Grand Cosplay Ball
On Saturday morning we embarked on our trip to London. The train journey down was fine. We managed to all get seats together in spite of not actually having all those seats reserved, and although we were sleepy to start with, it evolved into the usual hyper, and we probably ended up annoying our entire carriage with too much enthusiasm at DS games.
Our plan was to pack light. We all managed to at least pack compact, if not lightly. Even if bags got a bit heavy after a while, it was still possible to easily carry them about London with us all weekend, so that was a success! And yes, my Cinderella dress does all fit in a shopping bag nicely, but it's heeeeavy.
On arriving at about 4, we just headed straight over to the event at Tokyo Toys
A fine example of racism.
That said, the woman I confused in Starbucks with a Scottish twenty said it was very pretty, and accepted it no problem :P
Angela liked the escalators in the Trocadero
2/12/08
Eilidh didn’t
Tokyo Toys was packed, but I enjoyed the event for seeing the guests and catching up with friends. It was definitely worthwhile going along since so many people we wanted to see were there! The meal after was raaather crowded, and throwing in karaoke only made the space and noise issues worse, but I still really enjoyed it. Great food, and great company…at lease in a concentrated group. Also very cheap thanks to 50p green tea with free refills!
After the meal, we headed back to Annette and Phil’s, who once again were kindly accommodating us ^_^ Also allowed us to actually spend a decent amount of time with them since they weren’t going to the ball.
For Sunday, we had epic plans, but not enough time. So we went to meet people for some serious lunch, with a major pizza overdose
We went via Covent Garden, and Cyber Candy (MOUNTAIN DEW AND TWIZZLERS and the marshmallow fluff that I was very tempted by, whatever it is)
Yeeeees
We still had a decent amount of time, so wandered Camden for a bit before heading over to our hotel in the middle of nowhere. After getting ready, we ran into others going to the ball in the foyer, so managed to share taxis very effectively.
The ball venue was aaaaaweome. My only issues were that the dance floor was too small, and generally packed, which was a problem for the set formal dances. The upstairs seating area was wonderful, but the music volume up there was so loud you couldn’t talk easily at all. It was quieter downstairs by the dance floor, which is ludicrous. It wasn’t a big deal, but there was very little seating downstairs, so having to mainly stay there for the majority of the time wasn’t ideal. So fix the sound issue for the upstairs, and it’d be almost perfect. Shame it’s still a pretty inconvenient location.
Otherwise, absolutely no complaints. I loved the performances (moment of pride on discovering the Roy Mustang jacket that the fire performer wore was the one I made, which I did not know about 0_o). It was great for socialising, with friends, and even meeting people from a bunch of different countries, especially the super-nice German girls! Seeing everyone dressed up so nicely really made the whole atmosphere. There were some really beautiful outfits there, and an impressive number of Disney Princesses aside from me, yay! The cocktails were nom, the pretty photo area and photographer were great, and overall, it’s definitely a winning formula for an event.
On Monday we were up at 8ish, and out of there before 9, which was impressive. That left us more than enough time to get to Kings Cross, so we made a slight detour for Krispy Kreme donuts.
Train back was a pain since we were stuck next to annoying neds, who drank the whole way to Edinburgh, played music out loud, and were generally as obnoxious as neds are. They went out of their way to antagonise us after we asked them to switch off their music. It was frustrating that they were continually sold more alcohol, and that the conductor only spoke to them once. We didn’t manage to find any staff when we did want to complain, and it was only after a few hours that they became espeically irritating and drunk, so by then it was close to their stop anyway.
I was quite content with my earbud headphones in though, which act like earplugs even if I don’t have music on! I got my uni work done, and then read a book for most of the journey. Luckily we got nice old ladies chatting with us for the last bit of the trip, and the neds left at Edinburgh, giving us a peaceful final hour on the train.
That’s about it. I’ll maybe post some photos eventually if I manage to steal some. I’ve caught up on sleep now, and I only have a bit of class work to finish up for Friday before I’m free to work on my dissertation!