All right, so blowing off responsibility to go have a killer time being a history-obsessed fangirl? So worth it.

Spent Saturday learning dances- even managed to slip into Middle Eastern dance as well as English Country, Italian, Branles and other such things. I admit that I totally did skip out of the Italian dances after the hardest one ever. When in doubt, bounce. That's all I learned. I got to hear Modar talk about Heraldry and learn how to carve a quill pen. I even got my first attempt at writing with one reviewed very kindly. Yay! 

The ball was beyond amazing, like always. Somehow I was suckered into Toss the Wench. I hate being tossed, although Anton did throw me onto poor Corros' foot. Like with laser accuracy.

Trenchmore with one line... a zillion couples... total trainwreck, but I didn't stop laughing. The fact my partner and I switched genders somehow at the end of the line and didn't notice was interesting.

Oh, and spikedearheart got to wear her new gorgeous silk gown for the ball! She looked a little like a painting, I gotta say.

Then we hit post revel with a gallon of Capt Morgan and half a fifth of tequila. We being of course me and spikedearheart , with corros (zephyrofgod  was our token sober person). Got to hang out with a ton of friends, and make some new ones.

There were some very interesting conversations, as always. I met other people who are A Song of Ice and Fire fans. And one of them adored Ned Stark. I was so sad. ;P  Apparently somewhere waaaay into the early morning someone mentioned Anita Blake in my presence and got a drunken-Summer explanation of the plot and of having sex with were-swans.

I also fangirled someone who is in an upcoming tournament as Saladin. I may have turned into his personal puppy for a couple minutes. Saladin is just awesome like that... Then there was the awesome person who had a tattoo of the planetary alignment from Dark Crystal. I think  I might have tackled him. Oops.  But in general it was a usual episode of me getting shammered with awesome friends.

We wound up being at post revel until 6am. I have no idea how it got to be that late/early... but it did. Went for breakfast and then went back to our crashspace and passed out cold. I don't think I actually sobered up until sometime near noon and there was no actual functioning that day. That 4 hour ride home was so not my favorite part of the trip. Ugh.

I'm sure lots of other things happened too, which  huscarl105  and zephyr and spike will fully remind me of later, but for now, I need to crash out and go curl up and eat pizza.

You know it's going to be an awesome day when your first class of the morning is "Flirting and Dance." This is how I knew that my first ever SCA event was going to rock my socks, your socks, everybody's socks. I was not mistaken. 

Now that was a hell of a title for a class so of course Zephyr, S and I headed straight for it. Their thoughts of heraldry did not quite compete with what basically amounted to "Do This and Get Play 101... oh, and we'll teach you nifty dancy things." Which was of course exactly what it was. Plus I learned how to effectively tuck my damned long dress up and get it out of my way. Then we learned all about how to dance and non-verbally say "I... fancy you." and "Would you like a cup of tea? And by 'cup of tea' I mean 'to shag like bunnies'?" as well as "Look, I'm here on a mission of pity/because my parents are forcing me to marry you." 

Zephyr did my hair using a technique called hair taping, which was suprisingly fast, simple, effective AND period, plus it looked damn cool. I had the blue Renaissance gown I got long ago and combined, I got a huge number of compliments. I am such the Renaissance hottie, aren't I? 

Anyway, I stayed in the class for the next period while Zephyr absconded to heraldry class or some such silliness (omg, why would anyone ever want to do anything that was not dancing?) Turns out the next dance class was, um, advanced English Country. Heh. Lucky for me I had a set of very patient teachers and classmates (and Mrs Smith back in grade school had drilled square dancing into my head, which helped). So I just sort of stayed there for the next class... and the next. 

There was lunch break and we had yummy food and were late returning because we had to make a run to Salvation Army so Zephy's bf could snag a replacement shirt and S could grab a belt... I grabbed one too because my dress just would not stay tucked up. Renaissance girls spent half  their lives dealing with wardrobe malfunctions. 

The belt was like 35 cents and it was well spent becuase it was this little white bit of trim that held up my 10,000 lb of velveteen very well. 

Then there was more dancing and I was revelling in it. I'm ever more convinced that if you stuck me into an Italian or French court (or heck, I'd settle for an English one too) I would have danced myself to death and been ecstatic about it. 

Then came court, which was mercifully short since it was held in a classroom. Then there was... the ball. Guess what happened there? Oh, yes. More dancing.  The ball went until after midnight and I sat out a grand total of 3 dances. Maybe 4. 

I had the surreal experience of being rescued by Her Majesty Queen Isibeau after being "landsharked" mid-dance (one of the heralds steps in and steals your partner forcing you to wait til the next turn to steal someone else's). She grabbed my hand and pulled me into the line with her, without missing a beat. 

I actually ended up partners with one of our dance instructors for about half the night, and became friends with a girl who is sort of apprentice instructor. She'll be teaching several classes at Lillies and I long to go, but my cursed Digital Photography class will be going on right then- and since I'll be driving up to the Ville and back, working, sleeping, repeat, I don't know how I'll clear more than maybe a day and night. And the matter of camping equipment will be a problem too. ... but, we'll see. I'm going to try to figure something out in by a couple weeks into May. 

Yes, apparently the way you can lure me into anything is by saying "But there will be dancing."  Add in men in tights, and guys bashing one another with swords and I'm in danger of swooning. 

By the last dance I gave in and collapsed on one of the large mats in the gymnasium and  talked to Herman, one of the heralds. Or perhaps The Herald, as I haven't a clue how ranking goes. We were joined by the king, who was really nice about explaining SCA terms and oh yeah, he plays the drums. With an injured hand. He's hardcore, the king. Also, his crown was annoying him. I found that hilarious. 

The king was like "And you are all coming  to post revel, yes?" 

Much yessing was said and then I had to be the silly new girl and go "Sure.. but, uh, what is a post-revel?" 

"Like a wrap-party. But with more booze." This came from the Herald. 

Oh, hallelujah! 

The post revel was at a cabin in 1,000 Hills park, and our party came bearing margaritas (my contribution), beer, and assorted other goodies. 

Okay, so if you never experience a post revel like this one, you are missing out. Getting happy tipsy while listening to people sing silly songs like Beneath The Scotsman's Kilt or serious ancient songs like parts of Roland or just... yeah. Plus the conversation kept me laughing my butt off.

So in the end I had an amazing time. Many many thanks to the awesome people who worked so hard in Bellewode to put the event on, and to everyone who made it unforgettable. 

I won't go into the attack of motion sickness/sinus issues/imminent omgsosick on the way home. the reason why showed up on Monday: I'm sick as a freaking dog. Every time I have a bad reaction to alcohol it's because I'm already getting sick, but I never realize that. Sigh. It was silly on my part though- Kitty and I didn't go to bed on Thursday, so I only had 2 hours sleep and we stayed up late when we got to Bellewode on Friday so there were only 5 hours of sleep that day. What with ball and post-revel we left at like 3 or something, so that explains it.