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pandapaco

FC 2020: A New Californian Adventure

I need to introduce this journal saying this was an amazing trip, it was spectacularly better than I expected, and I really had too many expectations about this.

The trip was getting closer, and I was, as always, very busy finishing many drawings with deadlines and getting ready for my two weeks’ absence at home, and it was when I found I had bought my tickets in a very weird way. I purchased the flight tickets way before and I’m not sure if I was not completely conscious or why I did take the decision to take a flight from Mexico City to Tijuana (I’m from Guadalajara, Mexico City is 7 hours driving away from me), so I had to figure out how to get to Mexico City, usually I take flights, but there were no flights that could fit in the time for getting that next one, so I had to take a nocturnal bus. And that’s not all, the flight had a layover in Hermosillo, the capital city of Sonora, but still a little town, with the smallest airport I’ve ever been. And my destination was not Tijuana, I chose to arrive there because I could easily cross the border from the airport to get in San Diego, California.

SAN DIEGO

After more than 12 hours traveling, immediately arriving to San Diego, I was picked by my friend Kazan, and his human roomie Joseph. (Well, I waited for them for an hour). We had Dim Sum for breakfast, and they drove me to a little town that is one hour away San Diego: Julian, where we went to a tour around an old gold mine, where the tour guide made a birthday ritual for me in the dark of the mine. Haha, that sounds so wrong but it was fine, but it was during a demonstration of how dark was the mine for the miners who had to be working with the light of candles, and he asked who was going to celebrate their birthday, and mine was a week ahead, so the tour sung for me the American birthday song while we were in the dark.
Out the mines, we met my friend
foxito
foxito
, who I hadn’t seen him since 2017, and he took a session of pictures around the mines to Kazan and me in fursuit. Pictures that I haven’t seen, yet. Hopefully soon.

Another thing we knew about Julian, CA. other than their gold mines and how old western the place looks, was that the town is famous for their apple pie, and they were right, we went to a restaurant of pies, I tried the classic apple pie with a coffee and it was delicious. After it we went to have dinner to a place which looked like taken from a Western movie, and we ordered hot apple cider, which were huge, American size!

Next day, and my last complete day in San Diego, Kazan took me to the Safari Park. It was my second time in San Diego, and I had already visited the San Diego zoo, when it already had their pandas (main reason I wanted to go to San Diego back then), but this time was time for the Safari Park, another extension of the San Diego Zoo. It took us a big part of the day, and it was a nice experience, I never say no to go to zoos, I love seeing animals and taking them pictures, the nicest thing on that zoo was getting the chance to see a cheetah running. Going out the zoo, we went to have dinner to a Korean BBQ, which was not all you can eat, sadly, but it was also very nice. And the day ended with a nice board game: Betrayal at House on the Hill. I’m usually more of very classic mainstream board games like Monopoly, Life or Trouble, but that one was a really fun one and very easy to understand.

I only planned to stay 2 days in San Diego, from there going to San José, CA by train, but train was expensive and according the webpage, it didn’t allow to passengers to carry too much luggage, and I was carrying with two big suitcases, a carry on and a big backpack, it was like if I were moving, but nop, just a silly furry carrying with two fursuits. So I found a cheaper option that was taking a Greyhound bus. It was not enough my first (horrible) experience taking a bus of that line two years ago, I had to repeat it. A toilet smelling bus with lot of people who some of them didn’t take a shower in days, with no curtains, the sun through the window with no mercy, and definitely no AC, for 11 hours. But I always see the Brightside, I was crossing many nice landscapes, I could see for first time the Hollywood sign, and… even if I’m not of playing games on the mobile, I installed a game for the iPad: Papers please, which got me very addicted for hours, so the trip was faster than it was.

If you want to check my pictures of my San Diego trip:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/cej7si5o1xmaut6/AACEdNX1wHRF...

SAN JOSÉ

Sometimes I’m so shy to ask over and over again my friend Croc to crash at his place when I’m in San Jose, I worry that I’m a nuisance for him and/or his mates, but he’s one of my best friends and I enjoy spending time with him and his partners. This time I had a better reason to visit him, and it was that Henrieke and Karpour were also visiting them. They are two of my most favorite artists, I just met them a year ago during NordicFuzzCon, and I became friend of them, they told me they were coming to America for Further Confusion, and spending time around the area before the convention, and they offered me to be with them.

The first day was very well-timed that I needed to go to a postal office; Karpour and Henrieke needed to go to a mall for buying a SIM card, and the mall that we went had also a postal office. We ate at Red Robins, ordering a tower of onion rings for the three of us, and the size of that tower reminded us that we were in United States. I finally tried the Cream Soda that my friend Shorty had recommended me to try, and it was delicious. At that mall, we also went to an arcade, where Karpour found a dancing game that, according him, it was only in Japan, and he was wanting to play it, I also danced one game and I was not so terrible (it was on easy mode, of course). I also played Mario and Sonic at Olympic games, and Mario Kart, with Henrieke. Then we went to a Mexican supermarket, we bought some Jarritos, and I was surprised they have the Mamut cookies for sale, with the illustrations I did almost 6 years ago. They bought a box of those.

The next day, Croc, Bacon, Yippee, Henrieke, Karpour and I, went to Sierra Vista, some hills that have a wonderful view to San Jose, that look like coming from a Windows XP wallpaper, we went during golden hour, so the view and the lighting was amazing, especially for pictures. We rewarded ourselves with a coffee in Starbucks and then a delicious dinner of deep dish pizza, where we had to wait more than 30 minutes, but that time went so fast since we were drawing and chatting, I did an art trade with Karpour.

Check my pics of this part of the trip here:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/lik0r4wuj4uan0y/AAB1R19kttlz...

SAN FRANCISCO

One awesome plan I was kind of shy to have sticked with Karpour, Henrieke and SlyCat, was going to San Francisco. I was embarrassed to be part of that plan because they had planned that the three of them, and I decided to join to it some weeks before, when they already have a room booked, but they were nice to me and welcomed me in the plan. I was wanting to go back to San Francisco, last time I was there, I only be there less than a day and I thought it was a very nice city. We stayed in a historical hostel on the Fort Mason, it was a very cool place but for a moment I was missing the amenities of a hotel, I was sharing room with a guy who seemed dangerous, I found a knife on the drawer that supposed to correspond to my bed, I was about to report it because I thought a previous guest had left it there and I didn’t want them to think that was mine, but it was from that guy, besides him it was a guy who hadn’t taken a shower for days, his scent was very powerful, we had to share the shower, and the water was very cold, it was that moment that I would have preferred to pay some extra dollars per night to stay in a comfortable hotel, but that feeling was over very fast, I thought it was part of the adventure, and it was something I would remember as part of the experience.

Our first day on San Francisco, Tachi was our local tour guide, we walked on the Salesforce park, then he took us to the Japanese Town and a place full of Pinball machines, to end the day at Tachi’s place, where we ate pizza and enjoyed the amazing view he has on his terrace to the San Francisco skyline and the SF-Oakland bridge.

Next day we walked around Pier 39, having some coffee while seeing (and smelling) the sea lions lying around the pier (I will never forget that Majira, two years ago back in Mexico, thought that “Malecon” was about a convention of males, but that’s the Spanish word for Pier). And that day it happened one of the things I never thought I could do, and it was visiting the Pixar Animation Studios. Thanks to Henrieke, who has the right contacts and she had befriended Jeff Pidgeon, one of the animators and voice actors of Pixar, and he could invite us to the studios. It was like a dream come true to be in that place, with me, being a big fan of Pixar for most part of my life (my obsession for Pixar started with Finding Nemo, and realizing I had loved all the movies they had done). I was fanboying inside while Jeff was giving us the tour and explaining how was the art process of Toy Story 4.

We wanted to see the sunset in San Francisco, and we went to the Coit Tower to see it, but it was unfortunate that the tower was closed before sunset, so we just watched it on the hill where the tower is, and from there we walked through Lombard street to see the famous serpentine street, it was also an experience to walk those steep streets of San Francisco. Even when part of our group was tired, we walked to Pier 45 to check the Musée Mécanique to check and to spend many quarters on those old coin machines, it was very fun.

Our last day in San Francisco, before coming back to San José for Further Confusion, we divided the group, because some of us wanted to go to the Walt Disney Family Museum, but others had visited it yet and they wanted to do other things, it was a great museum, I would have loved to check it with calm and read absolute everything about the life of Walt Disney, at first I thought 2 hours were going to be enough to check all the museum but it was not, we had to rush a little bit. That part of the day was very rushing, but in a fun way, we had to meet together again and catch the train back to San José, we barely had time to eat something so we bought some slices of pizza. We run to the train, and we ate our pizza slices in our way back to San José.

I took too many pictures of this part of the trip, if you want to check them, are here:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ilanshd8rq6iryv/AADoqOpINrV_...

FURTHER CONFUSION

Two years ago, I attended Further Confusion for first time, I have too many friends from the bay area, and all of them attend FC year by year, so even if it is a very bad time of the year for me to travel (many expenses to pay for the beginning of the year, Roni’s and my birthday, and, for some reason, not very cheap flight tickets from Guadalajara to San Jose (but the other way back, are very cheap) ), I wanted to attend, and I’m not sure what happened back then. The trip before the convention was amazing, I visited too many friends in San Diego and San Jose as this year, and they wanted to take me to many places, it was very nice, but the convention, FC 2018, was so boring for me, it was like all my friends were busy, and there were many moments I had no idea what else to do, so I had decided to not come again to Further Confusion, it was not a bad convention, but I felt it was not for me.

But suddenly, an invitation for Further Confusion 2020 came out some months ago, Shorty, Henrieke and Karpour were wanting me to attend, and I couldn’t say no to them, so it was time to give FC another chance. And oh boy, what a change, it turned in one of my favorite conventions I’ve ever been, so definitely no regrets, and I’m so glad I could give this event a second chance. Unfortunately, Shorty couldn’t come in the end, and I was supposed to room with him, so I had to be squeezed in the Henrieke and Karpour’s room, with Eligecos and his brother Byte, so yeah, I was the 5th person in the room, I had to sleep on the floor, which was not as bad as I thought.

Another reason I usually don’t consider Further Confusion in my list of conventions to attend, is because it is during my birthday, and I’m very used to celebrate my birthday with
RoniTheDog
RoniTheDog
’s (my boyfriend), whose birthday is two days before mine; and FC is always during the weekend of our birthdays, and nop, Roni is not able to travel to USA, yet, so I can’t take him with me. But since this year I wanted to see again these friends who were coming from Europe, I made an exception, and Roni told me it was very okay. So for first time, I celebrated my birthday at a furry convention, which was on Sunday January 19. I will tell you later how was this day, I want to start telling you what happened the first day, on Friday.

It was a working day at the artist alley, but it was fine, I filled up my queue of commissions very fast as always, and I was working on them while I was visited by some friends and some fluffy cute big animals. The dealers den was closed at 6 and I wanted to see the Taebyn’s panel that started at 7, and many people were asking me what were my plans for dinner, but if I went for dinner at that time, I was going to miss the Bedtime stories of Taebyn, so I decided to say no to all of the invitations and getting dinner by my own later, but it was very nice from
KoidelCoyote
KoidelCoyote
who bought me a burrito. I don’t regret of missing many dinner invitations because Taebyn’s panel was very funny. And I have that thing that I cannot just listen, I always need to be doing something, and that happened to me since I was in school, and even did that during college, so I needed to be drawing. I did the same while Taebyn was reading the story books, and I decided to draw Taebyn, I gave him that drawing at the end of the panel and I think he got very excited for it.

In the end of that day, it was time for an Art Jam with many toon artists, I was very blessed being around many people I admire a lot. While we were drawing, two big polar bears appeared running to us, one of them was
Matrices
Matrices
, and she offered me if I wanted to be in one of those inflatable polar bear suits, of course I accepted. Wish there could be more people around to interact with while I was a polar bear, but it was hilarious anyway.

I decided to make this convention a very relaxing one, so I only requested the artist alley for one single day, and I could enjoy the rest of the convention, I’m very tempted to do that same movement from now and then, because it was so relaxing to be enjoying the rest of the weekend. That second day I saw Ringo and Redwulf, and check the dealers den with them when they just opened it. Then I could be, for first time in the year, the panda, and it was for the Fursuit Parade, that how I love fursuit parades, I’m kind of sad when some conventions decide to not do the parade anymore, or they change it for the festivals where everyone is wandering around, I think I’m getting kind of old school. I still remember with lot of love my first furry convention (Anthrocon 2015) and how amazing was participating on that parade.

After the parade, I could be in my panda form for some couple of hours more and to spend time with Suka, who was asking me for getting dinner with me since Thursday I arrived to the hotel and we couldn’t arrange it yet, until then, also Tonya and Koidel joined to the plan.

Something new that Further Confusion introduced was the Night Market, I was curious to know what was that about, but we had to make a long line of about 30 minutes to get in, which honestly was the most exciting of that event, because during the line, I could met Jay Folfsky, who was very excited to meet me, but really, I feel like I’m just one furry more, wish I could be as special as some people think I am, but I really think I’m a boring guy, hehe well, I won’t talk about my inferiority complexes on this journal, but it was great to have met him, I even did a very quick doodle to him, he almost cried and even he was exaggerating saying he was going to turn that doodle in a tattoo, I really hope he was joking because that was not even a good doodle. The time we were in the Night market…well, I was not even sure what exactly I was expecting, I think what it made me go was the sensationalism, but definitely it was not my thing. Later that day I went to a party that I really enjoyed, I’m not a big party boy, I usually don’t like parties, they make me feel very overwhelmed, those usually have loud music and I’m partially deaf, so I’m very unable to communicate with people around me; I don’t drink alcohol, and the point of many parties is for drinking, I had bad experiences, not sure if it is only a Mexican culture, when they feel offended if you are not drinking in a party as all of them, and they make you drink, there are many reasons why I avoid parties. But as I said, I enjoyed that party I attended that day, because it was not like the others, some people were drinking, of course, but that was not the point of it, the room was like a fort of blankets and lots of pillows, some were watching cartoons on the TV, others were playing card games, others were just chatting, there were some fursuiters, including me, I was there in fursuit, and I enjoyed watching some Tiny Toones, Animaniacs and Rugrats episodes, and then talking with some friends, like Panda. I couldn’t realize where the time went that suddenly it was 2 in the morning.

And finally, the Birthday!! As I said just before, I’m not a party boy, and I’m not very patient anymore organizing going outs during conventions. So I didn’t plan anything special, I just wanted to move according the flow of the day, but…spoiler: it turned in one of my favorite birthdays ever.

The only goal I had that day was being a panda as much time as possible, and being surrounded by many other animal people, that sounded like an awesome plan that I always wanted to live during a birthday of me. If I could tell the teenager Paco of 15 years old that one of my birthdays was going to be like that, he would be as same as happy as I was at this current age.
First of all, I wanted to finish a commission, then I went to have some lunch with my friend Jordan. Just after that was when I could be a panda, first thing I did was going to the inflatable panel and play around with other fursuiters, there I could see Baseball the bat and Koidel Coyote.
For surprise of many people, I was on stage for the Talent Show (FA: Unleashed), but helping Cassidy on her act, she was singing and dancing an original song, in the middle of the song, Koidel and I showed up as backup dancers to finish the act. It was a fun experience and definitely would repeat it (If I had any other talent…than just drawing, but really, I’m completely empty of any other talent). You can see the act here: https://youtu.be/asGyYXDTPu8

Just after the show,
lepkitty
lepkitty
,
Adilor
Adilor
and
JordanRinehart
JordanRinehart
was waiting for me with a surprise box for my birthday, it was a chocolate cake!! So in the end, I had a cake for my birthday, I was about to cry of happiness, that was so sweet of them (also the cake was so sweet). It was a big cake, so I was offering some people, even if I didn’t know them, those who were getting close to me to say happy birthday, to take a slice of cake, there was enough for everyone.

Oh yeah, and I got many cool birthday gifts, from Gab Shiba,
hobbypanda
hobbypanda
,
Foxfan1992
Foxfan1992
, KK, and more that I don’t remember, aaaah, I’m so terrible!

To finish that day, I went to the Art Jam table once again, got some final trades with very cool artists (Henrieke, Geek Fox, Tachi, Scruff..), and just in the end of the day, Baseball the Bat showed up to the table, carrying a big pencil with him, ready for drawing with us, and in that moment, they turned off the lights of the convention center, announcing the day was over, I was feeling so bad for Baseball because he was very excited to join us, and we knew that they did that every night, to announce we should go to the rooms, but I don’t know what happened that suddenly they turned on the lights back, and we could continue drawing and chilling around, trying to make that last night of the con lasting until the very last second. And yes, I got another picture by Baseball, as those I got at NordicFuzzCon last year, I was very happy for it. Now he knows, because I said it in front of him, but otherwise I would very shy to say this because there is a big chance he’s gonna read this journal…. But if I could make a top 10 best fursuiters, Baseball the Bat would definitely be in that list.

Some hours later (yeah, I didn’t sleep a lot) I took a direct flight back home.
Oh, and of course I took pictures during Further Confusion, if you want to check them, are here:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ljqao2pn9jcemk9/AACMnBKgRz84...

As I said, I’m so glad I decided to come back to FC, to give it a second chance, I could collect many new gold unforgettable memories that I will keep with me forever. Thank you to everyone who attended FC, who gave me a hug, who took a picture of my silly monochromatic fursona, who wished me a happy birthday, and all who are making this community more and more awesome.

Also thanks to you for reading my journal, comment bark bark even if you are not a dog if you read until here (I’m not a dog either, but I like dogs). My next convention is NordicFuzzCon, in Malmö, Sweden. My next American convention is TexasFurryFiesta. If you are attending any of those, see you there!!
Viewed: 70 times
Added: 4 years, 2 months ago
 
lepkitty
4 years, 2 months ago
it was awesome meeting you officially this year and im glad i was able to make yer bday such a special one! hope u enjoy NFC and ill see you at blfc maybe if i can make it!
Flurrabell
4 years, 2 months ago
It was a pleasure being able to see you again and hang out at FC! :> Glad you had a fun time, and hope you have some more fun in Sweden!
LahunCham
4 years, 2 months ago
Wow! Que biewn que te divertiste xD
GreenReaper
4 years, 2 months ago
I'm glad you had such a good time, especially for your birthday!

I've also had variable experiences at FC (including a bad flight there where I got delayed overnight in Chicago airport -- and then got my DSLR camera stolen in the bunny-petting panel 😿), but it's one of those things; sometimes it works out well.
KennyKitsune
4 years, 2 months ago
Sounds like you had a great time! Hopefully I’ll see you at Furry Fiesta next month!
dahan
4 years, 2 months ago
See you in Dallas! Bark bark!
AzureMarsupial
4 years, 2 months ago
How do you favorite journals? :P
Furlips
4 years, 2 months ago
*grins*
Bark bark.

Bunners
Round
4 years, 2 months ago
<3 to you!
Carlsbad91
4 years, 2 months ago
awoo
Ameno
4 years, 2 months ago
I had no clue. Happy belated birthday. I'm glad you had fun at FC.

IDK when you got in the night market, but what was nice there is the music, artists painting on stage(keovi), and overall the relaxed vibe. I thought it was much better than the dance that day. I only became aware you were at FC when i saw you on stage. :3 You did well on there too!

This year I worked very hard to build some of the electronic displays that were decorating the area near the dealer's den.
lolit346
3 years, 6 months ago
Why didn't you visit Salinas? let alone Monterey?
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