alt.polycon

[baratron]

After months of dithering about whether or not I wanted to go to visit the US, which is rapidly becoming a very scary place with fingerprinting at Customs, hoping that Kerry would win the election so it would become less scary, and being upset when he didn't, I've decided that I will be extremely miserable if I don't go to alt.polycon. This decision has been strengthened by the fact most of my kiddies have their exams on 18th January - which is extremely convenient in terms of me being able to get away the weekend of 21st. So I'm currently looking into flights etc.

Just wondered a) who is and isn't going to be at alt.polycon and b) if any Americans want me to come & visit them after the con. I'll be going on my own, because both partners think the US is too scary to visit at the moment. I'm planning to go to New York to visit the Pokemon Center, but New York isn't exactly the sort of place I'd want to go to without a native guide. So if I don't actually know anyone who lives that way, I'll probably just go for the day on my way home. I'd like to go to Seattle, but I don't know if it's going to fit in with other plans, as it's sort of the wrong end of the country.

Update: have found an airline routing that goes (wait for it):
Heathrow --> Chicago --> Baltimore --> Boston --> Newark --> Seattle --> Chicago --> London (!).

That'll cost ~£570 with American Airlines, inc taxes. It's a bit more than I want to spend, and will increase by £70 for each city I stop in, depending on how long the stopovers are. It also involves slightly more planes than I feel comfortable with (bearing in mind that I am fairly phobic of plane travel anyway, and the number of trees that I will need to have planted to balance up the carbon dioxide). I will try a couple more companies that are more used to dealing with students, to see whether they can come up with something that involves buses or trains. OR is there anyone driving who can give me a lift all or part of the way?

Does anyone in (or near) Chicago or Boston want to see me? ;)

Comments

Re: Greetings from New York City

[baratron.livejournal.com]

Heh, I can fully understand the Pokemon Center not appealing! I think you have to be really into the games to want to go to the shop. I'm currently trying to persuade Richard that he wants to take me to Japan in the summer to go to the Pokemon Theme Park that's opening, and he says he'd prefer it if I picked a random person from one of my Pokemon forums & paid for them to come with me! ;)

The main thing I'm concerned about is that I know New York has bits that make the grittier parts of SE London look safe and comforting. Finding out the names of places to avoid is fairly easy, but I worry about going there by accident if I get on the wrong bus or something. It's the cultural side of things, really. I do enough travelling in Europe to be fairly confident of my ability to read most body language I'm likely to encounter, but the small amount of travelling I've done in the US has shown me that actually I don't have a clue outside of somewhere like Seattle. (I'm still wondering what it was I said or did that was so utterly hilarious to the check-in woman at Denver airport, and why everyone at Colorado Springs airport was so rude to me (imo)).

So if you or another NY native can recommend a non-scary hostel for me and/or check the places I'm planning to visit, I can probably wander around by myself for a couple of days. Although it would be nice to have people to have dinner with :)

Re: Greetings from New York City

[redbird]

I can't do you hostels/hotels, because I've never needed to stay in a hotel in New York City. I can certainly check on neighborhoods. The problem is that my standards for scary may be different from yours: for example, I know, from 30 years' experience, that I'm safe riding the subway, any part of it, at any hour of day or night. And that's partly my body language.