My long-awaited excursion overseas actually happened this year. Further Confusion was the centrepiece, the excuse that triggered me to actually do it. Having a (perhaps) 20-strong Aussie contingent helped when running around the con and various cities afterwards. That said, the United States of America made me feel really at home, right from the get-go. People were friendly, I loved the sport, food and Western, freedom culture and I had a lot of good conversations just by sitting at the bar with a delicious American IPA.

FC itself was, in a word, humbling. Coming from a place where our big Aussie cons have 500-700 attendees, it's easy to be invisible over there. Plenty of "famous" furs there, lots of bright, flashy, colourful suits and loud, vivacious personalities. I understand how sparkledogs exist and how characters might play up one aspect a lot to get noticed. All adds to the con atmosphere. Well, the partying pretty much did that. To have that agreement with the con hotel that we were just gonna take it over, so much so that on day zero, the Wednesday, we can drink out the front of the hotel any fucking time and no one cares: that's amazing.

While it was very much like doing a con for the first time, I did love it. It was pretty easy to roll around the con from place to place and meet up with someone else, and any other times there was the hotel bar! Spending time with three of my long-time chat buddies  tripnout  weaselr  spikeywolf and their friends was entirely worth the trip.

The rest of America was pretty cool too. Reuniting with an old high school buddy in Venice Beach, watching a side-splitting taping of the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, the hockey game in San Jose was pumped up, Alcatraz was suitably eerie, ice skating in Rockefeller Plaza among the skyscrapers to "Sweet Nothing" was spine-tingling, endless water and cityscape views, hilarious selfies, a super-sweet tour of the delights, breweries and homeliness of Boston from  galefrostbane and  strobes plus being pimpdog ballers in Vegas with  spikeywolf all made my highlight reel!

I doubt it'll be my last time in the States either :) If you've got any photos of me from there, please let me know, as I have fuck all!