Worldcon: Non-Panel stuff, part one
Sep. 6th, 2013 01:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mariness1. Unlike everyone else, I have absolutely no cool pictures, mostly because I forgot my cell phone could take pictures until I got back to Orlando. Which in retrospect was not the best time to remember this.
2. First cab I got into, from the airport to the hotel, has a big sign plastered to the window about Your Rights As A Passenger, which includes Full Access to Wheelchair Accessible vehicles.
Naturally, the first cab did not have space for my wheelchair and I had to get into another one.
3. A convention of 3900 people (I think – I kept hearing different numbers all weekend) means that a lot of people have to show up early, and by a lot, I mean, the lobby is already filled up with geeks as you are checking in. The hotel helped me upstairs. I had a little conversation with myself.
"It's a NEW PLACE and it's FULL OF GEEKS and YOU SHOULD GO AND HAVE FUN!"
"ZONK."
Zonk won. But I did manage to drag myself back downstairs for a bit of dinner at the mall (which was attached to the hotel) and a first look at the San Antonio Riverwalk.
4. About the Riverwalk: it's a walking (and, outside the major downtown tourist area, bicycle) path which runs along both sides of the river (mostly) and has various little gardens and fake waterfalls and ducks and turtles and dining areas and Irish pubs and so on. A portion of it has been cut out to create a nice little circle so you can go round and round. It's extremely touristy with the usual overpriced touristy restaurants, but, hey, turtles and if you look you can find affordable food, or, because this is me, milkshakes. (I know, I know, diet, but hey. It was seriously hot.)
It's also well below street level and on its own goes up and down. This makes it rather interesting in a wheelchair. For instance, you can go down to the R level in the Rivercenter hotel (where the mall food court and some very boring shops were) and go through the mall and end up on one side of the river and then use an exciting sequence of elevators and street systems to get to the other side (and by "exciting" I mean "the elevators sometimes stop" or you can ROLL ROLL ROLL down a nice steep and bumpy ramp to the other side and then roll roll roll past the Riverboat tour and then pick a series of bridges to figure out which difficult to get to restaurants you would like to visit or PUSH PUSH PUSH up uneven pavements to a section of the convention center which was not on my map but which had an excellent bathroom, which is important.
Not that I saw much of that on day one because ZONK was winning out and it was just not worth the fight. I made it back to my room and slept for 12 straight hours.
5. COFFEE. This became a rallying cry at the con. I went to the overpriced Starbucks in the hotel lobby (seriously overpriced; there was another Starbucks in the mall that had the regular Starbucks prices, but it was a bit too far for me to manage, so I grit my teeth and paid the extra amount), confirmed that I could get my daily banana there and then headed off to registration, with the kindly help of some people who pushed me in return for my studying the map.
TOTAL SIDENOTE: The hands down best prepurchase I made for this con was my Dragon Magnifying glass, because, see, map.
Anyway, we found Registration. This was very well organized and I was done much sooner than expected with my shiny new badge (I got my Rainbow Ribbon later) which I promptly stuffed into my bag as I hailed a taxi.
6. The taxi ride: So, this started with another convention dude and me. As we swung by the Alamo, I saw the outside (this is going to be a theme, so hold on). He jumped off and then the taxi driver took off. He was very excited to hear about incoming writers since this meant he could tell me about his great writing moment: taking Alex Haley in a cab and then later finding out that Haley had lost all of his money on women (I am quoting the taxi cab driver; I have no verification for this.)
Anyway he eventually got me to the San Antonio Museum of Art.
7. Getting into the San Antonio Museum of Art was one of those unintentionally hilarious disability moments. Here's how it works in the wheelchair. Bump bump bump BUMPBUMP bump over to a narrow, relatively steep ramp lined with bricks. I probably could have handled one or the other, but not both. Someone pushed me up BUMP BUMP and then – the door with the little disabled button so it could be opened automatically, which is great if you can get to the door. Anyway.
The actual museum is pretty awesome – not too large, not too small. I spent most of my time looking at Roman stuff because, well, sarcophagi (I don't think anyone expected me to miss those) but they also had some highly pornographic Greek stuff and some really lovely Chinese stuff and a painting by John Singer Sargent that held me enthralled. I don't know what it is about Sargent and rich society women, but it's something.
Not that I saw the entire museum. Getting to some sections was going to be Interesting and I didn't feel like Interesting, plus I was a bit concerned about the overall heat.
Plus.
RIVER TAXI.
BUMP BUMP BUMP BUMP BUMP bump bump SHAKE bump bump bump then, WHEE down a long twisty ramp all the way to the river then a long long rest then boat.
This was great. The boat took me right up to the end of the boat trip – which included a lovely little waterfall and some ducks – and then we turned around and went back past the museum and very very slowly down the river, through the sound sculpture (under a bridge) and various other art projects (mostly under bridges) and through the boat lock. The slowly was mostly me because I kept seeing turtles, but also partly the boat: that's a very shallow river so the boats go slowly. Had I known that the water taxi stopped at the museum I would have taken that to the museum in the first place.
....ok, so I lied. The ACTUAL non-panel stuff is forthcoming!
2. First cab I got into, from the airport to the hotel, has a big sign plastered to the window about Your Rights As A Passenger, which includes Full Access to Wheelchair Accessible vehicles.
Naturally, the first cab did not have space for my wheelchair and I had to get into another one.
3. A convention of 3900 people (I think – I kept hearing different numbers all weekend) means that a lot of people have to show up early, and by a lot, I mean, the lobby is already filled up with geeks as you are checking in. The hotel helped me upstairs. I had a little conversation with myself.
"It's a NEW PLACE and it's FULL OF GEEKS and YOU SHOULD GO AND HAVE FUN!"
"ZONK."
Zonk won. But I did manage to drag myself back downstairs for a bit of dinner at the mall (which was attached to the hotel) and a first look at the San Antonio Riverwalk.
4. About the Riverwalk: it's a walking (and, outside the major downtown tourist area, bicycle) path which runs along both sides of the river (mostly) and has various little gardens and fake waterfalls and ducks and turtles and dining areas and Irish pubs and so on. A portion of it has been cut out to create a nice little circle so you can go round and round. It's extremely touristy with the usual overpriced touristy restaurants, but, hey, turtles and if you look you can find affordable food, or, because this is me, milkshakes. (I know, I know, diet, but hey. It was seriously hot.)
It's also well below street level and on its own goes up and down. This makes it rather interesting in a wheelchair. For instance, you can go down to the R level in the Rivercenter hotel (where the mall food court and some very boring shops were) and go through the mall and end up on one side of the river and then use an exciting sequence of elevators and street systems to get to the other side (and by "exciting" I mean "the elevators sometimes stop" or you can ROLL ROLL ROLL down a nice steep and bumpy ramp to the other side and then roll roll roll past the Riverboat tour and then pick a series of bridges to figure out which difficult to get to restaurants you would like to visit or PUSH PUSH PUSH up uneven pavements to a section of the convention center which was not on my map but which had an excellent bathroom, which is important.
Not that I saw much of that on day one because ZONK was winning out and it was just not worth the fight. I made it back to my room and slept for 12 straight hours.
5. COFFEE. This became a rallying cry at the con. I went to the overpriced Starbucks in the hotel lobby (seriously overpriced; there was another Starbucks in the mall that had the regular Starbucks prices, but it was a bit too far for me to manage, so I grit my teeth and paid the extra amount), confirmed that I could get my daily banana there and then headed off to registration, with the kindly help of some people who pushed me in return for my studying the map.
TOTAL SIDENOTE: The hands down best prepurchase I made for this con was my Dragon Magnifying glass, because, see, map.
Anyway, we found Registration. This was very well organized and I was done much sooner than expected with my shiny new badge (I got my Rainbow Ribbon later) which I promptly stuffed into my bag as I hailed a taxi.
6. The taxi ride: So, this started with another convention dude and me. As we swung by the Alamo, I saw the outside (this is going to be a theme, so hold on). He jumped off and then the taxi driver took off. He was very excited to hear about incoming writers since this meant he could tell me about his great writing moment: taking Alex Haley in a cab and then later finding out that Haley had lost all of his money on women (I am quoting the taxi cab driver; I have no verification for this.)
Anyway he eventually got me to the San Antonio Museum of Art.
7. Getting into the San Antonio Museum of Art was one of those unintentionally hilarious disability moments. Here's how it works in the wheelchair. Bump bump bump BUMPBUMP bump over to a narrow, relatively steep ramp lined with bricks. I probably could have handled one or the other, but not both. Someone pushed me up BUMP BUMP and then – the door with the little disabled button so it could be opened automatically, which is great if you can get to the door. Anyway.
The actual museum is pretty awesome – not too large, not too small. I spent most of my time looking at Roman stuff because, well, sarcophagi (I don't think anyone expected me to miss those) but they also had some highly pornographic Greek stuff and some really lovely Chinese stuff and a painting by John Singer Sargent that held me enthralled. I don't know what it is about Sargent and rich society women, but it's something.
Not that I saw the entire museum. Getting to some sections was going to be Interesting and I didn't feel like Interesting, plus I was a bit concerned about the overall heat.
Plus.
RIVER TAXI.
BUMP BUMP BUMP BUMP BUMP bump bump SHAKE bump bump bump then, WHEE down a long twisty ramp all the way to the river then a long long rest then boat.
This was great. The boat took me right up to the end of the boat trip – which included a lovely little waterfall and some ducks – and then we turned around and went back past the museum and very very slowly down the river, through the sound sculpture (under a bridge) and various other art projects (mostly under bridges) and through the boat lock. The slowly was mostly me because I kept seeing turtles, but also partly the boat: that's a very shallow river so the boats go slowly. Had I known that the water taxi stopped at the museum I would have taken that to the museum in the first place.
....ok, so I lied. The ACTUAL non-panel stuff is forthcoming!