Louis and I left his house at approximately 9 AM. We had tickets for an 11:30 AM bus. Now, I'm not making that time up out of nowhere; you have to pick the times when you order your tickets online. Thus, they should know how many tickets they've sold for each bus, shouldn't they? I'd also like to point out that we arrived at the terminal at 10:30, a solid hour before the scheduled departure time.

 

Because of this, we arrived in Baltimore close to 5 PM. And what with checking in to the hotel, changing into our costumes, doing wigs and makeup and then picking up our badges and everything, by the time we got into the con, the dealer's room had closed. Damn you Greyhound! I didn't mind so much, because I make it a policy never to impulse buy, but to wait at least one day if not all three to make sure I *really* want something, but Lou was really looking forward to shopping. Oh, well. At any rate, Lou and I did make up our minds that we will never be using Greyhound for con travel again (a decision that was reinforced by our literally torturous ride home, but I'll save that story for Day Three).

On the plus side, we did get to do a little walk-around, refamiliarize ourselves with the layout, check the schedule, and run into people we knew, which as you all know by now is my favorite part of any convention. It's funny how seeing people that you see every week at home, still feels COMPLETELY different when you see them in a "foreign" city (and all dressed up to the nines, at that!)

My least favorite thing about Baltimore (other then their arrogance at displaying "America's Best City" on park benches with cracked and peeling paint, although I suppose I enjoy that on an ironic level) is the weather: I have naturally curly hair, but straighten it for all the characters I don't use wigs for, so the walk from the hotel to the con center becomes agonizing for me. That, and this year, my Friday costume, Silver Millennium Princess Mars, had sandals with straps that are supposed to wrap all the way up my leg. I think they lasted for about a block before they slid down and puddled around my ankles. After that, I just wrapped them around my ankles and let them go. Sandals = 1, Crissy = 0. Oh, well.

Naruto was definitely the "It" cosplay of this con, and Louis had EVERYONE stop and ask him for a picture. Now, he claims he goes to conventions more for the shopping and for the events, and that he only cosplays to show his love for his favorite characters, and that he doesn't care at all if no one takes his picture, but I could tell he was having a good time. :) As for me, I don't think a lot of people recognized who I was supposed to be, but I knew this was an obscure costume when I commissioned it, so I wasn't too vexed. I looked really nice in light lavender, and that's all I cared about.

Since the dealer's room was closed and we didn't have a lot to do, Lou decided he wanted to give Bleach a try, since so many people on our LiveJournal Friends list had been raving about it lately. Hilarity ensued when someone walked in the door, and Lou and I spent a good five minutes going, "Is that Ender? I think it's Ender," and then of course it was Ender, so we all ended up watching Bleach together. Yay. (For the record, the first four episodes of Bleach didn't impress me enough to go out and buy it for myself. But it's not bad, and almost all anime are a little slow in the beginning, set-up episodes.)

Friday was really all about just getting to see old friends, meet "old" online friends, and meet brand new friends. My highlights were running into Fory-san, meeting my Mina for the first time after talking to her so long through LJ, meeting Stephanie and all of her friends in their lovely Eternal fuku, CCAmanda, and unfortunately, completely missing the photoshoot I had set up with Dr. Teng. (If it hadn't been for running into David Ng, I wouldn't have had any really good pictures of my costume!) And so many more, but if I go into them all, I'll be here forever, and I already did my Otakon shoutouts on my LJ. Otakon's great, but it's HUGE: sometimes it's hard to find people you're supposed to meet.

Lastly, Lou and I went out for a quiet dinner across the street at one of the bar and grills near the convention center, just the two of us. It was a great way to unwind after running around all day, and since we did the same thing in 2004, we're looking to make it a yearly tradition. After that, we went back to the hotel, where I tried to take some more pictures because the lobby was really surprisingly beautiful, but they all came out kind of dark, and I was pretty tired looking (although in my defense, I had good right to be) so we just retired to our hotel room and passed out.