From Anthro NortWest to Midwest FurFest

This is going to be crazy, that I really don't know where to start.

From the beginning, of course!

Anthro NorthWest

November 8th, 2018. That's the date I decided to leave home to the American adventure. Arriving to Seattle, the first surprise was a big dinosaur (those classic inflatable disguises that internet has been selling and making videos of them), he was waiting for someone and wanted to give them a funny surprise, I wanted to see the moment the surprise was released but I couldn't, I waited forever nearby, but the dinosaur waited even more than forever, hopefully his plan was a success, all people taking him pictures at the airport and asking him questions, surely it could be odd for him, he didn't seem very energetic to surprise other people, he only wants to surprise somebody else and it was not arriving. I tried to take an Uber or a Lyft but the price from the airport to the ANW hotel was very pricey, but I had a guardian angel named Blaze Collie who asked me, at the very right time, if I wanted a ride to the hotel. He asked me one second before clicking "confirm" and spending +$45 on a Lyft.

It was my very first time in the Washington state, thus it was my first time at ANW (and I never could go to Rainfurrest). And that same evening is when I met my friend Polaris Beaver, who is the one I shared room at that convention with.

If I'd write a review for Anthro NorthWest, would be only good things. Everyone was calling it a "small con", but honestly it was bigger than I expected. Around 1,300 attendees is something, I knew many friends who couldn't attend because they were sold out of registration.
They really take care of their attendees, and do the possible to make them live a different but enjoyable experience.

I love when conventions have their own mascot, it is not a surprise that I'm in love with Mausie, from NFC, and I loved that Pounce, from Megaplex, was very important as the one who represents the event. Andy was not the exception, when, being honest, I was not completely in love of the fursuit, I really think it could have looked better, but it is not a big issue, Andy has his charm; but what I loved from Andy is the personality and the energy of the performer, he's a character, and he does a really good job at the time painting you a smile. Andy is something important at ANW, you see him everywhere, and acting like the host from the event, so you feel important when he waves at you or gives you a hug.

People could see art by me everywhere on the event, I was invited to participate on the art of the event and I easily got in love with Andy the mascot, so suddenly I ended up doing a lot of art for the convention (to my surprise, that made me earn a shiny sponsor entrance (thanks, ANW!), honestly that was never my goal of making too much art for it, I was just doing it for the love of the fandom). And that was funny because many people during the event thought I was the Guest of Honor, including one of the staff, when I saw Andy once, and I asked him for a hug, his handler (who was someone from the staff) said "eh, it is Paco Panda, the Guest of Honor, let me take you a picture with Andy!" .... I'm not the Guest of Honor...but...okay!! I can't complain having a picture with Andy. But I could met the real ANW's Guest of Honor, Leilia Spaniel. She's a sweet heart, also a very interesting panel she run about fursuiting in charities, very inspiring.

The artist alley at ANW was at evening, from 7pm to 10pm, something unusual at cons, and when I knew that, I was worrying a little. I pictured myself the situation like this: only few artists on their tables, empty room, looking at each other, while everyone is going to the dances. But no, that was another good surprise, people really went to the nocturnal artist alley and artists were busy. I enjoyed that especially because I was only working at evenings, and I could really attend panels and events during the day, something that I'm barely able to do at any con, I'm always missing panels and events for being at the artist alley, and this time was the exception, that's why I could go to the Leilia's panel, a panel about drawing human body, the furry film festival (which was awesome, and also was a surprise for me watching a music video displayed on that festival where I appear), a panel about speaking in fursuit, I finally could make the Fuzzy Logic Escape Room for first time (and we failed, we were only 2 guys trying to solve the puzzles), the dance competition and the talent show.

Participating on the "Doodles for Charity" was a great and fun experience for me. I think more attendees should know about this event, it seemed that only the people who were passing by and saw a bunch of fursuiters (and Uncle Kage) drawing in fursuit with crayons knew about this event. And not all the people were awared they could get a free doodle by any of us, maybe they thought we were drawing just because, just to look cute, hehe. So I started offering to the people who was walking by "Hey, I can draw your fursona!!" and I made a quick silly doodle of a panda saying "I can draw your fursona!". I saw a lady with her furry little daughter (I'm very sure it was a girl who appeared on the CNN documentary, on the parents and kids panel), and I told them "do you want me to draw your fursona", and the lady said "No thank you, my daughter can draw!" :'C
I also can draw T_T and I've paid looooot of money for commissions to other artists because I'm so addicted to art.
But the event was fun, some cute fursuiters arrived and wanted me to draw them (like Cinder Collie or Tucker, I also drew Hubcap, the one who organized that event), and when the event was over someone that I didn't know took the drawing I did of my panda offering drawings. We collected $260.95 in tips for charity. Woo hoo!!!

We also were, after the closing ceremonies and receiving a medal for contruibuiting on the event (thanks again, ANW!), on a furry wedding, of Allison Wier and John Hartney, the same guys from the marriage proposal at the end of the CNN documentary. They got married in fursuit. It was very nice. Another good experience.

I met many new people at ANW, I enjoyed a lot the convention because I could have lot of free time to actually be at the con, spending time with people, making new friends, hanging out with old friends who were surprised I was there (probably the only mexican dude at the convention, oh no wait, there was someone who said hi in spanish!!), and I got many free things: a free Andy plushie, free shirts, free bubble gums, free chocolates (on the wedding), free breakfast (at MFF, thanks once again, ANW!), free hugs, free good time on a ball pit (I didn't have to pay extra for it, can you imagine that? :D ), and an extremely good time. I'm considering hardly to come back next year to ANW 2019, especially since it will be at a new and bigger venue.

If you want to see pictures of the convention:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/jedfcn3kr854j6r/AAClpkmqY5tD...

Seattle

Did I say that it was my first time in Washington state? I couldn't miss the chance to explore around, and accepting many invitations from friends to visit them. Thanks to

kipFox

, Blaze Collie, Hex Husky, and Makati. I really had an amazing time with each one of them. I'm sorry if I'm a little quiet, I'm not a very talkative person, but always try to not be very awkward, even if I understand perfectly English and I speak it (not perfectly, but I always try, at least communication is possible). I really had a good time with each one of you, thanks for spending your time on being a good host for this derpy monochromatic bear.

With Kip Fox and his roomie Eunos went to the Snoqualmie Falls, a waterfall near by Seattle, very impressive. I really want to go to natural places, and Washington is surrounded by many forests that make me feel like in the Twilight movie. (A personal stupid guilty desire is going, once, to Forks, WA).
Going to those falls was an unexpected plan, Kip wanted to take me to the mountain (that people in Seattle call them "mountnt"), but for the California's fire, it was very foggy and smokey, it would have been impossible to see a thing up there. But I'm so glad we could make it to those falls, were beautiful.

Oh but a day before, we went to the Starbucks reserve, with Kip, his roomie DS and Polaris Beaver, and at that evening, celebrated the Doryuu's birthday, a surprise for him that I was there, a surprise for me to see many known faces at that dinner, even faces that I couldn't see at the convention.

Kip was so mean and gave me to taste a super spicy hot sauce, daring me to try it just for being mexican. Haha, it was very delicious!! But he didn't lie saying it was very hot, because it was super hot, I had to drink a lot of milk.

Next day I spent it with Blaze Collie, who took me to a Mexican restaurant (because of course, if you have an authentic mexican, you want them to try the mexican food in America, haha but that place got my approval, it was good, the only thing was not completely authentic were the tortillas), and a burger place with a very unfortunate name "Dick's". It was a more educational day with him, going to the museum of flight, seeing the first Starbucks but going to another local coffee shop which actually was good, knowing about apps and all the business behind them, ending up at a curiosity shop that was more like a museum, and seeing gross wall gums.

My time with Hex Husky was more chilling, when I thought with him was going to be more party mode. But I enjoyed it a lot, he took me to many beautiful parks around Seattle, to the Japanese garden, Gas Works park, and Green lake park. It was the perfect time to stop using the Auto mode on the camera and trying interesting shots, Hex was also very into taking good shots, trying compositions and also balancing colors on the enviroment to get good results on pictures. I enjoyed that nerd mode we had at the time taking photographies. I'm more into finding compositions and shapes, I'm so bad understanding technical aspects with cameras *shame on me*

Bad thing and I'm still feeling guilty is that we wanted to go to the presentation of the new album of Avian invasion, we got tickets even before traveling to Seattle. I knew it was an event for +21, but when I'm going out, especially late night, and that I was carrying with fursuit (it was a fursuit friendly event), I don't want to be carrying with my passport (it's the only thing I can't lose when I'm in another country), so I asked Hex if I was fine with only my mexican ID, he researched about Washington laws with clubs and alcohol, and he said it was fine even if it was a foreign ID, as long as it was governmental. But at the time we were on the entrance, they didn't allow me to enter with that ID, because they required obligatorily to see my passport if I was foreign, I tried to show them a picture of my passport on my phone, but that didn't work either. The NO was an absolute No :(
And we didn't have time enough for going back to the Hex's house and then returning to the club with my passport, at that time, the event would have been ended. I'm still feeling it was my fault that he missed the event.

My time with Makiati was also really nice, he drives a Tesla, so I felt super fancy being on the front seat of that car which can drive by itself (It is the one which at Megaplex I drew on its touch screen), and also his house is BIG, I remember the first morning, after waking up, being very confused where he told me the bathroom was, there were many doors and all of them looked the same, and I was shy to open a door and that it was the room of one of his room mates, and yeah, the first door I opened... was a room, oops!

Many fun activities happened on my days with Makiati, we suited on his house (did you see the pictures of me with the box? hanging out with a cat was making me act like one), tried bacon soda (which...was not bad as I thought, but not excellent, I couldn't finish it), we went to the Seattle underground tour (I didn't know Seattle was build over an old town, wow!), we went to the Columbia's observatory, played crappy mexican rock on his car, watched the CNN documentary on his house, and went to the Space Needle to be rejected because they don't like furries.

Oh yeah, that's another story, he organized a fursuit meeting to go to the Space Needle, we were Gabriel, Hex, Nullreff, Bedtime bear, him and me. And when we tried to go up to the space needle, they didn't allow us to enter, not even showing our real face. It was not a sad night, we keep our path, took the monorail, ended up in downtown, while we were walking and goofind around, I remember a lady being very excited to see us, she took us pictures and yelled "This is why I love Seattle!!". When we returned to the car, we decided to go to the movies to watch the new Wreck it Ralph movie; Makiati and me didn't bring anything else with us but the fursuits, we didn't have regular clothes, so we went to the movies in fursuit (they accepted us, because theaters love fluffy animals). At the next day, there was a tweet of someone who recognized me in the theater "Last night I went to the movies to see the new Ralph movie and I think it was Paco Panda in front of me".

Many good experiences in Seattle, the convention and my time there was amazing.

Pics of this part of the trip:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/8i7ezbxahbi4ii0/AADEC87tA9h-...

San Jose, CA.

The day I took my flight for going from Seattle to San Francisco (my next stop), was a day spent at the airport, because it was delayed for 6 hours. A shame because my friends in San Jose, were waiting for me to go for dinner, they had a reservation at 8pm, good because originally I was arriving at 3pm. And yes, I was arriving to the San Francisco airport, to take the train and going to San Jose (for some reason, the flight Seattle - San Jose was very expensive, and the Seattle - San Francisco flight was free for me, because a previous United bad experience that made me have a free flight, with all the restrictions of the world, but at least I could change it for THAT flight, which was also delayed, and this time I received nothing). The dinner was postponed to the next saturday and I was kind of embarrased because I felt it was my fault.
When I took the train, every station was on time, so I was supposed to arrive at 10:11pm with my friends, but a station before the one I had to arrive, the train stopped for more than 30 minutes, and in the end, Croc and Bacon went to that station I was stucked, to pick me up. On the train's speakers they only announced we had a delay, but never explained what was going on, but when I was picked by them, I could see a fire truck, an ambulance and cops arriving to the place, so definitely something serious happened. But well, I was there with them, finally. I love being with Croc and company, they always make me feel like I'm home.

I celebrated for very first time in my life a Thanksgiving, with Bacon, Croc, Badger and his boyfriend. Lot of food and all of it was super good!! I got fat!
I enjoyed on a very particular way my days there, only chilling at his house, watching movies, playing videogames, talking, watching weird videos, watching videos from old furry conventions. I needed a time like that before the big rush time of MFF.

Two days later, we made that plan of the dinner with Chance and Furahi, which originally was planned on Wednesday, and they moved it to Saturday because me *blushes*. It was a really awesome evening, full of yummy expensive food, bouncing balls that bounce down a hill, unexpected closed streets by cops, and watching how Croc played a videogame till late hours.

Ah, and we went to the movies to watch the Wreck it Ralph movie, second time for me. Maybe that's something I never told Croc and Bacon, that I had already seen it, it's because I really wanted to watch it again, I liked it, and I was afraid that if I said that I had already watched it, they wanted to change the plans.

Also I'm very glad to have spent time with them before MFF, because during the con, I saw Croc only twice in fursuit, less than a minute each, and I never got to see Bacon there, not even Badger. I saw Jimmy more times there, good because he was not at home when I visited them.

Chicago pt. 1

My airport curse, my flight was delayed, once again, but this time for 7 hours, it was very annoying, because the delayed flight was in Minneapolis (my flight had a stopover), if I knew the delay was for 7 hours, I could have hanged out with a friend from Minneapolis, he was asking me if I was able to see us, but at first I told him my stop there was only 30 minutes, and when it said the flight was delayed, it said only for 1 hour, but when it was about to be that hour, it increased the time, and that action was consecutive for 7 hours, if it had said "delayed for 7 hours" from the beginning, I could have called my friend. I know it was not the airline or the airport faults, in Chicago was a snowstorm.

But it was beautiful to arrive to Chicago and see everything covered by snow, I always enjoy that. Also I could see a snowfall again. You know that I love that, so the delayed flight was worth it only because that. Ha, but when I arrived to the Chicago's airport, I could see that at O'Hare everything was even worse, for the people wanted to depart from Chicago to somewhere else, I saw a flight scheduled for 6 in the morning and the status was 11:30pm
No people, don't leave Chicago on the MFF's weekend!!

I stayed a couple of days with

ShilohCorgsky

before the convention, we had a pizza and "drawn together" evening with Cosmic Wuffy. I stayed one night at the Comfort Inn (3 miles away MFF) with @Moof , Horo, Koby and

KoidelCoyote

. We had a crappy dinner at IHOP, which I'm also feel guilty, because I recommended them IHOP (I had only tried it in Mexico, and it is good, the best pancakes from a food chain, but it seems that in America that's all the opposite, the pancakes were terrible), and since we were 2 British and 2 Mexicans, we didn't know at all, we should have had to follow Koby, who prefered to skip ihop and he went to a burger place. He said it was good.

MFF

Finally MFF!! The penultimate stop of the trip.
What can I say about MFF? It's my favorite convention of the year, even if it's too big, that I barely can hang out with friends for a long time, that it is very easy to miss seeing somebody you wanted to see, and that are many things to do and there is no time enough for everything... there is something magical at that convention that makes me love it so much, maybe is because it feels like Christmas with furries, that good vibe that thousand of peoples are having fun at the same time at a same place.

I can't complain of the 2 hours and a half waiting for the registration, even if I was pre-reg, I could have a good talk with many people on the line, like

TribalMouse

,

TaichiHaruki

, Mosfet, Koidel,

Ruakuu

, Gecko and AirBud. I had arrived to the long line by myself and the first hour I was alone, but I was finding all those guys while the line was advancing and the curves made those meetings something possible. Also...what did we expect attending an event of +10K of attendees?

I saw people I hadn't seen during the year, or those who I was repeating seeing them at every American con I attended, or even that I saw at international cons, I had my creepers who I had to be running away from (thanks, @BuckleyDeer ,

RabidRabbit

and Koidel, for saving me), the group of panda bears had our elitist meetings (that's how another bear called us. "You, pandas, are super elitist, all time hanging out together and invading the bear photoshoot", well, we are very few in this world, we need to be united).

Not surprise for anyone, I filled the commission list at con in 10 minutes at the artist alley, I sold many books, received many gifts, I also gave some gifts, drew nerdly with another artists, attended the inflatable panel because is like a fun playgound for fursuiters, it is always fun to be there; also attended the Adler the eagle's panel, which was very funny, I could take a picture with him, yay! It was unfortunate that his panel was at exactly the same time than the Cutthroat artist, I wanted to see that event too!! They were RedWulf, Koidel and Jib Kodi on a funny drawing contest, I didn't want to miss it, but... I also wanted to see Adler. It was a hard decision. Koidel told me he was going to record the cutthroat artist, not sure if he did it.

It was funny that I didn't go too much at the night dances. I was carrying with a messenger bag with me in fursuit, because I wanted to be giving gifts and also I was receiving gifts that I needed a place where to storage them while I was in fursuit, and every time I wanted to go in the dance, they had to check my bag; the music was strange, very hard to dance with that, and they didn't allow more than 5 fursuiters on the stage (that's something I always enjoyed, to be on the stage dancing), and there were always a line of fursuiters waiting for their turn. I prefered to be out on the halls and the Hyatt just goofing with more fursuiters, skipping, playing, it was more enjoyable for me.

Pics from MFF:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/bgwy6t2a6v93e39/AABbI2jAY4QS...

Chicago pt. 2

After MFF, I have a tradition to go to Chicago downtown to spend a couple of days more with friends, this year was not the exception, it was my 5th time in Chicago, and for a moment, I was thinking that may be a little repetitive, since we already know all the sightseenable of Chicago. This time we were going Moof, Horo, Koidel and me, but Nyt and Cajun joined the plan at the last minute, and they got to be on the same hotel than us, so it was like stretching MFF, including room parties (yeah, we played Mario Party and Mario Kart), and spend more time with all of them out of a convention, which was golden time for me.

Finally I got to go to one of those German Christmas markets, I remember doing some years ago a commission related to those markets, and I was always curious to be in one of those, this time I finally made it, and tried the hot apple cider (finding out that it is very similar to the mexican "ponche")

After Chicago, and spending the last evening on a Nutella coffee shop (a little disappointing, I think even Starbucks has better coffee), we finally took a flight back home; with overweight on our luggage which was no charged because frequent customer on the airline, we finally made it back home.

I would love to mention ALL the people I met or I hanged out with during this trip, it would be impossible, they are more than 150 names, and I'm sure I would forget somebody. But you know who you are, and I appreciate your friendship, I love a lot each one of you!! And thanks for reading my journal, I know there is many people who read it, and that pushes me to keep writting these trip by trip. If you read ALL the journal, let me know..what is your favorite holiday on the year?

Bye!! *panda loves*