27/02/09 - 01/03/09: Eternal Twilight

I have to admit that I was a bit nervous about Eternal Twilight because it was a Showmasters Event. Now, I love Showmasters...Really...But it's a love/hate relationship. They screw up so often that I expect the worst automatically. This time, I was happily surprised.

We set off a bit late on Friday because we were waiting for Jay's brother to arrive. He offered to give us a lift because we weren't really sure our car would make it. Not over-reacting or anything, it broke down three times last month. We didn't want to get stuck in Northampton. Or, halfway there. It wasn't my idea of a dream trip, stuck in a car for over two hours with Jay's brother but it wasn't bad. I even managed to get some sleep.

We had a bit of difficulty finding the hotel, mostly because we were listening to Sean's sat nav which was telling us to drive in circles around the hotel-which was NOT clearly marked at all. Even when we got there, we had to ask for help finding the entrance. The room was...adequate. "Bog standard," I think Jay called it. Nothing special but not dirty or anything. It had a shower rather than a tub, which annoyed us both. Plus, it didn't have a fridge. But, it was cheaper than we expected and the bed was comfy so it was all good.

I learned a very interesting trick this weekend. Did you know that a plastic bag wrapped around a fire alarm will allow you to smoke in a hotel room without setting off all the alarms? I'm sure that would come in handy...If I smoked. Lol.

The Park Inn, where the convention was being held was only across the street. I think it was about a five minute walk-which was good considering the number of times we made it. There was no hassle checking in-probably because we arrived so late-and it wasn't mad crowded so that was a good start. I thought Showmasters could have made more of an effort with the goodie bags considering the amount we paid for our tickets but I've often made that complaint about Showmasters' goodie bags.

Oh! And I think we totally got jipped. I was suppose to recieve "1 exclusive convention photo featuring all of the guests attending" but didn't. Hmm. Maybe it will come in the post? I'll come back to you on that one...

I went to the opening ceremony while Jay watched the rugby. Bless him...He came along to Eternal Twilight after only ever seeing the movie once and having no idea who most of the characters were. (Except for my ramblings, of course.) I expected him to have a lousy time or be bored to death at the very least but he really threw himself into it. I was proud.

The opening ceremony was...LOUD. I was NOT expecting the sheer number of screaming teenage girls that were there. Seriously. I thought I was going to go deaf before they finished announcing all the guests. My favourite straight away was Kellen Lutz because of the way he played the crowd. He would give the crowd a cheeky look and just say, "I love you." They just ate it up. And, OMG, all the organisers had to do was MENTION the name "Robert" and the crowd nearly brought the roof down. I was like, "Met him already." Lol.

It was surprising how many people were there from all across the world. People came from America, Brazil, Australia, and LOADS were from France. I had so much fun looking at the different fashions and hair styles. It was fabulous. There were plenty of older women there too so I think I was somewhere in the middle age bracket.

Jay's comment on the attendees was "I've never seen so much fanny in one place!" Lol. We were in a lift with this old guy-He was probably sixty or so-and he asked if we were going down to the convention. When we told him that we were, he told us that we would probably run into his daughter. Jay made a comment about how many women were there and the old guy came back with, "I can't remember the last time I've seen so many twenty something women in one place. And, me forty years too old to enjoy it." Bless him! I was rocking with laughter.

The theme party for the first night was La Push Campfire. You were suppose to go dressed as Native Americans or in your rain gear but not a lot of people made the effort. I, for one, couldn't afford a costume. I totally would have pulled off the Native American thing, though. So I went looking for rain gear. Unfortunatly, I couldn't find a pair of wellies in my size and I couldn't find a rain coat AT ALL. So, I wore my Cullen family crest tee. Jay just went in normal clothes. A lot of people did, actually.

I liked all of the different Twilight tees. I didn't realise there were so many available! There were "And so the lion fell in love with the lamb" shirts, "I *heart* shiny vampires" hoodies and really neat Jack Daniel style tees with "Edward Cullen, vintage 1901." I could have amused myself the whole weekend just walking around taking photos of all the different shirts/bags/hats/etc.

We had a few drinks at the La Push party (I quite liked the house cocktail, "Rush of Blood") and then went back to the hotel where we had another drink at the bar. I was...quite happy. Lol. Then we went back to the hotel room. We were going to stay up and watch Halloween H20 but neither of us made it.

Oh...I nearly forgot the best part of the La Push party...Jay made friends with this random woman who was staying at our hotel. She had a male friend there with her at the party and they were WASTED. The guy kept asking if Jay was Kenny G. (Jay had to ask me who Kenny G was...) Even when Jay said, no, he wasn't Kenny G, the guy had a photo taken of them...Just to be safe. Lol. They were both quite friendly.

Saturday was quite busy. I had all of my photo shoots done that morning/early afternoon and, since he didn't get photo sessions as part of his ticket, Jay slept in a bit. He managed to pick up one autograph before I dragged him away to find lunch. Me+Crowds-Food=Someone is going to get hurt.

The photo sessions ran really smoothly. I pretty much went from one to the next with only small gaps between the last couple. Kellen Lutz was amazing with the fans again. He struck the funniest poses with some of the people, especially the younger ones. Peter Facinelli and Justin Chon were really good about posing as well. Christian Serratos was a bit stiff but even she was friendly. Everyone took the time to say hello, which I think is an important part of it.

I have a confession to make. I don't really like the Showmasters photographer all that much. He gets on my nerves. He's either really pushy and rude or he's really condescending. At Eternal Twilight it was all "This way, Princess" and "Okay, Princess." Grrr. Plus...Okay...He's a PROFESSIONAL. So why did my Kellen Lutz photo end up blurry? One of his assistants retook my Christian Serratos photo even though both of them were perfect. And, I've had blurry photos off him before at other conventions. I'm sorry, but that's just not acceptable.

We got to spend the afternoon wandering around Northampton. (After I ate, of course.) There was quite a large market so we had a nose around that and even picked up some sweets to take back with us. Then we visited a large arcade nearby. (That's the British arcade...Like a mall, kind of.) We found a terrific deal on suits at one of the stores and I bought Jay a new suit, tie, shirt, shoes and scarf as a present. (And, because I felt guilty about forgetting to pack his suit jacket. Oops.) It looked great on him too.

After all that shopping, we were both pretty worn out. Jay went back to the hotel to watch more rugby (lucky bastard lol) while I went back to the Park Inn for Kellen Lutz and Ashley Greene's guest talk. It was HILARIOUS. They were so good together. Of course, Kellen outshone Ashley completely. I'm definitely more of an Emmett fan after this weekend!

The photos were printed and ready for us after the guest talk so I snuck in quick and grabbed mine before it got too busy. My photo with Justin Chon made me laugh because we both look like highschoolers. I went back to the hotel to drop them off and realised that the guest talk I thought was an hour away was actually starting right then. So I had to rush right back over. I was sorry that I missed part of Peter Facinelli's talk. It was the one I had been looking forward to most. He sounded SO ill but he carried on, even after the organisers would have stopped it to give him a rest. Even after they told him he was out of time he was like, "No! We have time for just one more. Go on..."

I didn't go to Justin Chon and Christian Serratos's guest talk because I thought sleep was more important. I guess Jay thought so too because he was fast alseep when I got back. He was going to get up and watch the next rugby match while I napped but he didn't make it long! I got up before him and got ready for the Prom Night party. I wore a Roman Original two-piece velvet dress with a fishnet body stocking and ankle boots. Then I crimped my hair (80's style). I was so happy with the effect when Jay woke up and just said, "Wow. You look beautiful." He gave me lots of compliments which was great because I haven't heard that in so long. It made me feel great.

We went to the Prom Night party which was much more crowded than Friday night's party. Everyone made more of an effort as well. We had a few drinks ("Blood Type" this time) and wandered around. They even had a gazebo set up and a balloon archway. I shared a few stories about my highschool prom while we wandered. Jay ended up getting chatty with on of the crew members while we were at the bar. She was really nice and seemed to have a lot in common with him. We stayed longer than we probably would have otherwise, just chatting with her.

On the way back, we decided to grab some pizza. There were several Italian resturantes by our hotel and the smell had been driving us nuts the whole time. So we finally caved and got a couple of small pizzas. (Which were FAB.) Then we chilled out in the hotel room watching bad films and chatting until I fell asleep on Jay, mid conversation.

Oh...So we were walking back from the pizza joint and I was saying to Jay that I didn't understand how he found it so easy to make new friends and that people just seemed to gravitate towards him. And this guy comes up to him from out of nowhere and starts talking about how long his hair is. I was like, "SEE!" I had to complain then that I could wander through life completely unknown and people just latch onto him. How unfair. He says it's not his fault, he's just "a bearded weirdo." Lol.

I was up early again on Sunday even though I spent more time packing than getting ready. We were a bit woried that we wouldn't get all the autographs before his brother showed up to collect us so we had to be ready to check out quickly. Actually, even the autograph signings went much better than I had expected. I have to give it to them, they were pretty well organised this time. The autograph signings were pretty standard. It was one of those, they're here just to sign, not chat things which suited me. We picked up a few autographs and when Jay started feeling worn out, I finished up the last few before following him back to the hotel. We had some time then to nibble on snacks we brought with us and still managed to check out early.

There was no need, as it turned out. Jay's brother can't follow directions and ended up putting nearly an hour on his journey because he didn't take the exit Jay had told him to. (Seriously, sat nav was INVENTED for this guy.) So we were stuck waiting outside the hotel for ages which turned out to be surpringsly entertaining. We spent awhile chatting with a custodian who was sweeping up litter about how difficult things are now and how times have changed recently. (I told you, Jay can talk to ANYONE.)

There were these three kids skateboarding on the raised sidewalk we were sitting on. (What is it with skateboarders and steps?) The custodian said to them, very politely, "Not here, my friends." They stopped for awhile but as soon as he was gone they came back. It was bugging me because they were so close to us and I was worried that they were going to fall and Jay would get smacked with a board. Then, a security guard came along and before he could even open his mouth, they bailed. It was funny because one fell right on his face when he was running away. LOL.

But, as soon as he was gone, they came back. When one of them nearly hit Jay as he landed I snapped at him. "Do you mind," I said. He didn't say anything to me but went back to his friends to repeat what I said. They started to come over and-well, I don't know what kind of trouble they were planning to start but at that moment Jay thought he saw his brother's car and got to his feet. They must have thought he was going to come after them because they ran away again. I was laughing myself silly.

They didn't stay gone long. They kind of circled us, eyeing Jay up. When they started to come back over to our side of the road, Jay said, "Now, you're not planning to skateboard over here, now are you?" They were like, "No, of course not!" and kept walking. We didn't see them again. Ha ha ha.

Just before Jay's brother showed up, we ran into another convention atendee, this French girl who started talking to us. I thought it was too bad that Sean showed up when he did because it would have been nice to chat a bit more. It seemed like she was alone at the convention because her husband couldn't make it. She was staying for the final night, though and was surprised that we weren't. It would have been nice to stay but money was an issue. Even Jay said he had a good time and was sorry for the weekend to end. Hopefully, we'll be able to go to Eternal Twilight 2.