It’s amazing how fast time passes. Last time I posted about Blizzcon we were just over 2 months out. Now, it’s 2 weeks and 12 hours before we get on a plane bound for LA.
The anxiety about it all has well and truly set in – and blimey is my brain good at freaking out about the strangest of things…
There’s obviously all the plane-related concerns – missing our flights, getting sick on the plane, missing our connecting flight, landing and not getting through customs and being ordered back to Australia, luggage going missing etc. etc. (and of course, one of the planes crashing).
In LA itself, there’s also obviously the concern of being shot. Now this might seem ridiculous to many people, but living in Australia, it’s just not the norm to see people walking around with guns. It’s definitely something that’s going to niggle the back of my head the whole trip.
We are doing a bit of a road trip after Blizzcon and are hiring a car for it. Right now I have the panic because part of the road trip is in Yosemite, and there’s a chance it could snow. And I can’t get a straight answer as to whether or not the rental place rents chains for the tires, or if they have those all-weather tires that don’t need chains. And of course none of the rental companies have online support so I have to find a time to call them in LA to get an answer. And THAT is another panic all on its own. blergh. Oh and of course driving on the other side of the road isn’t going to be a picnic either. I’m very grateful that Thor will be doing all the driving…
And then there’s Blizzcon itself… one of my biggest concerns about Blizzcon was (and this is going to sound so self-involved) that noone would actually care that I was there. All these people I’m friends with on twitter who I’m so keen to meet in person… what if they don’t want to say hi back? What if they don’t care? I’m such an awkward person, and I really wouldn’t blame them but golly has that been at the top of my worry list. Well, it was until earlier in the week.
The Hong Kong/China/Blizzard situation has brought a whole other level of concern for Blizzcon, with a bunch of protests now planned to happen at Blizzcon itself. I’m not going to be going in to this other than to make two comments:
1. Taliesin’s video about the situation is a very well thought out discussion about the situation, and really sums up how I feel about it all. Watch it here.
2. If someone had said something we *didn’t* agree with, this would be a completely different conversation.
It’s such a complex situation… and a terrible insight in to just how fucked up the world is. I just feel like the problem is so, so much bigger than Blizzard, but they are an easy target… But I *personally* don’t think that Blizzcon is the place for these protests. And I suppose when it comes down to it, if for any reason the protests got out of hand, we are visitors to the country… I dunno, America just scares me a little I suppose… and there’s just no easy answer here 😦
And then there are the really stupid panics that I have. The stupidest one I had was a few weeks ago in a dream. I dreamed we were at Blizzcon watching one of the panels, and something so incredibly amazing got announced and everyone was cheering. And I went to cheer along too…. except my cheers of excitement sounded like a cow in labour (warning – graphic content). And everyone just stared at me as I made this god-awful sound. I couldn’t even cheer properly! What a stupid thing for my brain to be worried about. And yet HERE WE ARE!
( https://unsplash.com/photos/rWkq8xO8F_U )
So clearly my brain is going in to overdrive. There’s a lot to get done in the next two weeks – we need to get the lease on our apartment renewed so that we have a home to come back to, for one! We’ve also got a lot of tidying to do in case they decide to do an inspection while we’re away (and also it’s just so much nicer coming back to a lovely clean home.)
Mostly, though, the next 2 weeks will be packing (and repacking!). We need clothes for all weather. Parts of the trip will have temperatures in the high 20’s/early 30s (celcius!) which is too hot for my liking. But then temperatures at Yosemite look to be in the single digits, and might even snow! So it really is one extreme to the other. Layers will be the key priority for packing 🙂
In the meantime, I’m curious to see what other stupid things my brain can decide to be anxious about over the next 2 weeks!
Cover image from https://unsplash.com/photos/5DTY3_FYaNY
I looked at the date today and realised that it’s just over 2 months until we head off to LA for Blizzcon and I am FREAKING OUT.
I have done nothing more for our trip since initially booking flights months ago other than thinking a lot about it. Not acting on anything, just thinking about it all. Freakin’ typical.
Our list of things still to do is pretty big:
- sort out visa
- buy Disneyland tickets
- buy Universal Studios tickets
- figure out what we are going to do for the 10 days between when we leave Anaheim and when we fly back home – including where we are going to stay!
- sort out our flights over* (more on that below)
- figure out what the hell I’m going to wear
- buy comfortable shoes
- figure out what days we’re going to Disneyland and Universal studios
- figure out a day to go to the beach (it’s a personal thing – have to stick my feet in every new ocean I am near)
- organise presents for US friends
- make a list of people we need to buy presents for back home
- $$$ do our taxes so we can pay for everything!!! $$$
Oh look, there’s so much more than that, but that’s just what is floating around at the moment.
Actually, one of the decisions we have been trying to make is around Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon. I think we’re pretty settled on going to both of these places, but how we get there has been a bit back and forth. Initially we had planned on driving and doing a fun road trip, but then had advice from some friends who have driven in LA who said to avoid it at all costs. So then we started looking for flights instead. I asked for some advice on airlines for the trip (thanks friends for the input!)… but someone said we should just do a road trip. And honestly, I think that’s where our hearts lie. So even though it’ll be scary driving on the other side of the road and having the steering wheel on the left and all that, it looks like that will be our plan. We like adventures 🙂
So the flights thing. We booked our flights ages ago, which is fine. I got an email from our airline about a week or so ago now saying that the plane we were due to fly over on was one of those planes that was having issues with crashing all the time, so they need to send it away to be fixed. They are leasing a plane from someone else to replace the original plane. Now, I am all for not exploding on my flights so have no issues with the planes being changed – 100% in support of this decision. However it does put us in an awkward spot. We had paid extra to sit in some specific seats that were in a pair towards the back of the plane. We did this to help manage my anxiety over flying, but also because, in a row of just the 2 of us, us being large people wouldn’t impact anyone else (and again would help ease my anxiety). With being on this new plane we have been told seats are no longer guaranteed. While they will do their best, they can’t guarantee any special seats chosen will be available. If we paid extra and didn’t get what we wanted they would reimburse us. That’s all well and good, but I’d rather the seats. So I need to call them to make some arrangements. It’s just triggering my anxiety a bit (seeing a theme here?!!) but I just have to do it.
It’s slow going, and really getting to the point where we have to make some hard and fast decisions. I think this weekend will be quite busy with planning!
cover photo by Joseph Ngabo on Unsplash
Note: there are no spoilers in this post for Avengers: Endgame or Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. This is a safe space!
What a week it has been! With all the public holidays happening over Easter and ANZAC day, I decided to fill in the blanks with personal leave to get 10 days off work for a mini-break – I really needed it! But I tell you what, it has turned out to be one hell of an emotional week.
The bananas week started on Monday, which was my 8 year anniversary with my partner, Thor. But before we got to celebrating, I guested on the Girls Gone WoW podcast, which meant a 4am wake up call. Eep! But it was so worth it. EJ & Raven are justt so lovely, and we had a good laugh. (You can check out the episode here.)
For our anniversary, Thor and I spent the day binge watching Umbrella Academy on Netflix, which was so great. Aside from it being a great show, it was nice to just spend time together doing nothing else.
Tuesday I went and visited a lovely friend of mine to have lunch with her and her partner and their gorgeous new baby. This was probably my most chilled out day all week, to be honest.
Wednesday was where things really ramped up. At 8:45am (which is generally far too early for a movie!) Thor and I were sitting in a theatre ready to watch Avengers: Endgame. I will not spoil anything here. Suffice it to say it was an emotional experience, as I expected it would be. It was truly fantastic though, and well worth the early start to the day to avoid spoilers.
Then came Thursday. Our anniversary present to ourselves was to go and see Harry Potter and the Cursed Child play that is currently showing here in Melbourne. We bought the tickets months ago. They were not cheap, but as a mad Harry Potter fan, I figured it would be worth it to experience this. I was not disappointed. For those who are unaware, the play runs over 2 showings. We saw Part 1 on Thursday, and Part 2 on Friday. I was in tears just arriving at the theatre. I mean, look!
To be fair, most things makes me cry. This in particular was always bound to have me in a mess – to see this amazing world Rowling created come to life in front of us… well I didn’t really stand a chance.
The show itself… it wasn’t without flaws, don’t get me wrong, but it was genuinely magical. Well worth the ticket price, and then some. Being able to experience the world again was just amazing. I highly recommend it.
But the emotions didn’t stop on Thursday night. We got home after seeing Part 1 of the show, and I was way too amped up to go to bed any time soon, so stayed up a bit to level my paladin in WoW. And wouldn’t you know it – Blizzcon 2019 dates finally got announced!! 1-2 November, with a special community day on the 31st (the Thursday before the con itself). EEEEEEEEEPPPP!!!!
What makes this Blizzcon so special is that this year, Thor and I will be attending! We will be making the trip from Australia to LA. We’re making the most of it, planning to be there for 20 days. So far we have planned Blizzcon (of course!), Disneyland (of course!), and Wizarding World of Harry Potter (of course!). Now we are just working on the rest of it. There’s a travel expo coming up in a week or so that we’ll go to to see if we can get some good deals. But anyways, that was Thursday.
Friday was Part 2 of Cursed Child. Again, no spoilers, but I was openly weeping during parts of it.
Come Saturday, I’m pretty exhausted but still seriously pumped for Blizzcon. I had organised accommodation around 2 months ago for the dates I guessed Blizzcon would be – thankfully I was correct! – so we were already ahead with somewhere to stay for the convention and Disneyland. But what we hadn’t sorted yet, and why I’ve been so desperate for the dates to be announced, was our flights.
Unfortunately flights that we had been looking at were already gone and almost doubled in price. So I spent a big chunk of Saturday looking at what was available, checking times, legroom etc. In the end we settled on an airline and flights and we think we should be pretty good. Most importantly, we booked the flights. That was a big expense, and hence the overwhelming moment of the day. But I did feel good to do.
The other adventure on Saturday was my passport. I lost it. Well, temporarily. It was funny, because last time Thor and I went on a big trip together there were a lot of dramas with his passport/s and everything was fine with me. This time around he knew exactly where his was, and he’s good to go. Me? I had put mine in a really stupid place and couldn’t find it for the longest time. And then when I did find it, I saw it was expired. Thankfully not too long expired so the replacement process should be pretty quick. But it’s nearly $300 for a new one, and I could have done without that expense!
Today, Sunday, it seems things have calmed back down again. I levelled my paladin and she dinged 120, but other than that it’s been a pretty cruisey day. Tomorrow I am back to work and basically will be super busy until this trip. But it will be worth it!
I’m going to track all my Blizzcon prep and posts as best as I can, and will make a little sub-section on my site for awhile for anyone who wants to follow along on these adventures. In the meantime, I’ve already made a countdown for our trip!! Check it out!
I hope everyone has had a great week!
xo
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