bubosquared | Mini!SwanCon: London -- A Report

So on Saturday morning, my dad wakes me up, I drag myself out of bed and into a quick shower, get dressed, grab some fruit to eat and some cofee for the road, and we head off to Charleroi. Thanks to coffee, I'm actually awake enough when we arrive at the airport to check in luggage, remember to get my book (LotR) out, and go to wait. Blablabla airplane, train, tube, and finally I arrive at Lancaster Gate metro station, meeting Sae!

I was considerably less nervous than any of the other times I'd met up with Internet people. This is not because Sae is less nervousness-worthy than anyone else, but rather because I'm getting used to it. And because I wasn't exactly awake yet at the time.

We went to her hotel, and talked about slash, fandom politics, etc. for about two hours straight. Then we headed for Borders, talked about gay sex in public, and waited for Zed. Once Her Zedness arrived, we went to take Sae's Camden Virginity. (Muahahahahaha!) She bought a dress at Black Rose, we spent some time in a gay porn shop, where we giggled a lot, and then we headed into a Starbucks, where we once again discussed touchy boylove, fandom politics, etc. for about five hours.

Back to the hotel it was, then, after buying a disposable camera, and after having some dinner, we got changed, had Sae's mother take a bunch of (slashy, which made us giggle a lot) pictures of us. As we left, we got some more pictures of us underneath the sign of a local hotel/pub called "The Swan", and off to Slimelight it was.

Slimelight was great as usual, despite the fact that I still had the cold from hell. Sniffling, sneezing and "Ow, my sinuses!" are not v. gawtique things, yo. Neither is singing *NSync, which I did, thanks to Sae. (She said "money", I Just Got Paid in my head. Oh, do shut up. :p) However, there were boys in drag, boys in make-up, boys hugging and cuddling and holding hands, and al that Jazz, so we were happy.

The next morning we took some "after" pictures of us while waiting for the tube station to open, and then we said goodbye to Zed, I went with Sae to get a shower and my stuff, then missed by bus to Standsted and took the next one, which made me five minutes late for check-in. The did not want to bend the rules for poor pathetic me, not even a bit. Bitches. Proceeded to get booked on the next flight, then panic when I realised I'd have to call my dad to have him call through his credit card into to the Ryanair booking line, because I have no credit card, and there was not enough on my debit card to pay cash.

Called dad. Broke down harder than I have since Black Tuesday. He didn't grouch, and took down the (confused/confusing) instructions I passed on to him. Due to general fucked-upness of phone lines, confused instruction and general unhelpfulness from the Ryanair staff, I missed the 15:40 flight as well. Eventually (I'll spare you the sordid details), I got on the 20:40, arrived at Charleroi at 22:40, from where my dad drove me home.

All in all, a great weekend, but I couldn't lived without the ending.