excitedBut I am planning on meeting up with people in or near Baltimore, New York and Boston, and I have a few spare days with which I could travel to other places vaguely nearby. For ethical reasons (i.e. carbon dioxide levels) I will only use ground transport, & for practical reasons I don't really want to spend more than 5 hours at a time travelling. But apart from that anything goes :)
These are my plans so far:
Thursday 20th January - leave London Heathrow at 11am, arrive Baltimore ~3pm.
Friday 21st-Sunday 23rd January - alt.polycon 12
Monday 24th January - look at exciting tourist destinations in Baltimore (to be advised by
rivka and friends).Tuesday 25th January - dunno
Wednesday 26th January - go to New York on the bus ($20!)
Thursday 27th January - POKEMON CENTER!!
Friday 28th January - dunno
Saturday 29th January - go to Boston? Train is $66 from NY.
Sunday 30th January - dunno
Monday 31st January - leave Boston at ~7pm, arrive at Heathrow at 5.30am(!!) on Tuesday 1st February.
Most of this is flexible, apart from the flights and alt.polycon.
If you want to see me, let me know asap so I can try to work something into my schedule.
If you have somewhere I can stay, definitely let me know asap before I book hotels & hostels. If you don't have anywhere I can stay but know of a cheap and non-sleazy hotel or hostel in your town, that would also be helpful.
Also, if you are either a) a US person wanting stuff brought over from Europe or b) a UK person wanting stuff brought over from the US, let me know. If you'll be at alt.polycon it makes import easy, but if not I'm already bringing with me presents for
mactavish, jinian, elynne and griffen, which I'll put in the post from the US to save postage costs. So I don't really mind having to post more things. If you want anything bought at either end, I'll buy just about anything (except cigarettes or dead animal) as long as you can get the money to me somehow (cheque or cash in the UK, PayPal or cash at alt.polycon from USians). I will almost certainly be coming back through the Goods to Declare column at Customs (the likelihood of me spending less than £160 is low, bearing in mind the POKEMON CENTER), so if you're wanting to avoid import duty I'm probably not the best way to do this. Although you will only have to pay your share of the import duty and VAT, not the 300% "handling charge" that the various couriers stick on...
