Day: August 7, 2009

Montreal is a perfect city for getting the feel of being in a foreign country while still being able to communicate clearly with all the natives. All of the signs are in French first and sometimes (but not always) they have English subtitles. Everywhere I go I hear people speaking French to each other. Most adorable are the small children speaking French with childish mispronunciations. I’ve been here two days now and I find myself wanting to be able to speak French. I want to understand all those words rolling past my ears. I want to be able to order my food in French. I even decided to do it once. I figured I could just read the words off the menu, but as I tried to compose the words in my head I realized that I was not composing French I was composing Foreign which was parts French and Spanish. I realized this would be less intelligible to the Quebecois in front of me than if I used straight English. I’ve always been leery of traveling in a country where I did not speak the native language, but after being here, I can picture myself doing it and happily learning the language in question.

Tonight we ventured out into the city to a restaurant recommended by a local Schlock fan. We walked into Old Montreal which involved walking past some buildings with beautiful architecture. The weather was perfect and then we arrived at a restaurant that served amazing crepes. It was French style service with lots of long pauses between ordering and delivery of food. This was perfect since the point of the event was to visit with Schlock fans. Every time we have a chance to meet with Schlock fans I realize how very fortunate we are. Howard and I send out the comic and the blogs into the world and they find intelligent and interesting friends for us to meet. There is so much more to tell, but the hour is late.

I almost did not go out to the room parties last night. I am very glad that I did. I was reminded again that the best thing about conventions is the interesting people that I have the chance to talk to. The conversations were constantly losing and gaining people because that is the nature of party conversation, but we had fun. There were two particularly heartwarming moments. Lee Modesitt took the time to grab a Locus photographer and as her to photograph us with him. He then made sure she had our card with contact info. It was wonderful of him to take the time. It was lovely meeting his wife as well. The other heartwarming moment was when Jay Lake grabbed us in the hall and said wonderful things about Schlock Mercenary. Got to go.

Written in the afternoon on August 6th. Posted when internet was available:

On the leg from Denver to Montreal it felt like half the flight was folks traveling to Worldcon. We ended up sitting next to a fellow Hugo nominee Paolo Bacigalupi. We had fun conversations for most of the three and a half hour flight. This was wonderful. Those sorts of conversations are what I love best about convention attendance. The down side is that I didn’t do any sleeping on the plane. This led to the sort of fatigue that is so beyond tired that it manifests as an overwhelmed depressive state. Howard and I both elected to stay in the room and we were both asleep by 8 pm and we stayed asleep until 9 am.

Howard’s first panel was at 3:30, which left us at loose ends for most of the morning. Fortunately we had a lunch date and we keep seeing cool people in the hallway. Most of the conversations are brief because everyone is still orienting themselves. It is nice to realize that we do know some people in the vast sea of strangers. Self-doubt is very plaguesome at such a large convention. Because the moments when someone recognizes us are surrounded by long stretches when no one does.