The week in Spain was wonderful in the end, but started off frighteningly bad.

I'd decided that I would fly to Spain on Monday and have johncoxon  join me a few days later. In theory this would a) allow me to get a bit of the family stuff out of the way, b) let me ease back into my Spanish, and c) give us some days off from each other in case jet lag plus convention plus London plus family had gotten to us by then.

It turned out better that I arrived alone, but for entirely different reasons. Long story short; Marta, my sister-in-law, had a heart attack the night I landed, at the same time my brother was on his way to the airport to pick me up. He didn't have his cellphone so we found out when we got back to the house, and promptly headed right back out to go to the hospital. After hours of waiting we got to see her, and she seemed okay. We talked to the doctor, and it was reassuring in some ways and scary in others, but basically my brother was terrified for the next 12 hours or so until he saw her again, then just out of his mind with worry for another day until they moved her from intensive care, and progressively better after that.

So, by the time John arrived, things were a little bit more settled, but there was a receding tide of stress and worry in addition to the anticipated madness of meeting the family (Mike, Marta, and my sister Cymbeline) and visiting Spain. Additionally Marta's father had flown out the second he heard and was staying with us as well now, he was delightful but didn't speak a lick of English.

Still, John seemed to take it all in stride and over the next four days we managed to eat and drink our way through most of Malaga, hitting a half dozen restaurants and tapa bars a day and barely making a dent. I had a list of things I wanted John to try and I'm glad to say we got to most of them, except paella. I also rediscovered my love for tinto de verano and am now trying to recreate it at home.

Mike and Marta showed us all their favorite places which were many and all excellent, we went up the Alcazaba and the Girbralfaro (which I've done before, but was much more fun this time), and got us some culture at one of the new museums, the Carmen Thyssen, which was in a rather nice little palace of its own. I had hoped to take a day trip to Estepona, but the logisitics seemed to tedious to deal with so instead we went to the beach and I even had a very brief swim (the weather was hot but the water was still too cold).

While Spain is in fact in economic dire straits, you couldn't really tell it from Malaga's center. They've closed off a bunch of streets to traffic, making the central part of the old town even more walkable than before, built a lovely modern waterfront, and opened a bunch of new museums, and the city just generally looked great.

Now it's been a long time since I was properly in Malaga, and I was a teengager then and impressed with everything anyway, but the place and people looked better than ever. Just about every bar, cafe, and restaurant has a bunch of outdoor seating and everything is open till late. Because of that the streets are full all day and night, and the crowd is mixed the entire time; all ages, groups, couples, kids, whatever. There were tourists as well, but not all that many except near the Cathedral and museums, and there was a film festival going on while we were there, adding to the festive air.

The other thing about Malaga is that it never disappoints. When I picked John up from the airport at 10pm or so, there were some tunos there, and then we saw some more of them singing at a bar while we walked up to Mike's place. On Friday Madrid played Barcelona in some important match or other and there was tons of loud (but good-natured) yelling and enthusiasm about that. The last night we were there we wandered by the gardens near the Cathedral and there was a busker with a beautiful voice singing Volver* and the whole thing was just ridiculously romantic without even trying. The weather was picture perfect the entire time, and therefore the views from the Alcazaba just gorgeous. It's an easy city to fall into, although I suspect the nerd side of me would get bored after a short time.

Eventually it was time to get on the plane back to England. Appropriately, it was coming down buckets when we landed.


*Rather unoriginally, I love the Estrella Morente version from the Almodovar movie of the same name.

I got to see three places in England; London, Peterborough, and Leicester.

London was the shortest and the most exciting.

First I had a brief trip into town from the convention hotel on Thursday night to attend the London Circle pub meeting, which is a local tradition since 1946. I squeed at the red telephone boxes, double-decker buses and so on, then had a couple of pints of real ale at a proper pub, and  met a bunch of local fans. It was the perfect way to start my trip.

Once the convention was over johncoxon and I stayed one night with some friends of his in Wallington on Monday night, and then two nights in Croydon with the fishlifter's. This meant Tuesday and Wednesday we were free to traipse around London!

Tuesday was a half day since we had to make it back to  to get our luggage and head over to Croydon, so instead of running around trying to see too much we settled on breakfast and then the Victoria and Albert Museum. This turned out just fine, since the museum is huge and full of things. The permanent exhibits are separated by type (glass, ceramic, sculpture), which was a very nice way of looking at things, the stained glass in particular was impressive, and the building itself is gorgeous.

We arrived in Croydon in time to head over to the local fannish pub meet up there, which was smaller but quite fun, and on the way home I got to see a fox roaming about.

Wednesday we had a bit more time, so I had insisted we see the British Museum. Because duh. It was all I wanted and more, and we spent three or four hours looking at all the awesome before it was time for a food and mental break. We headed to the Churchill War Rooms after that, which I highly recommend. Aside from the sheer historical coolness of it, it is a very well designed museum.

London being old, important, and relatively small, you basically pass by or through important landmarks and locations while on your way to other important landmarks and locations. So I got to see Trafalgar Square, the Thames, the London Eye, Buckingham Palace, the Houses of Parliament, Cleopatra's Needle, and a bunch of other places, just by getting from point A to point B. It was a full day and would have been perfect except for the fact that once we got back to East Croydon a thief snatched John's iPhone right out of his hand while we were at a bus stop. So that kind of sucked.

At least it happened on the last day in London, since the next day we headed to Peterborough to visit his family. Peterborough is a quaint little town where you can find some thatched roofed houses. We went to a pub (sensing a theme here), sightseeing in a medieval town called Stamford, and to a bronze age archeological site called Flag Fen, we had English tea and a lovely dinner at a restaurant housed in a 16th century building, and generally chilled out before leaving for Leicester, where John lives.

Leicester was someplace in between quiet Peterborough and busy London, smallish but fairly cosmopolitan, and chock full of curry joints. We visited the Space Center, the New Walk Museum, and I generally enjoyed the sheer Englishness of it all; curries, fish and chips, kebabs, more English breakfasts and teas, plus the requisite pub visit. I also went to the local BBC station shop and nerded out all over their Doctor Who section.

All in all it was a lot of fun. I spent most of the time eating and/or complaining about the cold, but I loved every minute of it.

Okay, since johncoxon has gone and posted about the visit already I guess I'm overdue.

I'll split it into three parts, roughly chronological; Eastercon, England, and Spain. Here's the first of those for starters;

Eastercon was a lot of fun. I'll do a proper con report for the next SF/SF, of course, but I was very glad it was my first convention outside of the US. Obviously having John there helped immensely, partly because I was so glad to see him that even a terrible con would have been good, but also because any new experience is easier with a native guide to give you the lay of the land.

The highlights, in no particular order;

They give you beers in exchange for doing panels! This is the single greatest thing ever. US conventions need to implement this ASAP.

My second panel, on older women in Doctor Who. I was on it with Doug S, Roz Kaveney, and Michael Cule and felt like we did well and that the audience enjoyed it.

The central social area, which had a couple of bars, several couches, and just a really neat layout.

The George Hay Memorial Lecture by Leslie Hall, entitled Invisible Women, the Scientists Men Don't See. I went on a whim at the last minute and was very glad I did.

Seeing johncoxon do his thing at his various panels and TAFF responsibilities.

Eating fish and chips for the first time. Nom.

Hugo nomination announcements!

Beer.

There were a couple of less-than-perfect things (worst. breakfasts. ever) but I'll save those for the official report.

I'm back from England, overall the trip was wonderful and I had a great time, although there were a couple of bumpy spots along the way. I will write some posts over the next couple of days, plus a proper Eastercon report in the next SF/SF, but in the meantime as I recover from my travels and look forward to the high geek season that is Memorial Day weekend, here's something for y'all to look forward to whether or not you're attending one of the conventions that weekend;

Tomorrow I fly to London to visit johncoxon and attend Eastercon. I'm staying for three weeks, with a hop over to Spain to see my brother and sister in Malaga for a week. It'll be my first time in England, but I'm only in London for a couple of days once Eastercon ends, so after being rather overwhelmed by the choices I've decided not to stress about seeing everything possible, I can save it for a longer trip-maybe London 2014. But I'm really looking forward to just being there and soaking it in, plus fish and chips, of course.

I'll probably post stuff over on Facebook during the trip, and will definitely be tweeting.

SF/SF #126 is up, with some words about Furcon and furry fandom from Christopher Erickson, part two of johncoxon's Bay Area Museums report, and Tom Noe on Rockage, as well as my own Gally report.

In other Gally related news, Geek Girl Crafts Podcast episode #14 is up. jadecat9 and I report from Gally, and then Jade joins racerxmachina over at Stitches West.

Gally was great as ever, although there were some unfortunate incidents such as two separate cars breaking down shy of the LA area.

Some highlights; Hugging Paul McGann, squeeing to all my friends about same, showing off my new Servalan costume and then meeting some San Francisco fans who had made awesome Servalan tee shirts, getting some nice compliments on my red beaded Doctor Who scarf, podcasting with Jade, lunch with Charlie Jane, Bryan and Mette's latest amazing costumes, seeing a panel with William Russel and Waris Hussein looking good and telling stories, and with Maureen O'Brien being hilariously candid, Ood dogs, and Simon Fisher-Becker bringing down the house during closing ceremonies audience by doing Dorium Maldovar's final speech from The Wedding of River Song.

A proper con report will be in the next issue of SF/SF, of course.

The day after tomorrow is not only Marked Down Valentine's Chocolates Day, it's also when the roommate and I hit the road and head down to the LAX Marriott for the Gallifrey One Doctor Who Convention and Liver Abuse Marathon.

I am currently sitting in a room replete with unfinished costumes, so we'll see how that goes, but regardless the convention is always a blast, and this year several fine folks are attending for the first time, including fellow Geek Girl Crafter Jade Falcon, which brings me to;

Episode 13 of GGC is up! Nominally it is about female tropes in SF/F television and movies, but it is possible I had Doctor Who on my mind, cause that's all I remember rambling on about.

See you on the other side!

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