Birmingham Metropole Hotel, UK
February 18th - 20th 2011
Friday, February 18th
So, the day started off kinda crap because my mean, stupid boss would not let me have the day off and I had to work! And then she made me feel as though I should be grateful because she allowed me to leave an hour early to catch my train *sigh*
Anyways, my sister picked me up and I got changed at her house - was not wearing my work uniform down there!! And then got my niece ready and headed to the station…the journey was…uneventful. Tamsin had never been on a train before and had been quite excited before hand, but after a while, she was already bored - lol!! Spent much of the journey colouring together or playing on her DS.
We arrived a little earlier than expected, having managed to catch an earlier train from New Street to International and got checked in pretty quickly. Up to our room on the fifth floor and was a little disappointed to find out it was one of the older rooms and not as big as what I had last time - but it would do for the two of us - not as though we spent a lot of time in it anyways!! After unpacking for a bit and relaxing a few moments, we went back downstairs to register and get our packs.
Registered really quick with no issues, checked out the pack - nothing amazing this time really….and then headed for the dealers room to check out the merchandise!! Everything seemed to have moved back to the far end of the hotel this time - fine by me - feels more exclusive back there and hopefully less chance of gate crashers at the parties!! There wasn’t really anything new in the dealers room, but I still managed to spend £20 on photos!! Some for signing purposes, one for Tamsin to get signed and one of BooBoo for her (she adores him!) and then….yeah, a few of Jackson!! FINALLY got a photo of Jasper in uniform *swoon* and it’s a great, clear shot too!! A little disappointed they only had 2 new shots of him though…but better than nothing!!
Heading back to the registration area to buy Tamsin’s photo shoot tickets, bumped into ‘sometimes friends’ Nina and Gillian and stood chatting to them for a little while about everything and Nina was really nice with Tamsin. After getting away from them, went and spent a fortune on photo shoot and extra autographs tickets! Tamsin wanted photos with Alex, Jodelle, Mike and Justin - she paid for three of them and I bought her one. And then she wanted Jodelle’s autograph too, which I bought for her. And I had to get an extra autograph with Alex for the dumb girl at work who wants it for her daughter.
After showing Tamsin the pool, as promised, we headed back the other end of the hotel for the opening ceremony. After a few minutes of entering the room, was a little dismayed to see them moving the chairs around on stage and then only three chairs remaining on stage!! Jodelle, Daniel and Justin. I have to say I panicked for a few moments, thinking they’d cancelled last minute or something and felt totally deflated!! But then Jason came on stage and announced the other guests were on their way, but were stuck in traffic on the motorway after their flight was diverted…and that the final guest, Bill, would be arriving the following day, having left straight from set!! So, phew - panic over!!
The guests, all 3 of them, were introduced on stage for only a few moments...they said hello, were asked if they’d ever been to the UK before…Jodelle said she had been when she was younger, and obviously Justin and Daniel had been to previous conventions. And then they left, a few announcements were made and that was that!!
Decided to go get pizza for tea and take it up to our room. Whilst waiting for them, a girl I met at the very first convention and talk to every time came over to speak to me. I feel SO bad that I can never remember her damn name - especially as we’re ‘friends’ on Facebook!! Anyways, she was full of stories about Jackson…how he had been the guest that they’d been pursuing (I doubt it - since if he was, he was not filming this weekend as they claimed the guest they’d been after was, and he’d announced a gig with his band in LA that weekend some weeks before…so if it was him, someone was lying!) and they were convinced the guest to be announced tomorrow (for ET6) was going to be Jackson - she was sure of it. Also went on about him cancelling another convention in the US and some friend of hers who was Jackson’s biggest fan - erm no, that would be me!! Did she spend £300 on a T-shirt? No!! Anyways, I didn’t know what to think about it all…and felt a bit down about it for a little while, for some strange reason!!
Anyways, soon forgot about that and headed upstairs to eat our pizza, before we started getting ready for Renesmee’s birthday party!!
Finally made it down to the party at about 9.30 I think - you know, fashionably late!! One of the funnest thing about the parties is seeing how they decorated it and what photo ops there might be. But when we walked into the party and saw the room just off the main hall…housing what was announced would be the ‘surprise’ I was a little stunned!! It was a petting zoo!! I wasn’t sure what to think…especially when I realised it was real live animals and not merely your usual rabbits, guinea pigs…you know, the usual cute fluffy type stuff - nope - we had turtles, huge lizard things from South America, smaller lizards (like ghecko's) chinchilla’s, a skunk, a meercat and an armadillo! Yikes!!
It was cool though - the handlers who obviously knew their animals well, allowed party goers to stroke the animals, hold some and answered any questions about them. They were all rescued animals and allowed to roam freely at home as though they were ‘pets’. I know some people had issues with the petting zoo, deeming it cruel with the loud music only next door (and an open door) and the amount of people touching them and being in smallish boxes (not that they were in them all the time - the animals were rotated and allowed to roam about at times.) But…the handlers know them better than us, were obviously told what the event was beforehand and if they did these ‘petting zoo’ things regularly, the animals are used to it. The owners know what’s okay for them!!
Tamsin loved it though and had me in there for hours touching and stroking the many animals. The huge lizards, called a tegu, were actually really cool!! The chinchilla was the softest thing I have ever touched…missed stroking the meercat, but it was much smaller than I thought they would be!! And the Armadillo was a strange looking thing and hilarious when she put it down for a run - as though it was on wheels!! All in all, I thought the petting zoo was an interesting, unique and fun idea!!
They also had a bouncy castle - which Tam spent a great deal of time on and the usual party balloons and banners. We wandered around for a bit, I temporarily lost my Mum’s camera - but thankfully someone had handed it in at the front desk and I got it back with no problems, though I did have a slight panic about it and had to leave Tamsin on the bouncy castle whilst I ran back to look for it. Had a bit of a dance, went back to look at the animals from time to time to see if it was less crowded. Caught up with a few more friends and random people came over to talk about Jackson with me - including those girls who had ‘accosted’ me at the Volturi party last time, saying they were my new best friend because I had Jackson’s t-shirt. They just said something about them not bidding on anything if I was there, I said they’d only need to worry if it was anything on Jackson!!
And…I think just after 11, we’d both had enough - I’d been at work in the morning and Tamsin had been at school, so we headed off up to our room and got ready for bed - knowing it was going to be a long day the next day!!
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