Star Trek Convention AAR -- Friday

Time for more of my memories from the Star Trek convention!

Friday was a gentler day than Thursday.  No long plane rides.  My system started to adjust to eating meals at different times from usual.  Also, we didn't have any big plans for the day, just kind of hanging out at the convention and getting situated in our hotel room, relaxing, hanging out and enjoying each others' company.

The hotel had a huge pool area, and we spent some time down there in the afternoon, splashing around and having fun.  This was the view from our hotel room:

The part I zeroed in on with the next photo with all the flat roofs is the convention complex.  It's hard to tell from above, and with me being as bad at directions and stuff as I am, but I think the tall part on the left that sort of has three steps to it was the big venue where we saw the panels of actors.  And that means that the part off to the right is kind of where we had photos taken, I think.  And the part in the back is where the vendor rooms were?  Hmmm.  Anyway, it was all inside there.

Right when you entered the convention, there was this awesome Enterprise made of balloons.  Because why not?  It amused me greatly, so I took photos of it.

We saw lots of fun people in costume on Friday.  I think my favorite group was this grandpa and his four grandkids all dressed as Borg:

DKoren loved this Dr. Who cosplayer:

L looked properly worried of being in close proximity with a Lawgiver:

You can't really tell, but that's a Borg Darth Vader on the left, getting ready to beam down somewhere:

And this is just a huge group of people in costumes from the Star Trek movies, gathered around the big 50 icon thing in the entry.

 I was still pretty shy about asking people if I could take their photos on Friday, so I don't have shots of a lot of the great costumes.  Actually, I was kinda shy about it the whole time, and mostly snapped photos if someone else was already taking their pictures and I could kind of say, "Hey, can I get one too?" instead.  But everyone was SO super nice about it, and always happy to stop for a photo by or with you.

Actually, everyone was supremely nice the entire weekend.  DKoren and L had told me that last year, they found the convention to truly be the Happiest Place On Earth.  And it was totally true again this year.  Nobody complained about having to wait in line at Starbucks, or for photos, or to get into the vendor room when it wasn't open as early as we'd expected.  Zero grousing.  Zero whining.  Do you know how rare and amazing that is when you are surrounded by literally thousands upon thousands of people?  That main venue I showed photos of in the Thursday post where we saw Nichelle Nichols -- it held 6,000 people.  That was less than half of the people hanging out at the convention on Friday and Saturday.  Way less.  And nobody was ever annoyed or angry or rude.

Random photo of the main venue -- we were sitting about 2/3 of the way back here.

In fact, I heard almost no bad language at the convention.  Once in a while, a mild word, and most of those (sadly) were from the actors during the panels.  Attendees were almost universally clean-mouthed!  Astonishing!  I hear more foul language in an afternoon at the mall than I heard at the entire convention.  It was one big festival of love and friendship -- our shared love for this fictional universe and the friendship it gave all of us, even though we were complete strangers.

I, who have a terrible time talking to people I even know somewhat, had very nice conversations with total strangers while standing in lines, while looking at stuff in the vendor room, while waiting between celebrity panels -- it was amazing.  We were all there because we truly loved Star Trek (and had paid a pretty penny to prove it by attending), and we were all overjoyed to be there.

But the best part of the whole weekend, for me, was just getting to spend So Much Time with my best friend and her sweet sister.  More about that in the Saturday post!