47, and got in line for the baggage drop-off and check-in.
At the check-in though, I was quite unpleasantly surprised by how busy it was... There were only 3 counters open, and behind each of them there was a line of almost 20 people! Luckily, the opened up the 'elite' check-ins for us, so the line for me was reduced to only two people in front of me. I hadn't really paid attention to what my bag weighed, but I secretly think that it might be suspiciously close to the 20kg maximum... It weighed a heck of a lot more than I thought it would, even while it was only half-full.
Moving on, I had a meal at McDonalds (medium fries, mcflurry, large milkshake which I honest to god think tasted like caramel), got a small bit of bread with cheese and ham on it (yum!), and at around 16:40 I got on board the bus that would take me to the airplane.
I must plainly admit that I was even more excited to board that bus than to board the plane... I have never been in such an airport bus before, and it was fun to see more of the inner working below the terminal floors!
The flight went pretty smoothly, not much different from what I expected, to be frank. KLM is a good airline, I can tell from experience and the fact that it's DUTCH (country pride, you can bite me in the ass if you don't like it), and we landed exactly on time, at 17:20 UK time.
After the flight though, the rushing started... I had my bag and possessions all around 17:35/17:40, but I did still needed to get to the hotel and get used to using English constantly, and to seeing furries all around me (At the hotel, NOT at the airport). One call to the T-mobile service desk later (they blocked my number surprisingly), I was ready again to make calls. First one I called: Griz Sylverwing, and he came with some slightly bad news (which wasn't completely unexpected). They (Dan_the_wolf and him) weren't going to pick me up from the airport, which meant that I had to call up the hotel's coach services.
The airport hosted a couple of Courtesy phones, which had internal numbers for most coach services, including to my hotel... I tried calling them once... twice, trice, and hung on the ringing phone for about 10 minutes until I finally went to the service desk and had them try it... Same happened, but with use of another phone number, they finally got me into the bus and off to the hotel.
Arriving at the hotel the first thing I saw was... well, take a good guess, it's a furry conference being hosted there, and it made me slightly uneasy to be surrounded by so many unknown people in suits. I've always been uncomfortable in large crowds, and this was (sadly) not different. I had to get in the queue to register for the con, and get my goodies and pretty much had to rush upstairs to get ready for dinner with friends in the center of Manchester... While calling Griz at the airport, he told me that he had my room key though ( I know you will be reading this, Griz. I appreciate the effort, but in future scenarios I really do want to pick it up myself... I am frankly amazed they had you take it with you anyway, poor security. )
So, I went to the room, sat down on my side of the double bed I'm sharing with Griz, and started reading through the conbook... When I looked at my watch, I quickly realized that I was at least a couple minutes late for the bus I needed to take... Still being a bit upset about being in unfamiliar surroundings, surrounded by all sorts of strange/new people in suits or partials, I didn't really feel like going, and so let it slide... with an attempt to still make it at around 19:47, but the bus didn't show up so I simply went back to the hotel, got in line for food at the hotel's restaurant, and sat down at a table somewhere in the main corridor.
Slowly but surely, I started to get used to all the new, unfamiliar faces, started getting used to speaking English all the time, and generally started getting at ease... With a few people playfully tugging at my feet-paws, which got my mood up. ^.=.^ I'll be bluntly honest that I enjoyed my games of solitaire on that table, and that I enjoyed talking to someone who I now want to recognize as a new friend, and that I enjoyed hugging all the unfamiliar faces that were open to it and introduced to me by my dear friend Griz (is anyone noticing that I'm mentioning him quite a lot?).
All the while though, I hadn't even seen my other roomy, Dan_the_wolf, until late in the evening when I sat down with Fox, two people I had never met, and mr. Sylverwing. I was happy to see his tired face again, a good friend for whom I think I have feelings beyond friendship (I'll get back to that on a later date... possibly).
Ending the evening/night with a drink and a nice chat (and adding a few people on MSN), I finally decided that at around 0:40AM it was time for me to head for bed. Didn't really work out though... I was still up at around 1:48 when Dan got back and got to sleep, and when Griz got back close to 3AM... I think I only had about one and a half hours of sleep, maybe two, since I woke up at 5AM this morning... Which brings me to, well, now...
The 8th of May second day of Confuzzled. Tomorrow an update on what will happen today.
PS: I'm tired and sleepy and hungry, so I'm looking forward to breakfast.
At the check-in though, I was quite unpleasantly surprised by how busy it was... There were only 3 counters open, and behind each of them there was a line of almost 20 people! Luckily, the opened up the 'elite' check-ins for us, so the line for me was reduced to only two people in front of me. I hadn't really paid attention to what my bag weighed, but I secretly think that it might be suspiciously close to the 20kg maximum... It weighed a heck of a lot more than I thought it would, even while it was only half-full.
Moving on, I had a meal at McDonalds (medium fries, mcflurry, large milkshake which I honest to god think tasted like caramel), got a small bit of bread with cheese and ham on it (yum!), and at around 16:40 I got on board the bus that would take me to the airplane.
I must plainly admit that I was even more excited to board that bus than to board the plane... I have never been in such an airport bus before, and it was fun to see more of the inner working below the terminal floors!
The flight went pretty smoothly, not much different from what I expected, to be frank. KLM is a good airline, I can tell from experience and the fact that it's DUTCH (country pride, you can bite me in the ass if you don't like it), and we landed exactly on time, at 17:20 UK time.
After the flight though, the rushing started... I had my bag and possessions all around 17:35/17:40, but I did still needed to get to the hotel and get used to using English constantly, and to seeing furries all around me (At the hotel, NOT at the airport). One call to the T-mobile service desk later (they blocked my number surprisingly), I was ready again to make calls. First one I called: Griz Sylverwing, and he came with some slightly bad news (which wasn't completely unexpected). They (Dan_the_wolf and him) weren't going to pick me up from the airport, which meant that I had to call up the hotel's coach services.
The airport hosted a couple of Courtesy phones, which had internal numbers for most coach services, including to my hotel... I tried calling them once... twice, trice, and hung on the ringing phone for about 10 minutes until I finally went to the service desk and had them try it... Same happened, but with use of another phone number, they finally got me into the bus and off to the hotel.
Arriving at the hotel the first thing I saw was... well, take a good guess, it's a furry conference being hosted there, and it made me slightly uneasy to be surrounded by so many unknown people in suits. I've always been uncomfortable in large crowds, and this was (sadly) not different. I had to get in the queue to register for the con, and get my goodies and pretty much had to rush upstairs to get ready for dinner with friends in the center of Manchester... While calling Griz at the airport, he told me that he had my room key though ( I know you will be reading this, Griz. I appreciate the effort, but in future scenarios I really do want to pick it up myself... I am frankly amazed they had you take it with you anyway, poor security. )
So, I went to the room, sat down on my side of the double bed I'm sharing with Griz, and started reading through the conbook... When I looked at my watch, I quickly realized that I was at least a couple minutes late for the bus I needed to take... Still being a bit upset about being in unfamiliar surroundings, surrounded by all sorts of strange/new people in suits or partials, I didn't really feel like going, and so let it slide... with an attempt to still make it at around 19:47, but the bus didn't show up so I simply went back to the hotel, got in line for food at the hotel's restaurant, and sat down at a table somewhere in the main corridor.
Slowly but surely, I started to get used to all the new, unfamiliar faces, started getting used to speaking English all the time, and generally started getting at ease... With a few people playfully tugging at my feet-paws, which got my mood up. ^.=.^ I'll be bluntly honest that I enjoyed my games of solitaire on that table, and that I enjoyed talking to someone who I now want to recognize as a new friend, and that I enjoyed hugging all the unfamiliar faces that were open to it and introduced to me by my dear friend Griz (is anyone noticing that I'm mentioning him quite a lot?).
All the while though, I hadn't even seen my other roomy, Dan_the_wolf, until late in the evening when I sat down with Fox, two people I had never met, and mr. Sylverwing. I was happy to see his tired face again, a good friend for whom I think I have feelings beyond friendship (I'll get back to that on a later date... possibly).
Ending the evening/night with a drink and a nice chat (and adding a few people on MSN), I finally decided that at around 0:40AM it was time for me to head for bed. Didn't really work out though... I was still up at around 1:48 when Dan got back and got to sleep, and when Griz got back close to 3AM... I think I only had about one and a half hours of sleep, maybe two, since I woke up at 5AM this morning... Which brings me to, well, now...
The 8th of May second day of Confuzzled. Tomorrow an update on what will happen today.
PS: I'm tired and sleepy and hungry, so I'm looking forward to breakfast.
