I went to my first RT, aka the Romantic Times Booklovers Convention. While I have heard tales, it was my first one, so I can't properly compare it to others,, but the short version is I had a great time.
I went to the wrong hotel first, which was entirely my fault (and fortunately wasn't very far away, also I was still waking up since my flight required waking up at a time when the biggest number on my clock was six, and that was also the final number, so the minor freak out I should have had while figuring this out wasn't too bad). Anyway, having gotten myself to the correct hotel, I then got settled and headed out to the subway, so I could get into Chicago proper.
The hotel was in Rosemont, across the street from the convention center (even though RT occurred in the hotel itself, along with another convention they had going for shippers which seemed to skew a little more male than RT did). So, if one was looking for a hotel, a convention center, or an office park it was conveniently located. One had to look a little harder to find other things. Or take the subway.
After walking my little toes off, I returned to the hotel for dinner and managed to team up with three other lovely ladies who had arrived early.
The next morning I managed to find the registration line and have a great conversation in line about "The Hunger Games" (she hadn't read the book yet, so I quizzed her a little about some of the relationship dynamics and she quizzed me back). Then there was the opening lunch where, among other things, there was a lovely tribute to Judi McCoy.
There were some great workshops, including one with Mark Coker from Smashwords, that I sadly had to leave early to make an appointment.
Dinner was a little packed. The two conferences created a lot of tired hungry people and the hotel only had two restaurants. One was pretty packed, and the other had a line. Funnily enough peering into the one restaurant to see if the buffet looked good, I spotted two friends who kindly waved me in to their table letting me, ahem, bypass the line.
Edited for sentence structure, or lack thereof.
Rants About New (and old) Things
