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Back from Glasgow Worldcon!
Aug. 24th, 2024 08:55 pmWell, actually I've been back for a bit over a week, but am still getting caught up. And by "caught up," I mean deal with day jobbery, sleep, do huge amounts of laundry, deal with getting the house cleaned, checking in on Jana and putting a new book out. But let's start at the beginning with Iceland, shall we?
I flew to Iceland and met up with author Heather Rose Jones, who was my roomie throughout the trip. We stayed at a nice hotel in downtown Reykjavik near a couple of fabulous restaurants and other than some minor stuff about room reservations on the first day, all went well. Day 2, on the other hand, launched with me being ghosted by my tour bus driver for a trip that I'd been looking forward to for months. No luck on getting a refund from Reykjavik Excursions either so suffice to say, I do not recommend them. Heather got to go on a different tour, though, and thoroughly enjoyed it.
I took a very long walk around the city visiting museums to work off some of my grumpiness and did see some lovely things that I hadn't seen on our first trip. It was not entirely successful, but the new shoes, convertible travel bag and folding walking stick were all very helpful and I managed to avoid twisted ankles and such. Day 3 was better. Heather and I roamed around on the water front, checked out the Saga Museum and enjoyed a splendid lunch. We opted to walk back to the hotel and rest up for Glasgow afterward (worth nothing that I was sick for two weeks before I left and my sleep patterns were completely hosed before I got jet lag).
The expedition to the airport was relatively uneventful and when we found our gate, we also ran into a bunch of people headed for Worldcon, including Julia Rios, Naomi Kritzer and some folks Heather knew. So that was delightful. The trip was lowkey and we made out way to our hotel without incident. Heather had gotten us a room at the Clayton House, which used to be the old Customs House on the Clyde River. She requested a view, so we got the 13th floor with an amazing panorama of Glasgow.
The first day was all resting (me) or fetching her badge and meeting with friends (Heather). I didn't roll into the con until Thursday. We met reviewer Liz Bourke on the train, which was fun, and then I ran into the folks from AtthisArts Press and Joyce Chng, who I haven't met in person before. We hung out until my Table Talk (for some reason, no one from the Registration told me I was missing my Program Participation envelope so that took a journey and another day). The Table Talk (formerly known as a "Kaffeeklatch") went reasonably well and I had a small engaged group asking good questions. After that I wandered a bit, went to a panel,then made dinner plans with Alex Acks.
Had a great time catching up with Alex, who was serving as the secretary for the WSFS Business Meeting. These were scheduled 5 hours a day, every day of the con, all in person, so if you've seen the motion to make them online and limit them, please support it because that is way too much to ask of volunteers! At any rate, I began a pattern that I stuck too throughout - due to the sleep issues and the occasional issues with the trains (there was a work slowdown in progress, I skipped a lot of the evening events in favor of watching things online. I also found that some of the programs I wanted to go to, like a meet up, had been moved without signage or info, and many of the meeting rooms filled up quickly. This turned out to be a good thing in that I dodged getting COVID, what between the booster I got before leaving, masking everywhere and skipping super crowded spaces.
I did have a perfectly fine time running around seeing people and exploring Glasgow, lest I imply otherwise. Just did less con than usual. I went to a lovely tea at the Willows at Mackintosh, the Rennie Mackintosh-designed tea room, with Julia Rios, had hot chocolate with the delightful Ally Lester and her spouse, had tea at an adorable teahouse called Hidden Lane Teahouse with Jennie Goloboy and Heather and saw an interesting exhibit about the tea rooms. I also had some hangout time with Kari Sperring and Heather, which was lovely,met Sara Uckelman (also delightful), took LaShawn Wanak to lunch (also fun) and briefly saw lots of other people, including Paul Weimer before he won his Huge (yay!), Pat Cadigan, Martha Wells and more. I enjoyed the Art Show, met several book vendors who I know from online and generally socialized and networked a lot. My Sunday panel on book marketing went really well and I met a bunch more people and saw friends I haven't seen in forever, including Laura Antoniou. So overall, a good con experience.
Monday, I did get to go on the other tour I'd been looking forward to. LaShawn, Kathy Sullivan and Melissa Kocias also signed up and we had an absolute blast touring the Highlands with Discover Scotland Tours (highly recommended). The tour guide was great and the assorted group of American and Spanish tourists, including a couple of families and another friend group, were really pleasant. We got to see some absolutely stunning scenery, including several castles (from the outside). After we had lunch in Oban, our guide put on The Proclaimers' song "I'm Gonna Be" and we all burst into a singalong. Just a glorious time and I'm so glad I went!
On Tuesday, Heather and I went to Kelvingrove, the big museum in Glasgow and enjoyed ourselves. After that, we were off to the Broken Clock Cafe for amazing pastry and hot chocolate, then back to the hotel for packing and dinner and such. Wednesday, I flew home (despite losing a wheel on my luggage to the deadly cobblestones for Glasgow and having to replace my luggage at the airport) and Heather hopped on the train south, headed for Shibden Hall (Anne Lister's manor) and more adventures. I was glad I gave myself a couple of days to do laundry and more or less cope, about which more in the next part.
I flew to Iceland and met up with author Heather Rose Jones, who was my roomie throughout the trip. We stayed at a nice hotel in downtown Reykjavik near a couple of fabulous restaurants and other than some minor stuff about room reservations on the first day, all went well. Day 2, on the other hand, launched with me being ghosted by my tour bus driver for a trip that I'd been looking forward to for months. No luck on getting a refund from Reykjavik Excursions either so suffice to say, I do not recommend them. Heather got to go on a different tour, though, and thoroughly enjoyed it.
I took a very long walk around the city visiting museums to work off some of my grumpiness and did see some lovely things that I hadn't seen on our first trip. It was not entirely successful, but the new shoes, convertible travel bag and folding walking stick were all very helpful and I managed to avoid twisted ankles and such. Day 3 was better. Heather and I roamed around on the water front, checked out the Saga Museum and enjoyed a splendid lunch. We opted to walk back to the hotel and rest up for Glasgow afterward (worth nothing that I was sick for two weeks before I left and my sleep patterns were completely hosed before I got jet lag).
The expedition to the airport was relatively uneventful and when we found our gate, we also ran into a bunch of people headed for Worldcon, including Julia Rios, Naomi Kritzer and some folks Heather knew. So that was delightful. The trip was lowkey and we made out way to our hotel without incident. Heather had gotten us a room at the Clayton House, which used to be the old Customs House on the Clyde River. She requested a view, so we got the 13th floor with an amazing panorama of Glasgow.
The first day was all resting (me) or fetching her badge and meeting with friends (Heather). I didn't roll into the con until Thursday. We met reviewer Liz Bourke on the train, which was fun, and then I ran into the folks from AtthisArts Press and Joyce Chng, who I haven't met in person before. We hung out until my Table Talk (for some reason, no one from the Registration told me I was missing my Program Participation envelope so that took a journey and another day). The Table Talk (formerly known as a "Kaffeeklatch") went reasonably well and I had a small engaged group asking good questions. After that I wandered a bit, went to a panel,then made dinner plans with Alex Acks.
Had a great time catching up with Alex, who was serving as the secretary for the WSFS Business Meeting. These were scheduled 5 hours a day, every day of the con, all in person, so if you've seen the motion to make them online and limit them, please support it because that is way too much to ask of volunteers! At any rate, I began a pattern that I stuck too throughout - due to the sleep issues and the occasional issues with the trains (there was a work slowdown in progress, I skipped a lot of the evening events in favor of watching things online. I also found that some of the programs I wanted to go to, like a meet up, had been moved without signage or info, and many of the meeting rooms filled up quickly. This turned out to be a good thing in that I dodged getting COVID, what between the booster I got before leaving, masking everywhere and skipping super crowded spaces.
I did have a perfectly fine time running around seeing people and exploring Glasgow, lest I imply otherwise. Just did less con than usual. I went to a lovely tea at the Willows at Mackintosh, the Rennie Mackintosh-designed tea room, with Julia Rios, had hot chocolate with the delightful Ally Lester and her spouse, had tea at an adorable teahouse called Hidden Lane Teahouse with Jennie Goloboy and Heather and saw an interesting exhibit about the tea rooms. I also had some hangout time with Kari Sperring and Heather, which was lovely,met Sara Uckelman (also delightful), took LaShawn Wanak to lunch (also fun) and briefly saw lots of other people, including Paul Weimer before he won his Huge (yay!), Pat Cadigan, Martha Wells and more. I enjoyed the Art Show, met several book vendors who I know from online and generally socialized and networked a lot. My Sunday panel on book marketing went really well and I met a bunch more people and saw friends I haven't seen in forever, including Laura Antoniou. So overall, a good con experience.
Monday, I did get to go on the other tour I'd been looking forward to. LaShawn, Kathy Sullivan and Melissa Kocias also signed up and we had an absolute blast touring the Highlands with Discover Scotland Tours (highly recommended). The tour guide was great and the assorted group of American and Spanish tourists, including a couple of families and another friend group, were really pleasant. We got to see some absolutely stunning scenery, including several castles (from the outside). After we had lunch in Oban, our guide put on The Proclaimers' song "I'm Gonna Be" and we all burst into a singalong. Just a glorious time and I'm so glad I went!
On Tuesday, Heather and I went to Kelvingrove, the big museum in Glasgow and enjoyed ourselves. After that, we were off to the Broken Clock Cafe for amazing pastry and hot chocolate, then back to the hotel for packing and dinner and such. Wednesday, I flew home (despite losing a wheel on my luggage to the deadly cobblestones for Glasgow and having to replace my luggage at the airport) and Heather hopped on the train south, headed for Shibden Hall (Anne Lister's manor) and more adventures. I was glad I gave myself a couple of days to do laundry and more or less cope, about which more in the next part.
