Chicago Tardiscon

One of the greatest weekends I've ever had! Let's hit the bad part. Thanksgiving. I don't mind holidays that much, but at times, I really wish I wasn't there and I was somewhere else. My family goes to my grandparents house every year, but this year, since my brother is in the airforce and he's down in Texas, they went to go see him. I had a choice of going down to Texas and seeing my brother or going to Chicago Tardiscon with friends and meet Benjamin "Red Lightning" Cook, or stay home and do nothing. Well, I decided to go to Chicago Tardis and I'm super glad that I went. The six hour drive wasn't as bad as I thought because after I finished a book, I had time to sleep and be awkwardly social and stuff. The last time I went to Chicago, I was on my way to England with my class so I was expecting us to hit a few places that I went to previously(like The Bean XD).

On Friday, we arrived around 1 which was earlier than when we were supposed to be there, but our room was already ready for us so it was fine. The room that the girls had, was really nice, and I take it that the boys room was nice as well.. I didn't dare go in there. Everyone wandered around the convention and panels were going on with the Peter Davidson, who was the Fifth Doctor, and Janet Fielding, who was one of the Fifth Doctor's companions, Tegan. I didn't get to meet Peter Davidson or Janet Fielding, but I got photos of them and went to one of their panels together. They seemed like really fun people to hang out with and meet. After a couple hours, we went to the Target that was right next to the hotel and bought random things like bottled water and sticky notes. When we came back to the hotel room, there was nothing to do so Camille made a TARDIS(Time And Relative Dimensions In Space) out of blue and yellow-ish white sticky notes which turned out fantabulously and we could see it from the parking lot! While Camille was doing that, Me and Mrs. Keifer were skyping some friends that couldn't make it to Chicago Tardiscon. We were all having laughing fits for 2 hours with them and that was so much fun talking to them and their randomness. After a couple hours, everyone signed off and we noticed it wasn't too late, so we went downstairs and got autographs from Benjamin Cook. Benjamin who? Benjamin Cook is a Doctor Who journalist that has interviewed the stars of Doctor Who and he's been working for the official Doctor Who magazine since he was 13 and he's now 29-ish. I have to say, he is probably my favorite celebrity-person because he is just that awesome and cooler than the bees knees.

                                                         The TARDIS and the Dalek in sticky notes! Thanks, Camille!

On Saturday, we walked around the vendors room and went to target a few times just to do nothing and whatnot. When my little group of friends walked around the convention, we stumbled upon fantastic cosplayers that have been to much bigger conventions and have done their own major panels. Fantastic people with fantastic cosplays. We didn't really do much, but there was a wedding reception going on with LOADS of dancing and my little group of friends were invited to it! Instead, we wandered around the hotel(in the wee late hours) and danced with a real Dalek, then looked for Benjamin Cook who had just got back from the Bean and dinner with Mark Sheppard. We found him, showed him the Dalek and the Tardis(and Kalli wrote "Ben! <3" in large letters above it), he obviously loved it. We then summoned the courage to ask him for photos, and yes, we did.

                                              This is the best photo that was taken with him. Luther and Benjamin Cook

                                                       Everyone with Benjamin Cook!



When he left, we had nothing else to do, so we wanted to go to see the Bean. It took us 2-3 hours to find the car keys which were in a pants pocket on the floor the whole time. We ventured out around 3:30 in the morning to go to the mystical Bean. The people that were with me had never been to the Bean, so I practically had to drag them. KIDDING... kind of. We had our fun of random photo taking and laughing, prancing around the beautiful Bean until the security guard came up to us saying that the park closed at 11pm and opened 7 am or so. Much to our surprise, we laughed and went to 7-11 where we got drinks and whatnots to have and walked around the sleeping city. We saw people with their luggage wandering the streets(not homeless people), homeless people, workers putting up Christmas lights on the trees, and creepers (Which we tried to avoid). We skipped, walked, and frolicked through the empty streets laughing and whatnot looking at buildings laying on the ground, looked at random shops(because we couldn't go in). We went back to the hotel around 5am and went to sleep around 5:45.

We couldn't sleep in, so we had to get up bright and early at 10 am and immediately start packing for our trip home. We saw Ben one more time and attended a couple of his panels that he was in, we didn't get to say goodbye, but we tweeted him and he would reply. So, fun stuff.
That was my weekend a while ago in November. Benjamin Cook, Tony Lee, Robert Shearman, Kalli, David, Luther, Camille, Mr. and Mrs. Keifer, Target, the Bean, the security at the Bean, twitter, replies, and just a little "hello". Those are the best things about that entire weekend.