So friday night was a bit hectic… it didn’t help that I had to work a ten hour shift right before heading up there! Now that I think about it, with the other book premieres I got a chance to sleep until about four or five, which explained why i could last all night reading… definately made a difference. I chose to go to the Barnes and Noble at PowerPlant in Baltimore, which could potentially be the largest book store in the state… its positively huge!! Anyways, Kev met me at my house, and I took a little mindless break before picking up Erin to hit the bookstore. I sillily found my HP robes and danced around the house in them… I even packed them in my purse in case I felt the absolute urge to wear them later. The trip up there was easy, and we found absolutely wonderful parking… I don’t think people realize the wonder of one way parking garages. Rather than having everyone go up and down the same slopes, some newer garages have opposite slopes, each going one way… every two ramps or so, they intersect for people to exit. I immediately went back to exit rather than go up five or six floors, and we found that NOBODY had parked on the exit side ramps… we were just one floor up, right in front of the elevators and stairs, which was closest to the street we needed to be on! It was fabulous thinking on my part… I might be a very smart girl afterall!
Anyhoo, the store was relatively quiet when we got there at eight, but we were certainly not the first to arrive… My sister and her boyfriend arrived an hour earlier, and landed us our relatively great spot in line, #103. Now that might not sound fabulous, but considering there were about two thousand people in line to buy books, I think 103 is good enough!
The night was beautiful weatherwise… we couldn’t have asked for much more at all… Twilight on the harbor was striking, and to show my point, I snapped a few shots of the Baltimore Inner Harbor for you folks out there…
This, btw, was the view we had from the sushi restaurant we ate at, sitting on the harborside balcony in that weather!! Just a short walk took us back, hands loaded with ice cream, to the sight that was Barnes and Noble. But then that was when the night got crazy… It turns out that the Japanese Anime Convention, OdiCon, was in town, so some of the crazier people were out for the party as well… there were people running around in all sorts of odd costumes… it would have been one thing if we were all in hp robes, but seeing some of the absolutely mental people there, I held back from pulling out my robes and just chilled as a muggle. About half an hour before the book was to be released, we actually went inside, but were shuffled and shoved around hurriedly. I had to fight my way to be one of the first in the “hundreds” group in the line, I had been shoved that far back. But in the end, I walked out with five brand new books and I only waited twenty minutes total from release to my escape from the store.
Was it worth going? Absolutely. Its rare for any kind of literary event to happen these days… booksigning sessions are rarer and rarer, and it is pitiful at the press and raves potential books get these days… if more book releases were like major movie releases, maybe people would read more! But on top of that, I knew friday night was historical, and I chose not a small bookstore, but a huge mob to be a part of it. Its a memory that will be tied to a story that has been a big part of my life the past seven years that I’ve been a HP fan. It is a literary revolution that has swept the world, and it has brought people back to the written word in ways not many have done since the dawn of the television and the silver screen. And its been a part of my journey.
Do you dare IM Me?::
nostalgic
