Scotland 1995 Journal (Part 9)
Aug. 28th, 1995 12:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
annathepiperAdded as a backdated Livejournal entry 5/15/03 -- herein being the last day of the convention
Monday, August 28, 1995: Last Day of the Con, or, Elves Doing the Dead Dog Thing
Monday proved to be laid-back, as last days of conventions usually are. Again, I spent a good chunk of the morning reading and hanging out in the Fanfair, until Dar and Janne found me to note that we had to take the Glasgow city tour earlier than we had planned, since closing ceremonies were earlier than we'd planned. Thus, we toured, and the Glasgow tour worked more or less the same way that the Edinburgh one did.
We caught the tour bus at the convention center and wound up coming in on the latter half of the tour. We drove through the University of Glasgow, which was quite attractively built and designed; there were many more trees there than I'd seen in other parts of Glasgow, which I liked a lot. We saw the fronts of some of the oldest houses in Glasgow, and the guide described these as having been set aside as memorials to what life was like in the city in those times (around the turn of the century and earlier). And we saw the obligatory statues, and the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, which had banners hanging down from its rooftop displaying the seal of the city in sections. The tour finished at last in George's Square, named after King George III, but the guide made a point of mentioning how they didn't have a statue to that particular king, since his loss of the American colonies took a big bite out of Glasgow's wealth at the time. :)
Shortly after we spied a large, glass-covered shopping center, Janne bailed to go do some shopping, and Dar and I went to the closing ceremonies. These proved to be laid-back, and, naturally, involved the fourth rendition of the Safety Announcement, though this time our Safety Announcer kindly went on to mention what we should do in the event of asteroid showers, or attacks by killer robots.
The ceremonies also involved the obligatory passing of the torch to next year's con committee; next year's WorldCon will be in L.A. and we were shown a promotional video about what we'll get to see there. It was also amusing to have confirmed that Roger Corman, king of B movies, will be a guest of honor - one wonders about the cheese level of this WorldCon's movie schedule. :) And, naturally, there was a final visit from Nessie, who even undulated, when all the people under her back did a wave. :)
After the closing ceremonies, Dar and I returned to our hotel to pack, wanting to get that over and done with before the next morning, when we had to leave. That went reasonably well, though we had to pack a few extra things when we discovered a mysterious plastic bag with a couple of t-shirts, a couple of paperbacks, and a pocket program in our room. Figuring that'd been left by someone in our dinner outing with Paul and Francie and Steve and Ben, we packed these things along with ours, to bring home.
Dinner turned out to be out of a vending machine in the hotel dining room: sandwiches and crisps, and I tried some banana-flavored stuff which claimed it was a milkshake but which was actually just milk. I couldn't finish it, and dumped it in a litter bin on the way to the party hotels.
We did most of our dead-dogging at the Forte Crest, and hung out with Janne, Euan, Dar, Niall, and lots of Norwegians just outside the gopher party. I found, much to my amusement, a cider called "Strongbow" - which, being the ardent fan of Elfquest's famous stoic archer that I am, I just had to try. It was, rather like my favorite archer, subtle at first until it decided to set itself on fire. :)
And I worked on the Tolkien crossword in the Tolkien Society newsletter I'd picked up, using the Tolkien reference I'd bought from those same folks. With that, I managed to finish most of the puzzle. And we eventually moved upstairs when the crowd from Croatia nearby got just a little too loud, and hung out by the elevators until we all finally got too tired to stay up any longer, and bid one another reluctant goodbyes.
Monday, August 28, 1995: Last Day of the Con, or, Elves Doing the Dead Dog Thing
Monday proved to be laid-back, as last days of conventions usually are. Again, I spent a good chunk of the morning reading and hanging out in the Fanfair, until Dar and Janne found me to note that we had to take the Glasgow city tour earlier than we had planned, since closing ceremonies were earlier than we'd planned. Thus, we toured, and the Glasgow tour worked more or less the same way that the Edinburgh one did.
We caught the tour bus at the convention center and wound up coming in on the latter half of the tour. We drove through the University of Glasgow, which was quite attractively built and designed; there were many more trees there than I'd seen in other parts of Glasgow, which I liked a lot. We saw the fronts of some of the oldest houses in Glasgow, and the guide described these as having been set aside as memorials to what life was like in the city in those times (around the turn of the century and earlier). And we saw the obligatory statues, and the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, which had banners hanging down from its rooftop displaying the seal of the city in sections. The tour finished at last in George's Square, named after King George III, but the guide made a point of mentioning how they didn't have a statue to that particular king, since his loss of the American colonies took a big bite out of Glasgow's wealth at the time. :)
Shortly after we spied a large, glass-covered shopping center, Janne bailed to go do some shopping, and Dar and I went to the closing ceremonies. These proved to be laid-back, and, naturally, involved the fourth rendition of the Safety Announcement, though this time our Safety Announcer kindly went on to mention what we should do in the event of asteroid showers, or attacks by killer robots.
The ceremonies also involved the obligatory passing of the torch to next year's con committee; next year's WorldCon will be in L.A. and we were shown a promotional video about what we'll get to see there. It was also amusing to have confirmed that Roger Corman, king of B movies, will be a guest of honor - one wonders about the cheese level of this WorldCon's movie schedule. :) And, naturally, there was a final visit from Nessie, who even undulated, when all the people under her back did a wave. :)
After the closing ceremonies, Dar and I returned to our hotel to pack, wanting to get that over and done with before the next morning, when we had to leave. That went reasonably well, though we had to pack a few extra things when we discovered a mysterious plastic bag with a couple of t-shirts, a couple of paperbacks, and a pocket program in our room. Figuring that'd been left by someone in our dinner outing with Paul and Francie and Steve and Ben, we packed these things along with ours, to bring home.
Dinner turned out to be out of a vending machine in the hotel dining room: sandwiches and crisps, and I tried some banana-flavored stuff which claimed it was a milkshake but which was actually just milk. I couldn't finish it, and dumped it in a litter bin on the way to the party hotels.
We did most of our dead-dogging at the Forte Crest, and hung out with Janne, Euan, Dar, Niall, and lots of Norwegians just outside the gopher party. I found, much to my amusement, a cider called "Strongbow" - which, being the ardent fan of Elfquest's famous stoic archer that I am, I just had to try. It was, rather like my favorite archer, subtle at first until it decided to set itself on fire. :)
And I worked on the Tolkien crossword in the Tolkien Society newsletter I'd picked up, using the Tolkien reference I'd bought from those same folks. With that, I managed to finish most of the puzzle. And we eventually moved upstairs when the crowd from Croatia nearby got just a little too loud, and hung out by the elevators until we all finally got too tired to stay up any longer, and bid one another reluctant goodbyes.