Letter From America

Change of plans. I spent some time going over the maps last night. I think I'm going to head south-east instead of north, into West Virginia. It's down towards the Appallacian and Shenandoah mountains, which should be very nice scenery, plus it's towards Civil War country. I seem to remember there was a major campaign in the Shenandoah Valley. It's also going to be a more direct route to Maryland.

Last night I splashed out on a full meal at Damon's again, instead of the diner/ takouts I've been living on during the convention. The starter was the specialty of the house, what they call an "Onion Loaf". Imagine a whole load of onion rings, dipped in batter, and wedged into a loaf shape, about ten inches long and four wide/deep, served with a dipping sauce. And that was just the starter! I don't mind admitting I gave up halfway through. Main course was also a speciality of the house, barbecue ribs, with more buffalo hot chicken tenders. Side order was a serving of Chicken Rice, which I was very suprised to find was like a savoury rice pudding with bits of chicken in the sauce. Didn't like that much, but it wasn't like I was going hungry!

Off to breakfast, will post again when I can (if I'm not kidnapped by a clan of deranged feudin' hillbillies) but that's going to depend on when I can next find an internet cafe.

It's Sunday 4:20 local time, the convention has just closed, and I've just finished my last game. The game co-ordinators have kindly agreed to count my games, technically 3hrs 45 minutes long as 4 hour games, which means I put in enough hours to qualify for my cost of admission to be refunded (sadly they weren't able to do anything about the air fares or hotels :-)

It's been a real blast. I'm loving it here and the people are very nice. I've been invited to come back next year, and also to another convention run by one of the organisers, this one in California! Seeing how hard the heat is to bear here, I shudder to think what it'll be like there!

Running games the way did mean I didn't get to do much of the usual convention things, partly through scheduling conflicts and partly through sheer burnout, but it's been great just soaking up the atmosphere. I had two six-hour games I'd been booked into from the start, run by one of my co-authors. Of the other two games I tried to sign up for, one was fully booked, the other I turned up to along with three other players, but unfortunately the guy who was supposed to be running it didn't. Bugger!

Like I said I've met some really great people, some I knew before via the internet, now I can put faces to, others I've met for the first time.

So what now? Well I'm going to go get something to eat, take my bag back to the hotel and then I might have a bit of a walk. Since arriving I've only seen the road between the hotel and the convention centre, and the rest of Columbus has just been a skyline in the distance. I'm booked in at this hotel for one more night, and then I'm off on Monday. I've been looking at the maps, and I think I'm going to head up north from here to Lake Erie. That's one of the so called "Great Lakes", actually a big inland sea, that divide the US from Canada. I'm not sure whether I'm going to stay in Cleveland or the town of Erie itself, but I have a directory of hotels in the same chain as the one I'm in tonight, so I've got several options. The other alternatives are either to head due east to Pittsburgh, not the most picturesque of cities from what I hear, or south-west into West Virginia to the Appalacian mountains. It all depends what the weather forecast says, and whether I can trace a good route back from there to Maryland.

One last funny thing, people have started commenting on my accent. Some mistake it for Australian, as it's obviously not the English accent they hear on TV (think Joan Collins, Princess Di etc). But the funny thing is I've noticed myself talking more American. Not so much the accent itself as the phrasing of things "Yes thank-you, ma'am", "You have a nice day now!" etc.

Me hungry, go eat now. Will endeavour to post again from Cleveland/Erie or wherever, but can't guarantee I'll find an internet cafe as convenient as this, so it might not be tomorrow.

Sorry,couldn't write last night. Was involved in a game which went on till gone ten pm, and by that time I was away with the fairies with jet lag, plus the internet cafe here looked packed, so I didn't bother waiting. This morning I'm sat here with my iced mocha and it's almost empty.

The heat appears to have eased off a little. Apparently I arrived here just in time for the tail end of a heatwave/drought. It's still pretty hot, temperature up in the eighties (don't know what that is in centigrade), but I'm avoiding the worst of it by coming over to the convention centre early, and not leaving the building until late, when it's cooler.

I'm adjusting back to the time zone here, yesterday morning I woke up at 4am, this morning it was 6am. On the plus side it means I'm up and about for the early seminars here, unlike most other attendees. Yesterday I attended one that had a nine-am start, and there were three panellists and two audience members, including myself. And halfway through the seminar, the other woman got up and left!!!!!! Made the "question and answer" session interesting. "Any questions? Anyone? Anyone?? You sir, do you have a question?"

Yesterday's game that I ran went pretty well, although the players didn't seem to want to finish. I also got to meet Phil Viverito, who with his wife Lynne runs the company that publishes my book. He's given my my nine complimentary copies (one went to Chris Palmer) and a whole load of dead presidents (which is a slang phrase for paper money - each bears the portrait of an ex-president, Lincoln, Washington, Jackson etc.) and we discussed promoting the GASLIGHT games in the UK. Nice bloke.

I've just decided I'm probably not going to make the 8am seminar I'd planned to attend this morning. Got another packed day - I'm booked in to play a two hour demo game at 10am, immediately following that I'm running my game, and immediately following THAT I'm joining Chris & Jen Palmer for another 6 hour GASLIGHT game in the main hall.

Food - oh yeah I've been sampling the American Cuisine. Pancakes for breakfast - they're nothing like what we would call pancakes, being more bread-like in consistency. I ordered buttermilk pancakes with sausage - yeah sausage that's another thing, when yanks say sausage, they mean "sausage meat patty", basically burgers made of sausage meat a bit like those "square sausages" back home... anyway pancake and sausage, I'm thinking "are these supposed to be sweet? They're not savoury. Do I eat the pancakes with the meat, or separate?" I dunno, they were just too stodgy for me.

Next I tried another great American delicacy, the peanut butter and jelly sandwich. There's a store here that specialises in nuts and they do their own home-made peanut butter, which they spread on a sandwich, but then they spread on strawberry preserve or grape jelly, and top the lot off with sliced strawberries. It was actually surprisingly tasty, although the strawberry taste totally overrode the peanut taste, you got the crunchy texture which was nice. Unfortunately again this was very stodgy, and despite being very hungry I wasn't able to finish one sandwich.

Finally, with pride, I can announce that I've found a portion here that's actually smaller than in Britain.. There's a Greek fast-food place in the food court that do "pita sandwiches", what we would call a kebab back in Britain. Chicken (or other meat) and salad wrapped in a pitta bread. I ordered one, andI received a teeny-tiny itsy bitsy little thing about the size of a rolled up napkin. So Britain wins the kebab wars!

Message to Mum & Dad: If this is the first entry you've read, scroll down and read what I wrote last night and this morning. Everyone else I'm assuming you know the inns and outs of weblogs.

Ran my first game here today. I was a bit nervous, since (A) here people have to pay to play participation games at shows and (B) I was afraid maybe folks do things different over here, and they'd be disappointed with my British gaming style. But I have to say I got a great crowd of players that were really into it, and we all had a great time.

I've met up with Chris Palmer, co-author of the original game I based mine on, and his wife Jennifer. These are the people I'm going to be visiting for the 4th July celebrations. Very nice folks.

After running my game, I had a chance to look around the rest of the convention. It's simply massive! The largest show I've been to, Salute, which is held at Olympia in London, would fit twice into ONE of Origins' two main halls. And that's not including the countless meeting rooms in which demo games are being held (like mine).

Also a lot more weirdness around than at UK shows. There's the couple walking around in lab coats, wearing bowler hats with bunny-ears sticking out.... I don't know and I don't want to know... I've seen one woman walking around with a big pair of fairy wings on her back.. and there's the Klingon Jail. It's a charity thing, basically you pay $5 and a bunch of guys dressed up as Star Trek Aliens track down the person of your choice and "Arrest" them, and throw them in a big cage for ten minutes, or until they pay a fine, also for charity.

Might be suffering a bit from jet lag right now, it's just gone seven and I'm all in, calling it a day even though things are still going on at the con. Of course it could just be natural fatigue, from the journey and being on my feet all day.

Oh yeah, forgot to mention the heat, the staggering unimaginable heat. Inside the conference centre and the hotel it's lovely and cool thanks to the air conditioning, but on the short walk from the hotel to the centre (across the road, basically) the heat is... well I really can't describe it. It's like the air itself is burning, I swear I can smell burnt air. Even if the wind gets up, it's a red hot wind. Honestly it is hotter than I have ever experienced in the UK in my entire life. Thank god for air conditioning is all I can say. Anyway it's clouding over now, so I'm hoping the threatened thunderstorm will materialise soon and take the edge off the heat.

Going to go grab something to eat now, then turn in and recover my energies for tomorrow.

Hi again. If this is the first entry you've read, scroll down and read what I wrote last night.

After typing last night's entry I stumbled onto the pre-pre registration at the Origins convention, so I managed to get my entry badge to avoid all the crowds this morning. There was a bit of a to-do because their badge printing system couldn't handle addresses outside the US, and printed a ZZ on the badge instead of the State I was from. This meant the poor book-in flunkie couldn't be sure I was me. About a half hour of messing about finally got me sorted. This morning I've come in early and got the gen on the games I'm running, so I'm more or less ready for everything convention game wise - know which room I'm at and got the necessary forms etc.

After leaving the convention centre last night, I was on the lookout for something to eat, having not eaten since Atlanta. Damon's "Clubhouse", is a nice bar & grill just across from the hotel. $10 (about seven pounds sterling) will get you a massive plate of grilled chicken, fries and a big dip. I can understand why so many Americans are overweight! And I also discovered what Americans mean when they talk about "Buffalo Hot" marinades etc. Fortunately they give you free iced water without you asking for it!

Another thing I've noticed - water water everywhere. Everywhere sells bottled water, there are vending machines full of it, the Atlanta airport shop only had bottled water, no cokes or soft drinks. No tea or coffee making facilities in the hotel room - unlike every UK hotel I've ever stayed at! Unfortunatly the tapwater in the room comes out undrinkably warm, but the room contains a fridge so I've taken to pouring glasses of water and putting them in the chiller for half an hour before drinking.

And boy, you need the water here. The weather is oppressively hot and muggy - although all the interiors are air-conditioned and pleasantly cool, once you step outside the heat hits you BAM! Unfortunately it's quite overcast, and we're due for a thunderstorm later today.

Oh yeah, one other thing - Breakfast. The hotel I'm staying at said they served a "Complimentary Continental Breakfast". Which Continent? I want to know. Back home a Continental is cornflakes, fruit, and maybe toast. Here it's coffee and danish pastries. Land of the Free, Home of the Coronary Bypass at age 30.

Will post again after my game this evening.

Well here I am in Columbus Ohio. No problems with the flight, although we hit some pretty bad turbulence at one point. I followed Paul Ashton's advice and set my watch to US time almost as soon as we took off, and it seems to be staving off jet-lag - it's now 9:30 local time, and I've been on the go since 1:30am (US time) and not feeling too badddddzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Managed to briefly lose my camera at Atlanta, but miraculously it was waiting where I'd dropped it. No problems with the connection other than that.

The first thing that hits you as you're coming down to land in Atlanta is the dirt. It's the wrong colour, almost like sand. And of course they drive on the wrong side of the road :-)

I was very nervous about getting through Immigration and Customs, but in the event it was a breeze. I got more of a grilling at the Manchester end of the trip in fact!

I'm booked in at the hotel (Red Roof Inn), and I've just come out looking for something to eat (airline food is OK, but......). I've found this internet cafe in the convention centre that charges by the minute, so there shouldn't be a problem updating this page over the next few days at least.

Tomorrow the convention itself starts. And tomorrow afternoon, I'll be running my first game for the paying public. Adrenaline's brown, as they say.

CPJ

Hello there.

If you're reading this, the odds are you're either friends or family and know what this is all about. But just in case you're stumbled across this diary by accident here's the story. My name's Chris Johnston, I've written an RPG book called "Adventures and Expeditions by GASLIGHT", a supplement for the incredibly successful "GASLIGHT" tabletop wargames rules by Chris Palmer and Buck Surdu.

So to help promote the game, I'm going to the Origins 2003 gaming convention in Columbus Ohio, where I'm running four games. After the convention is finished, I'm spending a week an a half visiting the Eastern US before flying home.

This isn't only the first holiday I've had in a long time, it's the first time I've *ever* been abroad, so it's definitely going to be a bit of an adventure.

While I'm out there, I'm going to try to update this diary at least every other day, mainly as a way of writing home to my folks. I'll be reading my personal email address (not work) so if anyone wants to drop me a line and say hi, you can reach me at chris.johnston at gaslightrules.com (replace the word "at" with @)