Yes, it is done! Shh, I know it's been a month already >.>
We set off on our great Anime Evolution 2004 adventure Friday morning, after Clare, Brooke, and I got four, three, and five hours of sleep apiece. Met up with everybody on the ferry, although unfortunately Liz and the van with all of the really big suitcases ended up having to get on the next ferry. There was lots of talking and unfortunately very little of getting things done, but hey, that's what Friday night is for. Bus ride down into Vancouver was both long and boring, although we only got slightly lost trying to find the stop we connected at. Brooke and I dashed to a tiny Asian corner store and bought overpriced milk (Up around $5US a gallon, all things calculated, I think 0.o).
We eventually made it to the con, and sort of sat around outside waiting for Liz, after we all picked up our badges (They gave me an adult badge by mistake. I wasn't about to correct the mistake ^^). Liz came, we dumped all our stuff in the townhouse, put the milk and such in the fridge, and lazed around a lot. A few of us got changed into costume - I was TBvet!Seishirou - and Amber and I ran out to meet Ari at the bus stop. It turns out she had come over early, and been wandering around for an hour or so, but we found her, and everything was good. After she dropped her stuff off at the townhouse, a bunch of us went out and wandered around some, eventually watching some of the 2003 AMV contest, which was being re-shown, before going back for the night.
We then started the almight Night of Costuming ^^ This was largely because we are unskilled and disorganised, and thus didn't have them done _before_ the con. The details at this point is pretty sketchy, as it's been nearly a month, and we were pretty out of it by the end, but I do remember things got done, awful tea got made (nobody's fault, we didn't have the stuff nessecary), ramen got eaten, everybody got less than two hours of sleep, and, miraculously, nobody got mad at each other. After the SakuraCon mess, this is rather incredibly surprising, and rather nice.
Saturday finally came, with several of us having not slept at all, and we got changed into our outfits for the masquerade - only to have it start pouring rain. This resulted in kind of a mad dash from the townhouse to the main complex, during which we got totally soaked. Marina's comment was that there was something strangely romantic about soaking wet Seishirou in his wedding kimono, running through the rain ^^ We were fourth on or so, and almost short Brooke, as she took longer to get ready because her armour wouldn't hold, but she arrived, and we went on, and actually managed not to make fools of ourselves. Our CLAMP in Wonderland skit ended up pretty well-recieved, at least by the audience, even if we didn't win anything, which was really nice. The groups that did win largely deserved it, too ^^
Most of the rest of Saturday is a bit of a blur to me, other than going to the 2004 AMVs (during with Elisha and I kept nodding off, as we both hadn't slept), and then the yaoi panel, which was excellent even if the staff kept coming down and telling Nathan he couldn't do all these things he had planned. Ari dragged Brooke off afterwards, supposedly to go to the karaoke, but I went back to the townhouse and sort of crashed, so I didn't really ask.
Sunday was another low-key day - we gave Ari her birthday presents, as they were all finally done (Ryuuichi outfit and Kumagoro from Viko, HIV plushie because I am a horrible person from me.), and we had the lovely if slightly dry cake Janelle made - it had a pentagram in red frosting on top of the vanilla, and little strawberry candies around the edges ^^ We also found that three people or so can drink over four litres of milk in roughtly half an hour. We all headed to the dealer's room, and I came away with two posters, one big X color managa poster (the later stuff, not the X: ZERO art), and one of Advent Children Sepiroth, for a total of $7 CDN, which I think is roughly $5 US. Marina, Elisha, and I also caught the tail end of the FMA panel, which was fun (Scar is Jeebus! XD), and as I usually can't stand panels, that says something ^^ We headed to have a little lunch at the sub place on campus, where Farha, while while dressed as Ryoma bought a big chocolate chip cookie, took a bite, and exclaimed "Mmm, it's still warm and moist!", causing us to proclaim it the porn cookie. Then there was much packing and loading and figuring out what belonged to whom, before most of us set out on the buses, and some set out by car, to head home, where ever that was.
After saying many goodbyes and giving lots of hugs, I parted ways with everybody else at the bus station, and went to the airport. Many hours, some very uncomfortable seats, and one almost-missed flight (I want to hurt the architect of the new airport in Toronto) later, I was back at home, incredibly tired and missing everyone I had seen that week. I came to visit people, and got exactly that and more, and it was wonderful ^^
Photos
-Me in the Seishirou wedding kimono
-Ari in the full Ryuuichi outfit ^^
-The two crazy scientists and their birds ^^
-Actually not what I intended to take a photo of, but damn funny anyway
-It's Chii! It's Wakaba! ...No, actually, largely just Janelle
