Ladies and Gents, everybody is officially home from NYC and after several sixteen hour sleeps, mostly caught up on sleep. This means: PHOTOS!!!
In the wee hours of Monday the 31st, Laura, Brandi, and I made it back to PA after a stop at Denny’s for food and a stop at a WaWa to get a picture of Laura. Once at my house, we pretty much crashed. Brandi left later that day and Laura and I swam and ate – gasp! – real food, thus ending our diet of ramen, bagel bites, and taquitos.
At about 5 am we left for the BWI Airport AmTrak station. I forgot my ID but was still able to get on the train, thankfully. We did plan to stay awake and pretend we were on the Hogwarts Express, but alas, we slept through most of the ride. When we got to NYC, we met up with Shawn (Laura’s AWESOME friend) by the Paramount and then went for McDonalds. Specifically, at a two-story McDonald’s restaurant. I should have taken pics.
Shawn and Laura went off to site see and since my feet were dead from Vegas, I parked my butt at Hotel Pennsylvania to wait for the lovely, wonderful, Speth to check us in at the Paramount. When the time came to go check in, we had a neurotic cab driver. Speth sat in the front seat and Laura, Shawn, and I took the back. When Speth tried to talk about the hotel with us, the driver literally freaked out. “Do not do this! Passengers in the front seat must not talk to passengers in the back seat! Passengers in the back seat can talk to other passengers in the back seat but not the front seat! It is disruptive! It disrupts me! It is dangerous!! Do you know how many people that has killed?”
It was REALLY hard not to laugh. Anyway, we got to the hotel and our room was aproximately the size of (and Emerson will like this analogy) a cereal box and had a creepy painting for a headboard. The bathroom was marginally larger than the closet and had no lock, yet it was easy to get locked in. The toilet was like a demon and the sink looked like some sci-fi urinal. The shower curtain was touchy-feely, thus we left the curtain open to shower. (NOTE FROM LAURA: Jess may have showered curtainless, but I’m a bit more modest.)
Meeting up with everyone in NYC was amazing and I miss everyone already!!! I can’t wait until the next time we all get together. (I shall spare you the angst!)
As for the readings, I was bad on the first night. I slept through John Irving completely and being the biggest Stephen King fan ever, it was my duty to nod off a couple times during his reading. So sue me. Personally, I can’t say the first night was that great. It was okay, but not spectacular. Some of the questions for Jo were wasted on inane things like, “If Muggles had the ingredients could they make potions?” GRRR!!!!
The second night was EXCELLENT. The audience was better and more responsive, I was awake the whole time, all three authors improved in their reading (they read the same pieces both nights), I found that I nodded off more during Stephen King on the first night than I thought I did, John Irving is hilarious and I need to read some of his novels, and Jo is just… wonderful. I loved her shoes, her voice, her… just everything. Jooooooo! (Sorry for the run on!)
As you’ve probably heard, Dumbledore is… DEFINITELY DEAD. MWAHAHAHAHA. TAKE THAT DUMBLELOVERS.
Lumos and the whole Vegas trip went by SO fast!! Thursday night I spent most of the night having an allergic reaction to yellow dye, but I had such a great time. The podcast on Saturday was interesting, although I do wish less covered topics had been chosen to discuss. I also had trouble not screaming out answers during the trivia contest. The highlight of the contest for me was Emerson smacking his head into his microphone.
Earlier on Saturday, Kay and I went to the wax museum and had an excellent time harassing the wax celebs. So, without further ado: pics AND video of the podcast, the wax musuem, and lots of other stuff as well!
Photos: Kay and I at the wax musuem, miscellaneous pictures, The Remus Lupins open for the podcast, and the podcast!
The Remus Lupins Live
John Noe sings New York New York
As usual, comments belong here and not on the hosting site. :) More videos and photos to come soon as Laura and I are heading to New York on Tuesday for a night (well, both nights) with Harry, Carrie, and Garp! She is currently asleep on my bed and Brandi is out cold in my other chair. Brandi and I had excellent flights back into Baltimore, but Laura’s sucked something awful, and then we had a big scare where we thought she lost her bag. Thankfully, she didn’t!
I’m off to bed now too! <3
Filed under: In the Resort, Las Vegas, Out & About, Photos, Posted by Jess, Posted by Laura, Posted by Rachel
Hello, all! We have had an exciting week so far! On Monday we went to see the Bodies exhibit at Tropicana and it was amazing. The closest restaurant that we could easily find was Hooters, so we walked the whole way to Hooters (post-decidign not to get on the New York New York coaster since it’s fairly expensive) only to find out that there was an over 21 section in the restaurant and an under 21 section. The under 21 section had a 1 hour wait, so we went to The Dam Restaurant, which was also inside the Hooters Hotel.
On Tuesday we met up with K’lyssa and Eric to goto the Eiffel Tower, but the ticket line was SO FREAKING LONG and we got sidetracked because Elysa wanted a milkshake. We failed to hail a taxi by Paris, and so walked the whole way to the Bellagio to try and get a cab. We didn’t manage to get a cab, but we did get gelato, excluding Elysa, who finally got her milkshake. (They took so long, however, that they probably went and milked a cow fresh for her.) On the way out we stopped for a fountain show, which was decent, but nothing too awesome.
Finally, we walked to Caesar’s and got a taxi after a long wait. I (Jess) taxied with Brandi & K’lyssa to the Stratosphere and Laura, Elysa, and Eric shared another taxi. When we got there, we got our tickets fairly quickly, but Eric took over 30 minutes in the gift shop buying nothing spectacular. Many death threats ensued.
After an hour or more’s wait, we finally got to go up the tower. A couple photos were taken before we went up and the backgrounds were added on later, I will scan them as soon as I get home! Their elevator takes you up 130 stories in 27 seconds and your ears pop like on a plane. SO AWESOME! Brandi & K’lyssa held everyone’s stuff because they didn’t want to ride, and Laura and Elysa only had tickets for Thriller, a claw which dangles you off the side of the building. Eric and I bought tickets for everything, so to save time, we decided to get on Big Shot (A ride that shoots you up to the top of a needle on the Stratosphere for an AMAZING view of Vegas. I will get Eric to give me the photos he took to post!
Elysa and Laura nevergot go on their ride and Eric and I didn’t get on anything but Big Shot because the tower shut down due to heat lightning. :(
Last night (Wednesday night) was a LeakyMug staff party. We were all really nervous at first but after we had a mini-staff meeting directed by Melissa and sat in a circle, things got much more relaxed. Kay kicked Emerson’s ass at Dance Dance Revolution so many times, and a great time was had by all!
And now… what you’ve all been waiting for: PHOTOS!!! (Please comment on this entry if you have comments, and not on the Rock You website!)
Video and audio to come when I use my laptop. Elysa’s is killing me!!!
Hey there, everybody! Laura, Brandi, Elysa and I are in Vegas!!! Sorry we haven’t updated, I forgot the internet cables for my laptop and wireless is only in the lobby of the main building. Never fear, though! Once Elysa gets her laptop charged we will have some videos and audio for you including the stuff from Brandi and I on the way to the airport!
Rachel should be arriving tomorrow afternoon now, (Woohoo!) and Kay is set to come on Wednesday. We’re about to go out and see the strip, consider checking the photobucket photo album as I am going to attempt to email pics right from my phone to it. :D
Hopefully you’ll have a media enriched update soon,
Jess
Sorry for the darkness on this video, we’ll do our best to make sure things are brighter on the next one. If you turn up the brightness on your monitor for a bit, it’s fine. :)
Edit: We’ve got two pics up on our photobucket account. The on the left is the fabled tobacco field and on the right is Brandi’s view of the accident. (It’s pretty distant!) As always, check our photo album for larger images. (See link down left navigation bar.)
Hi folks, Jess here! Brandi is currently on her way to my house. She is about thirty minutes into her trip and currently parked on VA-31. Why? A dump truck overturned into a ditch. I am on the phone with her as I type, and she has been chanting, “Dump truck!” and is seeing if she can get some photos. Apparently she is near a field of tobacco and has been there for a while.
I got on MapQuest and Google Maps, and I think Brandi is located where I placed a red circle on the map below. This is barely 1/12th of the way to Pennsylvania. I’m going to attempt to see if I can help Brandi turn around and byass the accident. Keep checking in!
For a larger version of this map, please see our photo album! :)
When we saw that Andrew and Ben were making a joint blog to chronicle their experiences getting to and at Lumos in Las Vegas and JKR’s reading in New York City, the five of us (Elysa, Rachel, Laura, Brandi, and I) knew we had to make our own blog. And when Kay (MuggleNet Fan Fiction Alumni) found out she was able to come too, she agreed! All of us are staying together in the same resort for Lumos and three of us hope to continue on to the reading.
The objective of this blog is to track our progress with photos, videos, and, of course, journal entries. We want something we can look back on to remember the best summer ever and also something we can collectively show people who didn’t get to join in the fun.
There will be lots of first times on this trip! Brandi hasn’t flown before, only Laura has been to Las Vegas, none of us have been to such a big Harry Potter gathering… I could keep on listing, but I wouldn’t want to give everything away.
This trip starts on Saturday, July 22nd near Williamsburg, VA where Brandi will begin her trek to stay with Jess pre-flight by driving a car to Gettysburg, PA that might not be able to make the whole drive. Stay tuned for frequent updates and ensuing hilarity! We hope you’re half as excited as we are!
