Got in to Montreal last night, and we're already having a lovely time. Over the course of the con I'll be twittering more than blogging (I'm Spiralgalaxy on twitter, see link on sidebar), but I figured I'd get a blog post out before things got crazy.
The drive from Maine to Montreal was absolutely gorgeous: straight through the White Mountains of New Hampshire and lovely farmland in Canada. No wait at the border, and the agent there even smiled when we said we worked for NASA. The drive (about 5 1/2 hours) was also a nice transition time between the family-oriented vacation time and the sf-oriented vacation period.
Checked into the hotel with no problems, and we really like our room at the Intercontinental. And the convention center is just across the street. Went down to the bar and met up with editor-folks and Locus folks. Also ran into Farah Mendlesohn, Edward James, and was introduced to Kari Spelling. Thus did WorldCon officially begin as far as I was concerned.
Today we slept in, then followed Farah's directions to a bank to hit an ATM for Canadian dollars. Then an easy walk to a lovely place called Muffins Plus for lunch/brunch. Very nice food and perfect portions--I finished my entire chicken cesar salad wrap, a rarity for me!
We went in and registered for the convention. Good side: great badge holders & no snags at registration. Down side: no programming grid or pocket program. With any luck something of the sort will show up later? Will do my program participant sign in tomorrow.
The afternoon was taken up walking around the city, especially down by the river, where we saw lovely things like the Chapelle-Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours pictured above. The walk down by the river has gardens & museums and is just lovely (although Curtis managed to turn his ankle on the path there early on--but he bravely soldiered on to see more!). We went back via a pedestrian boulevard named Place Jacques-Cartier with tons of cafes, restaurants, street vendors, mimes, etc. Found a good liqour store for some wine and brandy and made our way home for Curtis to put his foot up before heading out for dinner--should be meeting up with Niall Harrison and Abigail Nussbaum soon here.
Programming looks good, as always. Too many good panels; I've already identified at least three time slots with two panels each that I'd like to catch. C'est la vie. And it doesn't look like there will be any drastic changes to the schedule I posted last week.
Off to dinner! Looking forward to seeing many of you soon.
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