I'm back! I've been home for a week, but I haven't had the time or the energy to post about Pennsic yet :P SO the flights were stupid long. We left Perth at 12:05am on Thursday, and arrived in New York something like 30 hours later at 5pm Thursday. THEN FIVE DAYS IN NEW YORK HAPPENED AND IT WAS AMAZEBALLS :D :D :D I saw a squorl in Central Park
Lookit it's so cute! Anyway, after two hours sleep we got up stupid early on Wednesday morning to catch our plane to Pittsburgh. We arrived at Pennsic at about lunchtime and it was all very exciting. We dumped our stuff in the communal pavillion thing, then I got to go to Walmart to pick up all our camping gear. The day worked out pretty damn awesomely, our tents and everything were all set up by about 4pm, and then we got into garb and wandered around some of the merchant stalls as they were shutting up for the day. Then we had dinner and went back to camp to sit under the magic tree and listen to stories until the sun went down and I went to bed because I was SO TIRED.
Our campsite was awesome. It's close to all the important things like the markets and the war field. Also there's this awesome shady tree with amazing recliner chairs underneath it for nap time in the afternoon. I had a pretty cruisy Pennsic. I spent all my monies filling up my awesome bag of awesome with THINGS from the markets. I went to a few A&S classes. The only tablet weaving thing I made it to was a class on doubleface letters, which ended up just being a class on basic doubleface technique. But I got the name of an awesome book which I then went and bought at the markets. I also went to a class for people who were at their first Pennsic, one about bead weaving with a simple heddle loom, and a really awesome class about a lady's Cranach gown and what she did and why. I was quite disappointed that the Tablet Weaver's Tea was moved from Thursday to Tuesday, and somehow everyone seemed to just know even though there was no advertising at all. So I rocked up on Thursday only to be told I'd missed it. It was the one A&S thing I had really really wanted to go to because I'd wanted to talk to people about tablet weaving and make some contacts and stuff, and I didn't get to do that.
On Sunday I went to the big A&S display and got to see Lady Oda's awesome german brick stitch book cushion that she's been blogging about
here. AND AND AND she was sitting next to Mitchell Wymarc and I got to talk to him and stuff! MITCHELL WYMARC!!! I was very excited :D. I also got to talk to the lady who was presenting the Cranach gown class the next day, and see her gown and take pictures and stuff.
I watched some of the fighting too. The field battle was the first big fighty thing, and it was pretty impressive. Nearly 2,000 fighters on the field at once is a real sight to see. I took a lot of pictures but none of them really capture the scope of what was actually there. I also got to go to ba ba, which is the negotiations between a group of merceneries and their potential employers. It was the most amazing piece of theatre I have ever seen in the SCA. Everyone was dressed up and only said "ba ba" and there were people that 'translated' into english for us. There was a witch doctor and a ritual with breaking an egg on some standing stones, and then there was a lot of shots of bourbon :P
I had a pretty quiet night life too. The second night we were there Sir Brusi took a bunch of us Lochacians to a party at Gabriel's Landing and set us free. I had an awesome time, meeting lots of people and starting great conversations on the merit that we were Australian. Mister Nathan and I stumbled home at around 4am, and that was my latest night. One night Mister Nathan and I were attempting to explore the Bog and find the Galatians campsite, but then Sir Gregory appeared in a golf cart and took us up to the other end of the site. Then I did my laundry at 1am. There was a night of Kingdom parties in which shenanigans involving pinning mini Lochac devices all over other Kingdoms' stuff occurred. One night I came home to find a whole bunch of pointy hats in our campsite. Our Queen had spent her day inviting other Crowns over, which was a bit of a surprise :P
All in all I'm pretty happy with my Pennsic experience. I didn't go crazy with the parties and the drinking, but I was pretty social. I did something awesome every day, but I also managed to have a lot of relaxing time under the magic tree. Also, spending our last night at the Hyatt at Pittsburgh Airport was the best decision ever. After spending the day packing up and saying goodbyes, having a very civilised dinner in a restaurant and then spending an hour sitting in a hot tub was amazing. The flights home were long and awful and tedious, but we finally made it. I spent last week fighting the jet lag and cleaning out my bedroom. It was a mess before I left, so it took me ages. Plus I had to organise myself for uni because it went back while I was still in transit.
I'm not sure what I'm going to do in the way of SCA projects now. I have a pretty good wardrobe now that I'm quite happy with, so there's no urgent garb project on the cards. I have the fabric ready to make my man-cote, so I might start working on that. I'd also like to start looking at the Cranach gown that I've been planning for ages, now that I have some fresh ideas. I started the embroidery for a needle case while I was on the plane, so I think I'll just toil away at that until I settle into this semester at uni and feel the urge to sew again. I bought a whole bunch of buckles and things at Pennsic, and I'd eventually like to weave some new garters and a belt or two as well.
Here's a picture that Ceara took of me all ready to venture out to the markets :)
