I'm back

[isabelladangelo]

I promise to post pictures later. This is just a really long story for now.

I arrived around 3 ish at Pennsic. Let me rephrase that, I saw what looked to be Pennsic around that time. I saw another truck in front of me that was heading in the same general direction and followed him. The truck turned into the west gate and so did I. Yes, to those that have been to Pennsic before, I completely by passed troll. For those that are going "Huh?" Troll is where you check in and get your lil badge that says you belong. I did not recieve that.
I, instead, ended up in the bog....waaaay south of where I needed to be. I was supposed to be in the nothern section of Pennsicland...nearish the Tuchux(sp?). I saw the lake, turned left and found the parking lot. I parked and walked....and walked. I saw the long road and started to walk down it...only to find I was IN the Tuchux encampment.
Luckily one of the Tuchux was very nice and lead me out of the encampment and sent me on my way. I found my encampment. The sad thing? I had parked a meer three rows away from my encampment...

So I managed to set up with the help of the Baron and a few other helpers. My tent went up in a matter of a minute. It's a day shade with a canvas cover. It actually did extremely well for Pennsic. I just need to make one minor adjustment that I'll explain later.

I got organized and met people and went shopping. Shopping is awesome. Imagine 100's upon 100's of merchants all selling medievally stuff. I went to merchants every single day.

Wednesday night started off interestingly enough. The encampment next to us earned their nickname "the ghost encampment" due to wednesday night. You see, on the weekend of land grab, all the encampment came, set up, and the guys left to go back to work...leaving the women and children behind. This is where it gets interesting because, although they had a shower system (a lot more on that later) they did not have a sink. So, by wednesday, they came over to our encampment to inform the Baron, our land agent, that all the kids were sick (hmmm...wonder why if they weren't washing their hands!!!) and the entire encampment was leaving. Hence the name Ghost encampment. They just packed up what they could (the tents were all still up) and left Wednesday night.

Thursday, I call home. I arrived, I'm alive...but my puppy is sick! Yes, Miss Ginsie took ill. It seems she had a seizuer! I really truely almost went home right then and there but my Mom convenced me that Ginsie really was okay and that she'd be fine at "camp Grandma and Grandpa's". Dad has taken my puppy dog to the vet and the vet said it may never happen again or it could be something as simple too much heat, something she ate (darn beetles!), ect.

So I stayed and went shopping.

To hurry up with this story (there was a LOT going on) on Saturday, the ghost encampment came back. Let me explain the ghost encampments shower. They had a sophisticated shower system that didn't work with cooper water well. Cooper water is nothing but iron and water. Their shower system made the cooper water go through chlorine (for the chem geeks, stop giggling), rocks, sand, and some other "natural" filter until it was supposed to comeout as nice clean water..... Except that chlorine bonds with iron to create....sludge. After two showers they had next to zero pressure and couldn't quite grasp why. The reason they had this system? They had heard a story of how a group looked like uumpa loompas after taking showers for a week in the cooper water due to the iron in it.

More on the shower system. For drainage, they dug a hole...right into the clay. It was a big hole. It was a good 4 feet deep at least....but it was into the clay. So it didn't drain...at all. This is important for the sunday night story.

Sunday. Most of my encampment, being good little Norse people (commonly known as Vikings), were working on their armor. I, being a good little Italian girl, was sitting down watching them and thinking of what to have for dinner when I heard the following. "Look, it's swimming!"
This was coming from behind me, so I turned around to see the ghost encampment (did I mention they were mid-realmers?) all gathered around the sewage pit for the shower. One of the ladies standing around the nice big deep hole into the clay stated "The mole! It's swimming"

Well, this was far more fasinating than watching armor being fixed so I continued to listen in on this little adventure. Trust me, it became an adventure. As the ghost encampment muddled around, curious as to what to do with the said mole, one of the guys in their encampment grabbed a shovel. The rest of the encampment quickly left as the guy pounced the shovel into the clay pit three times followed by a cry of "Hey guys! look! It's swimming with it's head cut off!" No, I'm not joking.

Now, I'm very anti rodent. I do not like rodents. However, I'm far more anti bad smells. The sewage pit was right in the middle of a field...in the sun. This doesn't take rocket science to figure out dead body with head cut off and sun are a BAD combo. This was completely elusive to the ghost encampment. Yes, they left the body. I, personally, wouldn't have even bothered to kill it. I would have either left it to drown and get it out later (there's no way it could get out) or taken the shovel and dumped it quickly into the dumpster. Again, both methods seemed to above the ghost encampment.

So I told the Baroness a couple of hours later about what happened. The baroness told the encampment on the other side of the ghost encampment. The other encampment (known as the Catholic encampment. Something I learned a bit too late cause I would have loved to gone to Mass at Pennsic but oh well) took over a Knight and their land agent and asked what happened to the body. Yes, it was still in the sewage pit and the ghost encampment had to be INSTRUCTED on how to bury it I'm told. ::shakes head:: Not that it would do much good at that point...blood and sun don't mix well either.

Anyways, Monday. Monday I called home to find out one of my best friends, Ro, was coming on tuesday for dinner. She lives down in NC so this was a big deal. This coupled with Miss Ginsie's earlier incident made me really want to go home. When it rained that night, that kinda solified my idea of going home tuesday. Yes, the tent leaked a bit but it was because it turns out my idea of a vent on the top of the tent wasn't a good idea. I thought I had it so rain couldn't get in but I was wrong. It's a simple thing to fix so I'm not too worried about it. I was far more worried about Miss Ginsie and seeing Ro.

So Tuesday I went down to merchants and bought mom a nice hand painted bowl, my brothers a bunch of t-shirts (I also got Randy a snake pen so he can take a "snake" on a plane! :-D ), and dad a mug. I also went over to the bee folks and said I and got cream honey and honey comb honey. They'll be at the MD renn fest on the 25th and I said I'd come by again....and again. I need honey sticks darn it!

So I got home, saw Ro, hugged Miss Ginsie who's doing okay. She gave me a scare Wednesday night but I'm 99% sure she was just having a nightmare. Well, it turns out it's a miracle I even made it TO Pennsic let alone Home!

Yesterday, Mom and I went to Rodman's downtown. Well, my car wouldn't start. I opened the hood cause sometimes the battery cables come loose. The battery looked like a bloody Christmas tree it was so corrodded (sp)! I swear, it looked like one of those "grow your own crystals" experments you can get at the discovery channel store. Now, I did get the oil changed a week before I left so how they COULDN'T notice this is beyond me. A VERY nice gentleman saw the problem and helped us greatly. He saw that the battery was next to dry and a we managed to get together all the water bottles Mom leaves in my car (remember the girl from Signs? That's Mom.) and refill it. We also took some coke-cola and poured that on to the battery to clean the thing up a bit. The very nice gentleman gave us a jumpstart and I went straight to the service station and grumbled. They put a new battery in ASAP and this became my most expensive trip to a drug store ever.... Yes, I could have put in a new battery myself but I needed to grumble about them not noticing something so obviously wrong!

So, that's most of my Pennsic trip. I have tons more stories involving getting my herldry done finally (it took two HOURS just to get my NAME done. Which will hopefully offically be Isabella Mea Caterina D'Angelo. Yes, it's just my real name Italianized with my great great grandmother's last name. I'm not creative.), going Bodice shopping, and many other funny things like the A&S at Pennsic.

Comments

[orlacarey.livejournal.com]

Where ish are you? The only Rodman's I know is in DC so it makes me wonder if you are near me ish.

[isabelladangelo.livejournal.com]

I am. I'm over on the other side of the beltwayish in Bethesda. I think I actually saw you at Pennsic. I was staying with the Baron and Baroness of Storvik. :-) I was one of the "kids" hanging around mumbling amongst themselves.

[bluedoran.livejournal.com]

Do you want to plan a renfest trip? I have all weekends free after this weekend.

[isabelladangelo.livejournal.com]

sure. I'm going almost every weekend this year, again. :-)

[strawberrykaren.livejournal.com]

Hi, Isabella!

Were you were the person who entered these two items at the A&S Exhibitions? I'm trying to post correct captions, and all I remembered was that someone named "Isabella" made both items.

Sorry for being a total flake and not remembering your name (if this was your work -- and if it wasn't, I'm sorry for taking up your LJ with big photo posts) :)

[isabelladangelo.livejournal.com]

That's me! Thank you so much for posting the photos.

[strawberrykaren.livejournal.com]

You're welcome! Thought you might like to see the nice comments someone left on the photo (http://www.flickr.com/photos/strawberrykaren/222418482), too!

[isabelladangelo.livejournal.com]

That is so cool! I'm glad that people like the gown. Now, to try and up the level for next year. ::big evil grin::