This was fun.



We took the Chinatown bus again - even if we owned a car, it would have been a cheaper ride, given how much parking cost. This required some logistics, as we also had to take all our food for the weekend. When we went to Boston, we could factor in a Friday morning trip to Brookline, but the kosher neighborhood was too far for that. So. One very large suitcase packed with clothing, meds, arm brace, books, religious paraphenialia, rechargers plus wine, challah and disposables. One insulated bag with chicken, meatloaf, cheese and salads (all carefully wrapped) and a large freezer pak. My backpack, with two bags of knitting, a book and lunch (deli roll, carrots and clementines), Jonathan's backpack with whatever he took. My purse.

Getting to the bus was interesting. jonbaker was already nervous from a somewhat late start and for other reasons that wouldn't be resolved until Saturday night, and we'd never been to this particular bus before. The car service driver kept asking question we'd already answered (usually with, "We don't know.") And then one got angry and the other got angry and the next thing we knew, we were standing on the sidewalk with our luggage. Note that this is our usual car service, but not one of our usual drivers. As we got out, Jonathan still fuming, we met a friend from shul, who asked if she could help. As she didn't have a car available, she couldn't drive us to Chinatown, but she did give us the number of a different car service, who picked up up and got us to the place in plenty of time.

After that, it was easy. The seats were small, but Jonathan took an aisle seat so we weren't quite so cramped. I not only had my knitting - I had a literature course on my mp3 player. This is the second course I've bought from this company, The Teaching Company, and it's been very nice - it's just perfect for when I'm cooking dinner, for example, but it worked for the bus trip, too, although I wouldn't want to listen while doing nothing else.

We got a cab to the hotel and settled into a larger room than we'd expected. However, as we were hosting the Shabbos dinner, that worked out well. We even had a little couch.

Unfortunately,the Dealer's Room opened after Shabbos started, so we couldn't start stacks then. We had dinner with batshua (who is adorable). zsero, boroparkpyro, leofwyne(who is very sweet) and a friend of Jonathan's brother, and then there was the convention.

We seemed to attend mostly filk programming, although I did go to a panel on "Is Science Fiction Moving to the Right"? (Not really. Just that until recently we didn't hear the leftwing voices, something I kinda question. Also, most sf is really apolitical. And Brits think we're all reactionary.)

Otherwise - we resolved the issue on Saturday night nicely, we bought books and art and filk cds, we met and talked to a lot of people and it was fun.

Took another Chinatown bus back to NYC, and got home in time to eat a dinner of con leftovers (heated up. I cannot tell you how much one misses hot food at cons) and watch tv and unpack.

I'm so used to leaving Thursday night and getting hime Monday afternoon that this felt short.