Yeah... the day of reckoning.

Got up fairly early, called up Mish and we met downstairs. We saw a few GoGers around mostly Neemon who was getting some last minute souvenirs. We took off for the Golden Griddle for one last breakfast. Mish and I talked about stuff mostly dealing with the event itself and afterwards went for a bit of a walk to get that last breath of Toronto in. It had been nice and cool since Friday evening and I wasn't looking fwd to getting back to TX and feeling heat / humdity.  We walked to the Delta Chelsea and got us some tickets for the airport shuttle.

We got back to find Neemon heading out. There were hugs and goodbyes and Mish and I went up to get our stuff and head down to check out. We made our way to the Delta Chelsea and waited for the shuttle to arrive. It was a nice quiet and relaxing trip back. The bus driver was pretty chatty and funny too unlike the one I had coming in. He actually did a little bit of a spiel about sites around us. He mentioned when we passed Lake Ontario... said it was prohibited to swim in it because it was polluted. Therefore that's why it was their only source of drinking water.  That brought a few chuckles.

Along the way we passed an exit for Elington... that was the stop we had made on Friday for the Laser Quest place. Then we were at the airport (this place is HUGE! ) and I was first to get off. I hugged Mish and thanked her for everything.

I managed to get to my airport and get checked in. I decided I didn't need my carry on on the way back and only took what I needed out. Then I had to go thru Customs.  You can't believe how long the line was. It was like a line at Disneyland for a ride. Round and Round and Round you go... when you'll get to the end, who knows?  I dragged the one with wheels by the handle while kicking the other bag (my carry on) along on the floor. The couple behind me were the same way. It was funny so I chatted them up a bit and made a comment about we were in definite practice for Futbol (soccer) season. We should all scream "GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAL" when we made it to the end.

I finally got to the end and got checked thru Customs aswell. The couple was right behind me. I still had a bit of change when I got to my terminal. I moved down a ways to get some food and it ended up my terminal moved to that area aswell as I was walking. I got a bag of cookies and some chips and then spent my remaining change on 15 mins of internet on a kiosk. Was a terrible way to get online but it made me happy for about 5 seconds. Couldn't get to Cyanchat (although I could read most of my mail accts.) Waited for the plane and boarded. The couple behind me in Customs ended up being my row mates. Was nice to have interesting and nice people sitting with me. They were university people from Toronto I think going to Portland, OR. I fell asleep a few times feeling comfortable enough on the way back to do so... not to mention being tired from the weekend's events.

At DFW I found out my gate was A15. No biggie other than that I was at A36 and I had to walk a good 2 or so blocks to my stupid gate.  I get to my gate and the sign says "San Antonio." I go get something to eat at the nearby foodcourt. Ended up with Popeye's since they were the only ones accepting credit cards. I sit down at Gate A15 and notice everyone there speaks Spanish and now the sign says "Los Cabos." I kind of get worried but sometimes the signs have more than one plane leaving and I still had a good hour. After a moment though I get a little worried and ask someone for the time. This nice woman tells me in spanish it was 15 till 7 if I understood her correctly. Then she asks in Spanish  "are you going to Monterrey?" and I go "hablo muy poquito espanol" and in English she said "are you going to Monterrey" and I'm like "no... San Antonio." That's when everyone starts to tell me the gate changed to A38. So nice of the morons in the airport to put that over the loudspeaker.  I thank them for telling me and take off down the corridor again. It had to be a good 2 blocks and none of the morons would stop with those shuttle carts. I was kind of ticked off now having walked so far in the first place and stopped at some point to ask about the shuttles. They told me they were for Handicap only. That's when I see one filled with NON handicapped people come by and I continue to walk feeling more and more POed.  I finally get to A38 and sit down. I"m able to actually finish my dinner and converse with a few people there. They board the plane and I'm just so happy to be on board finally. I forget who was sitting beside me... I only recall these young girls in the row before me speaking spanish and singing stuff. My spanish comprehension must be better than I thought cause I was picking up more or less what they were talking about w/o much thought. I had only think a little about what was being said. I really got a gist of it (mostly they spoke of their parents and people they were staying with) and I tried to act like I wasn't listening but I still picked up so much. LOL Typical teen speak.

When we landed in SA, I just wanted to kiss the ground. Took a bit before my luggage came out but it all came out more or less around the same time so I didn't have a long wait like in Toronto. I actually remembered where I had parked (wrong terminal) and hoofed my way on over there. My car was in one piece and I kissed it (the enterior atleast)  It felt weird driving... not sure why. It just did. And looking around town as I drove back towards my place felt weird aswell. Maybe more surreal. I felt more like THIS was a new city than Toronto had been. I drove more or less back on Autopilot which was good cause I was so tired. Not thinking was a good thing then.  Got home and felt like I had been gone for months more than anything. My apt was still the same as I left it so I was happy. I managed to get online despite my stupid modem crapping out. I ended up online and chatted with people already back. It was nice to be back even though I missed hanging out with everyone.

The adventure was over for now and I had returned to my lovely (cough) Relto in my own age. Thru my KI (coughinternetcough) I communicated with others who were also back in their own Reltos. My avatar sat down and breathed a sigh of relief.

EPILOGUE:

I was saying to someone the other day... Mysterium is like a yr's worth of fun compressed into 4 days of exhaustive team building. I really enjoy it and it's tiring but it's fun as heck. Plus all the nice and interesting people make it that much more enjoyable.

I think I could do Mysterium every day... I really think I could specially if all my expenses were being paid.

Adieu... Shorah... Aloha... Sayonara... Adios... Good-bye till next yr!

 

Unfortunately, I declined to go to EDGE this time due to my coffers being low. Besides, I knew BM was going to leave that day and I didn't want to miss saying Bye. We had a huge breakfast at the Golden Griddle as usual and just shot the breeze. We also had lonely with us so we took a pic of him with all of our food.  Something about Mish owing him a meal so we wanted it to look good with all the plates there. *giggles* BM got the best copy of this... mine was a little too much to the side.

Later we hung out and helped BM eventually move all 2 tons of his equipment back into his vehicle. Didn't take too long but it was sad to see him leaving. Everyone said their goodbyes and hugged and off he went...  

So now it was just a few people left including Mish, Alah, SR and myself among others. Most people were already taking off that morning / afternoon and only a few like RChan and Chucker were staying on till sometime in the week.

Mish, Alah, SR and myself ended up going out to the Eaton Centre to walk around and eat. Mish was looking for a hockey jersey and other souvenirs for her family. Eventually we stopped off at the food court and stopped to eat and talk. After some walking around we ended up outside in this nice little park area to the side of the mall. We found a strange pigeon (insert picture here) which I got a nice pic of. Everyone sat near this Irish labyrinth maze thingy outside. It was pretty simple and not all that cool but interesting nonetheless. I took some pics of the area and of the group (insert pictures here.)

After heading back, SR and Alah mentioned they were leaving pretty soon so we said our goodbyes and Mish and myself went upstairs to rest if I remember correctly. Lately we came downstairs for supper and found Eri, RChan and Chucker with a few others hanging around in the lobby. After some conversation we decided to run to a place Eri thought we'd like called the Pickle Barrel. OMG This place rocked. It looked like a mix between an Olive Garden and Luby's restaurant but very posh I thought. Maybe more like Le Madeline's... not sure but it wasn't shabby at all. The prices were very reasonable. I mean they had these huge desserts that here would cost 8 bucks but there only cost about $3 US if even that much. Everything was so wallet friendly.  I ordered some veggie quesadillas which ended up being pretty good. Mish got a large bagette type sandwich thingy. Rchan and Chucker shared a pink strawberry milkshake thingy with a plate of belgium waffles (which looked so good) that had a side of what I thought was cream but was really ice cream. Eri had already eaten so she got this HUGE Sundae thingy with brownies sticking out of it and an even bigger chocolate milkshake float thing. We tried a bit of that and it was awesome!  After eating Mish wanted dessert since I had mentioned seeing this family in the front area with nothing but chocolate desserts.  I got the huge sundae and Mish got a nice (very large chunk) of tiramasu.  Everything was just so good I can't even talk about it here w/o feeling peckish.

So... we hung out in the lobby and then Mish was tired and so was I and I knew I needed sleep cause it was late and we were both taking off the next day. Mish went upstairs to rest and pack and I went upstairs to grab my dirty laundry and get that done. Took forever in the little bit of a room they called a laundry room. Didn't even dry my clothes and I had it on High.  After what took forever to do, I went downstairs and saw a few people still around and talked to them briefly before heading upstairs to rest myself. I was already feeling pretty sad about everything ending. I think when Bluemax left it just kind of made me realize the event was ending. So many people were leaving on Sunday and that just kind of pushed that feeling of being the last ones more to the point.

Monday would be there soon... sooner than I wanted...

Onwards to Saturday!

Saturday I got up and called BM and Mihshehl... they seemed more tired than usual and I didn't know why. I got dressed, went downstairs thinking it was the right time. Then someone told me it was only just after 8:30 am which was WAY earlier than I had planned to be up. We were supposed to meet downstairs for breakfast at 9 ish... then I suddenly realized my clock was wrong by one hour. It was an hour fast.  So Now I understood why BM and Mish were dragging and I was too the last day or so... I felt so bad I apologized to them both later on. LOL I just felt so stupid for being up so early and dragging them with me. It was really bad since we were going to bed around 1 or so every night.

Most of the people in our group went to the CN Tower... I'd have gone had I not been broke from the seriously HIGH hotel room deposit the Days Inn people decided to inflict upon me. I kept insisting I wasn't going to make any calls or anything but the deposit sat and I was limited to paying for food and basic stuff like that.

Anyhow... BM and Mish didn't want to go because of expense, needing rest and needing to plan things so I stayed to help BM when he wanted to take things to the presentation room and also to help out Mish. We ended at the Eaton Center mall with Mike who led us around to the food courts and such. We looked at some goodies in the electronic stores and I got sucked into every stall with a Sanrio or otherwise anime looking item while Mish was sucked into all the shoe and clothing stores.

Finally we took off back to the hotel to meet up with all the peoples coming back for the Myst IV Revelations presentation by Ubisoft. They laid out a nice table of goodies for us including some fancy desserts (insert picture here later.)

I sat down for the first hour or so of the presentation. It seemed to take forever (probably cause I was so tired from walking and such) and after the first "tour of Ubi" movie with Patrick leading us thru an interesting tour of Ubi and the Revelations team, I saw BM sneaking out and I snuck out too. Not to say I wasn't interested in Ubi and their presentation, I just wanted to make sure BM didn't need help with the whole presentation thing we were going to be setting up for the fans. He had ducked out for a call which by chance was from Rium+ complaining that the webcam for Ubi or something should be moved to the "left" a bit. LOL Weird weird wierd. BM said he was a little surprised to hear someone from Australia calling him.

So from there we (BM, Mish and myself) went upstairs and started to see if we could get the room set up a little early. We helped move all 2 tons of BM's stuff down to the specified room and I babysat while more was taken down. It probably took about 30 mins or so to get it all down and start setting everything up. We even had lon helping out with some of the stuff. Meanwhile the M-IV presentation went onwards. I do believe it was a good 4 hours of info.  In the meanwhile we hadn't eaten so while people presenting watched the stuff and the room, BM had gone down and ordered this huge mess of Sushi  so he, Mish and myself went to the bar down at the Lobby and ate it there. BM even got each of us some miso soup. OMG that stuff is so good.

So finally it was time to let the presenters in once the M-IV stuff was over with. Everyone came up and started to trickle in. After some setup with the presentors and such we were able to let the rest of the people trickle in to seat and get ready to view things. BM was constantly running around as was Mish getting things set up and ready. We had a pretty full house too. Probably a good 80 people but I never really counted to be sure. I know they said the M-IV thing had a good 100 or so people. We had most of them come to the fan presentations.

Some of the presentations included:

Mysterium House Animation by lonely, the world and Aaron

Guild of Greeters (wonderful movie... not a dry eye. I thought I was going to bawl  

Anna Cat with her Narayan group (they passed out booklets with puzzles)

Ran and (I'm sorry I forgot the other guy's name) with the MIRI (Myst Island Recreation ....)

And during, between and after... Lots and lots of door prizes. I didn't win anything but heck... it's not about winning. I went to meet my virtual buddies.

So after all the excitement people wanted to go eat... I believe BM, Alah, Hydro, Mish, SR388 and myself were out to the Elephant and Castle. I was poor so I got me a little platter of pretzels and mustard. OMG these were the BEST pretzels ever in the whole entire world!  I hated finishing them they were that good. Max got a huge nacho platter, Hydro and Alah shared something I forget what and SR388 and Mish shared some calamari.  All was good.

After that it was just people hanging out in the lobby and a bunch of us went to BM's room and backseat blogged with him. It was fun.

End of Mysterium Day 3... Please turn page over once written to scroll to next entry

Friday we woke up early... inadvertently.

I called BM and Mihshehl and we went with others to the Golden Griddle which all weekend was our place to eat and stuff our faces before going out anywhere else.

More people showed up on Friday and we had a large throng of people to hang out with. I think everyone was pretty much going to the Merrill collection but I was exhausted and so was Max. Mish didn't think she was going to go so we had a nice lunch at a place called "The Greek Isles" or as Mish called it later The "Geek" Isles.

While eating at the "Greek" isles, the Merrill group passed by and Mish ran out to meet them deciding to join the group after all. BM and myself walked back to the hotel and took some time to rest. Mish called us when she got back so we would have time to prepare for Laser Tag. It required we go down into the subways. Erithan and Dusante were going to be our guides.

The subway wasn't so much an ordeal as an adventure. I shadowed BM the whole way cause he seemed to know what the heck he was doing. LOL I"m so out of place in big cities so I just kept close to him and Mihshehl as much as possible. After what seemed a long time we got to the laser quest place. The guy seemed to know who we were and after getting about 30 cards to pass out the rest of our group showed up on the next bus and joined in.

It was fun playing laser tag. It was a slight bit different than the last place in Spokane mostly cause of the way they let us go and lastly because it was actually AIR CONDITIONED.  I was still hot and exhausted after from all the running around but it was fun. I got lost upstairs at one point and me and Scraper kept shooting each other. LOL That was fun. She kept accusing me of trying to knock her off as leader and I replied with "Well you are the leader and people always want to oust them."

I hit BM a few times and I think he may have gotten me. LOL It was absolute chaos. I couldn't see who anyone was till I heard them speak or else they got right in my face.  It was a load of fun.

I also took some pics of Scraper's roommate Pam's cigarettes. They had all these weird warnings and graphics on the Canadian cigs. Stuff like pics of preemie babies with warnings about premature births. Or else pics of people on respirators in a hospital dying and stuff about how it affects your health. It was just so weird compared to our "Cigarette smoking is bad for your health" slogans that don't take up but a small corner of the cigarette boxes.

After all the fun we headed back to the bus to get to the subway again. I had found an extra token and with that I managed to help M'lah get on the bus. She had somehow lost or forgotten to get another token so I was lucky I had found the extra one. After the subway trek back, we walked to the hotel and everyone split up for late dinners and hanging around.

It was a fun day filled with fun people and lots of traveling.

More to come soon...

Well day one was a bit stressful. I had been pretty sick the day before getting over some kind of kidney infection or stomach flu. With some finagling and lots of water I managed to feel better by the time I was supposed to leave.

Took off around 4 am for the airport packed and ready. I even had a sandwich so I wouldn't have to eat anything on the way. Got to the airport, parked and dragged my stuff to the terminal only to find out I parked at Terminal 1 and my plane was at Terminal 2. *smacks self* No biggie... it's not like I was in a big airport so I asked which way and was able to hoof it on down to the right terminal and get in line. Everything worked out fine. I was glad I got my passport since even though I had my ID with me they asked for my Passport only. I got my one bag checked in and went to wait for my plane.

Plane took off and I was happy I had a window seat. Nice view outside of the city and clouds and everything below. Took several pics I will upload later on. I think the flight was only about an hour or so before we showed up at DWF. We disembarked even though the same plane was going to take us to Toronto. I went and took care of things and ate the rest of my sandwich and while waiting I saw this little girl and her grandmother come on a terminal shuttle. They put the grandmother in a wheelchair and they sat near me. As I waited I noticed how lost they looked and noticed that they spoke Spanish and nobody around here seemed to be able to translate for them. I turned and tried my best to give a "need help?" look at the little girl (she must have been around 10 or so.) She finally looked at me and said in spanish "where are you from?" and I answered in my poor excuse for Spanish "Texas" before asking where she was heading from. She said they were from Peru and started to babble at me excitedly in Spanish. I had to hold up a hand and smile and tell her I didn't know that much spanish. She basically asked if they were on the right plane. I told her as best I could that the current plane was going to Canada and the next plane would take them to where they were going... Portland. I don't know if it were Maine or Oregon... I assumed Oregon since I was thinking of Oscy and such.

So from here, I had to part with the little girl and her grandmother. They seemed kind of sad and a little nervous so I wished them luck and boarded my plane. After what seemed forever I get to Toronto. WHOOHOO   I got out of the plane and was really confused and lost. I was trying to find my luggage and couldn't. I had to ask someone to help me and that's when my bag came off the baggage conveyor. I had been waiting for a good 30 mins or more for that one bag. I walked around trying to figure things out. I tried to use my atm card then my credit card/debit but none of the machines liked my cards. I hadn't taken out too much cash and because of that I ended up being lucky I had 18 bucks to convert for the bustrip. I looked around for transport for a good 30 mins or more before I realized the bus was the cheapest fair to the hotel. I bought my ticket and waited. After we took off they picked up this Egyptian guy with some other people and when nobody sat next to me all the time I was on the bus,  he did. He was friendly enough but it was kind of weird cause he kept trying to chat me up. I think he was just being nice but I really find that annoying sometimes. He was going to a medical convention of some kind and he had just come in from Egypt. He even asked what hotel I was at and I wasn't sure what he was going for so I said The Marriott.    Ended up he was just being nice and nothing else cause he took off immediately with a "have a good trip!" after we got off at the Delta Chelsea stop. Once he was gone I got directions to the real hotel. It was just down the street a couple of blocks. I only got lost once and asked one of a handful of hotdog vendors on the street what direction I was going.

Once at the hotel I saw a group of people that seemed to be Mysterium folks but I didn't know them off hand so I just decided to be coy and get myself checked in and upstairs. Lucky me I was on the 2nd to last floor. Took a few minutes to recup and ended up in the Lobby again and with a "are you myst people" comment I found myself amongst the first group of Mysterium folksters. I believe the group included: Astral, Wind (something or other) Mike, Ran and some others I forget off hand.

After some hanging around I bumped into people I knew like Chucker and RChan and later in the evening BLUEMAX showed his face. It was a great moment because I had talked to him for so long and only had the webcam piccies he used to post (which I turned into Diet Coke ads since that's all he drinks)   I reached to shake his hand and he took me in a big hug.  It was cool. Later Mihshehl showed up and there were more big huggles. Lots of people began to sprinkle in and I had so many huggles. I believe Nomie showed up that day too late and I saw him and went "Nick?" and he didn't look... then I said "Nomad?" and he didnt' really respond... finally I said "are you wandering nomad?" and he went "I might... be." LOL He was coy but finally came over and said hi to everyone.

We all ended up going out to eat I believe but I don't recall where. It was a busy busy day and we hung out around the hotel for the most part.

Mihshehl and myself helped Max along with I believe lonely to unload his tech stuff. He had alot of nice toys.

Well that's it for now... atleast for day 1...