Well as usual my various random checking of google searches hit upon Tally Hall’s blog, and more specifically, a conception to creation blog post about how they made the puppets for the video. It’s got some great photos of the puppets, along with the set and how they filmed these little people. Not only that, but they cover some basics of puppeteering for film (ie. making the eyeline of the puppet work properly so they look in the correct direction, and using monitors so the puppeteers can see what they’re doing - obviously, less insightful for anyone who knows how Big Bird works). All in all, it’s an interesting read, so check it out!

Also, forgive the length. I thought that I would have very little to say - or at least I had very little on my mind when thinking about the trip in general - but once I sat down I found I had heaps of things to say.

Overall thoughts on the trip

Over the past few days I’ve been thinking about the benefits of going to the festival; and find myself struggling to answer it. My expectations of the event were so different than what I got that I’m actually disappointed. The workshops were honestly not worth travelling so far to attend - although informative, it’s nothing I couldn’t have gotten from websites online or books ordered from Amazon. And though I could say that being around other puppeteers is itself encouraging and reinvigorating, I spent so little time actually making acquaintances with anyone (staceyrebecca not included) that I find that too wasn’t as good as I’d hoped.

One could be tempted by those statements to think that I’m writing off the whole trip, but I’m not. At the very least, I got to prove to myself that travelling - no matter how difficult emotionally - is possible, and that my newfound ideas of how to mitigate the panic attacks is not only on the right track, but repeatable. Most of all, there were even some new things that I’ve discovered which will help improve things for ‘next time’ (every time I return after travelling, I think "never again"). 

I recently filled out the festival survey, and found myself making a lot of criticisms of the event. Most were small things - better signage for instance - but I think it’s mostly due to making the comparisons between the NPF and UNIMA 2008 (the latter site is no longer available, visit the blog page of my site for the diary posts from that experience). In many ways they are incomparable. Because of my scholarship from UNIMA Australia though, I must not only think about, but write about, what I gained and experienced at the NPF. 

Did I learn anything fantastically new or something that opened my eyes to new techniques, ideas, or ways of using puppetry? For the most part, no. I did have my eyes opened for some fantastic shadow puppetry - see Danny the Diver - but as mentioned above, nothing really pushed the boundaries of puppetry. Perhaps this is due to the nature of the shows presented, which were of often random quality. But I really expected the workshops to teach me something, especially to allow me to have hands-on experience building. I specifically chose workshops where my knowledge of the subject was minimal at best, or for the shadow puppets, where my knowledge could use some refinement. I found myself unchallenged, and in learning, isn’t that exactly what is needed to gain anything of value?

Of what then, happened in my mind? I discovered a way forward in writing a script for puppetry which I’ve been brainstorming. Although my word working workshop (ech, alliteration and a repeat of ‘work’) provided impetus for the move forward, I’m not 100% sure that it occured because of what we learned in the class, or simply from activity naturally improving creativity (the more active puppetry I do, the more likely I am at being creative in general. The more I sit on my ass, the less creative I am). Likewise I discovered a new way of attaching rods to my shadow puppets; but this occured on the second night of the festival - before I attended the shadow puppet workshops - and again, not related to anything from the NPF itself. 

So did nothing really inspire me? Did I really get zero out of this whole experience? The obvious answer is yes. But it got me thinking: I’ve been doing puppetry now for about 7 years, and only really been taking it seriously for the last year and a half. Over the last year, I’ve taught myself a considerable amount in terms of shadow puppetry and what I can do with it. In fact, just finding my niche in shadow puppetry is new in itself, and only occured thanks to my visit to UNIMA  2008. Perhaps I was expecting too much from NPF; that my learning has come so far over this time that I need/needed more than what I got from the ‘beginners’ workshops at the NPF. I feel somewhat annoyed, especially in regards to one thing: I received a scholarship from UNIMA Aus. to go, and the majority of the reason I applied was because I wanted to learn more in a place/setting that wasn’t available here in Australia. I actually almost feel as though I let down the people behind, and premise, of the whole scholarship. I hope that those who made the judgement call don’t feel as though it was wasted, particularly in light of the following…

But also, I find that something else unexpected happened. Although nothing really made me want to change my plans for my business - in fact, in some ways it solidifed them further - I did do one thing. I missed my friends, and fellow company members, Jeany and Susan. We’d been talking on and off for years on making a new show, doing this, doing that, but with work and other commitments (and lack of money or ideas), we never seem to get around to it. I really love working with them, and miss doing so quite a lot. I knew all of this before I left, but at the festival, seeing so many people actually making shows, as well as celebrating each other’s work, it made the feeling a lot stronger. So I’ve resolved to try and resurrect Sticky Apple Legs from its lethargy; Jeany and I have already been thinking on similar lines for a new project, which would also coincide with some personal plans for Puppets in Melbourne… so maybe by the end of the year we can have something put together. 

Before I leave you with the highlights and show ratings, I thought it would be a good idea to also have a side-by-side comparison between NPF and UNIMA 2008 (see table below, I go on a bit of a sidetrack in the following paragraphs). I will add that these things I think are interesting: as mentioned previously, NPF is predominantly by puppeteers, for puppeteers, whereas UNIMA 2008 was more by puppeteers for the public. As such, I think it’s good that included in the registration fee to NPF is all entrance costs to see shows; and that even if the quality of the shows weren’t great, that it’s also good to have everyone attending the festival go to see all the shows (instead of picking and choosing like at UNIMA 2008, where I missed a lot of good stuff because of time and money). However, I think that the quality and quantity of workshops available at NPF were reduced because of the overprogramming of shows (3 hours total per day of workshops, vs about 6 hours total per day of shows). 

Finally, I would add one more thing: I wish Australian puppetry was a little bit more community-minded. In the US, there are state and city ‘guilds’, where small local groups of puppeteers come together to support each other, see other people’s work and share information. This is on top of having UNIMA USA and the umbrella organisation, Puppeteers of America. Attending NPF, it was clear that many, if not most, of the attendees had friends, colleagues and workmates also in attendance; and that this biennial festival is predominantly a time to catch up and make connections. Although Australia has the UNIMA Aus branch to rely on, our community is so small and sparse, that it’s difficult to be in contact with others; further to that, I would suggest that UNIMA Aus is underused, and that the community here is less willing or able to spend the time meeting up. We also have no guilds, and though I’m tempted to set one up in Melbourne, I know that it would fail miserably - and quickly - for the exact same reason UNIMA Aus is underused.

Likewise, any puppetry festivals here are presented for the public only, and classes and workshops are offered likewise. Any opportunity for the Australian community to meet up is limited at best; and it would be wonderful if we could arrange a NPF of our own (only perhaps a little better ). I know that other (younger) puppeteers have commented on the woeful amount of communication between the rest of the industry, but I also know that the (older) puppeteers have been trying for decades to establish our very own centre of puppetry (venue, workshop space, etc.). There is a lot of room to move forward, and I think it is necessary for the younger generations that the Australian puppetry industry gets off its ass and makes some of this happen.

In fact, other than wanting to start producing shows again, this is the single biggest effect of attending the NPF: I’m going to be more active in UNIMA Australia’s activities, including actually attending meetings where possible, and being more vocal as a member of the organisation. I’ve long been an open and vocal advocate of the arts/theatre in Australia - from submitting my thoughts to government inquiries, to writing on important issues (see my letter about VCA) - so it’s about time I get active about puppetry on a more substantiative level. Heck, I started in this direction the very moment I began the Learn Online page and blogged about where to buy puppets in Australia, etc. If there’s not enough info out there about Australian puppetry, then why not write about it? Likewise, if there’s not enough community involvement in Australian puppetry, then why not get involved yourself and help change things? It would be great if my efforts resulted in an Aussie festival of our own, or something more substantial by way of community gatherings.

… Overall, my experience has been mixed. Couple nervousness and stress with a lack of sleep and food; then blend it with a dash of boredom and semi-good shows… And then top it off with some genuine learning and growth, and a rediscovery of certain aspects of my passion for theatre… Well, I’m not sure what that adds up to. 

(I hope I’ve covered all the differences between the two festivals; I’m sure I’ve missed something, but there’s a lot of stuff here and I can’t think of everything right now!)

NPF Highlights

Actual festival highlights:

• Meeting staceyrebecca, and all the other people at the festival
• Seeing Nana Projects’ fantastic shadow puppetry
• Seeing Hobey Ford’s foamie puppets, up close and personal; they’re so unbelievably flexible and lifelike!
• Jim Henson Day, not just being there for the announcement, but for The Little Pirate Mermaid, which was a fantastic set
• And I think the A Puppet Intervention film, word working workshop, and the overall festival experience for reinvigorating my need to actually produce shows, inspiring a few lightbulb moments, and to get more active in UNIMA Aus activities. 

Sightseeing highlights: 

• Going to the Fabulous Fox Theatre in Atlanta (more info on Day Two)
• Doing the Segway tour in Atlanta (see Day Nine)
• Watching the Black Holes film in DC (see Day Fourteen)
• … And I think I’ll include the moonlight trolley tour of DC; despite having a panic attack, on reflection, it was really great to see all those famous places and I think if I’d have just eaten properly I would have enjoyed it immensely (see Day Eleven)

NPF Shows

I’m posting here my original ratings; but I do also want to add a comment or two. After leaving the festival, I find my mind returns again and again to a number of the shows, even if they didn’t receive the highest ratings; Danny the Diver is my top favourite, but also in the list is the True Story of the Three Little Pigs (things may have gone wrong, but it was lots of fun); The Dragon King was perfect theatre, but I almost prefer The Little Pirate Mermaid in a weird way… maybe because it pushed the boundaries with their realistic sets. Likewise, those who received highest ratings I’ve not thought about again since seeing them. Indeed, proof that a confusing storyline is a bad idea is in that a few of them I’ve actually even forgotten what they were about! And with Panther & Crane, I really now think they deserve one star, not two (though I’ve left the rating intact to reflect what I thought at the time), as even Cinderella in Muddy York was better than P&C; funnily enough, I’m also tempted to reverse that for Bride - making it a two star instead of one. Looking over the ratings, it’s sad to see the quality all over the place; UNIMA 2008 averages at a 4 star rating (4/5, instead of here which is out of 6), meaning a higher quality of performances overall at UNIMA 2008. Sadly, I was also waiting for my Angel; a show that so completely challenged the concept of what puppetry is that it’s hard to forget. Even Danny the Diver doesn’t near Angel’s repeatable watchability factor - well over a year later, and I’d go to see Angel every day for a week if I could.

	Danny the Diver & Alonzo’s Lullaby The Dragon King (technically unrated, but I’ll stick it here anyway) An Evening with John Tartaglia Poli Degaine (Punchy Draw)
	The True Story of the Three Little Pigs by A Wolf  The Day it Snowed Tortillas La Muela del Ray Farfan The Little Pirate Mermaid
	Mallory Lewis and Lamb Chop The Rainbow Bridge and Other Tales Entertaining a Thought
	The Box? A Show of Feelings
	As I Lay Dying  Panther & Crane Cinderella in Muddy York El Hombre Ciguena (The Stork Man)
	Bride Secrets History Remembers

Day Fourteen: Black Holes

(Yes, I’m home now, and yay! But for the purposes of keeping everything less confusing tense-wise, I’ll write this as if it’s happened just today)

So after the cruise to Mount Vernon yesterday I had an early night, packed up and chilled out by watching some TV. After checking out this morning, I took the train down to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. It was a short walk from the Archives (and something or other) station, which meant crossing the midsection of the National Mall and looking down towards Capitol Hill in one direction, and the Washington Monument in the other. Very pretty.  (More pics at Flickr)

I timed it well, and arrived at the museum just as they’d opened (even on weekdays they only open at 10am), and managed to beat most of the crowds; but even getting there at 10 meant lots of people. I knew I wouldn’t have a lot of time, as my shuttle was arriving at the B&B to pick me up at about 1pm; so I headed straight to the Albert Einstein Planetarium to buy tickets for my planned activity; a 30 minute filming on black holes. (I’ve been heavily into astronomy of late, and on my trip had been reading Death from the Skies!: These Are the Ways the World Will End . . . by Philip Plait, so black holes was not only fitting, but interesting too) I had some time to kill before the showing - all of 30 minutes - so I rushed through a couple of the exhibits on the second floor of the museum around where the planetarium is. 

The museum is pretty big, and the first thing you see when you enter the doors are a whole bunch of hanging or standing models of various crafts: rovers and probes, shuttles and planes. On the lower level (there are two entrances, one on either side of the building, so saying right or left here is unhelpful) there’s: an exhibition on the beginnings of flight, including the Wright plane itself; jet planes; simulators; current airplane technology; Apollo models and info; something on the solar system… and probably something else. I only managed a ‘drive by’ viewing of this stuff before I had to leave. Oh, and there’s also a museum shop with lots of books, DVDs, Washington DC/Smithsonian (18 Smithsonian museums in all, this was just one of them) souvineers, space food, etc. There’s also the IMAX cinema on the first floor.

On the second floor was more solar system stuff, a small shop, and a whole bunch of things I didn’t get to see. Fortunately, the Planetarium was the most awesomeist thing ever (yeah, I did just make up a word). You go into this small theatrette, with an arc of very laid back chairs - what you’d find in a cinema, only with really tilted backs, so when you sit, you naturally look towards the ceiling. The ceiling itself is a round white dome, onto which the show was projected. 

The Black Holes film (scroll down to below the Youtube video at this link to see a blurb) itself was very good, although a little confusing at first (even though I knew most of the terms and explanations for black holes, etc. I’m not sure it would have made much sense to anyone who didn’t know anything about astronomy). But the graphics were awesome, and so much better than the 3D fish film at the Georgia Aquarium on day ten. They did all that stuff of moving through the stars, and going into a black hole, etc., that makes it feel 3D even if it isn’t. It combines computer graphics (based on real models/physics) and actual imagery of the universe, and we travelled from earth to our galaxy (Milky Way), through the universe. You really don’t get a proper sense of the scale of everything whilst reading a book, and it’s amazing how big everything is when you see it in a film. And even then it’s impossibly under-represented. In fact, I enjoyed it so much, I was glad it was the last thing I got to do in America before leaving, and it was a great way to finish.

Well, I sped through the rest of the exhibits on my way out - if you ever get to go, do. Many of the exhibits are done up in the style of the era (ie. Vaudevillian for the early flight section, 50s futurama for the jet era) and there’s lots of fascinating stuff on what’s being discovered right now as well as historical or informational sections. 

Anyway, from there I went back to the B&B, grabbed my stuff and went to Dulles airport. I got there a bit early, but that was fine; better to be early than late! Of course, my whole theory about one thing going wrong a day held true: in order to not pay extra for baggage, I stuffed my laptop into a rather large bag that I used as a carry on. Except the zips broke and so everything (passport, wallet, etc) could fall out. So I buy a new bag at the airport, and just as I’m doing so, the handle on my old bag breaks. Lucky? Maybe just good timing on that one. But I also nearly left behind my passport at security, whilst removing my laptop, liquids and shoes in a hurry… I’m so glad the person behind me saw it and handed it to me, because I really had my head screwed on upside-down and wouldn’t have realised until several hours later when I needed to board!

The trip itself was pretty uneventful except for feeling sick for most of it (I still do feel sick, hoping it’s nothing horrid), and being confused about the time differences: leaving LA at 10.30pm their time, and arriving in Sydney at 4am roughly our time, I managed to see the sun set, wait for 14 or so hours and not see the sun rise until a few hours after arriving in Sydney. And managed to still gain a day in the process… Weird.

Thankfully though, everything was fine and I came home to a house full of family and pets. It was also my mum’s birthday whilst I was on the plane, so we’ll be celebrating that at some point during the week.

Day Thirteen: Across Borders, Past the Gum Barrel, and Through Well Duh!

(I love that phrase, it’s so silly!)

So today I took a cruise from DC to Mount Vernon, the home of George Washington (and his tomb actually). The cruise itself isn’t run by the Mount Vernon heritage people, but a cruise liner company and includes the entrance fee to the location. I thought this would be a nice way to ‘finish’ my trip (I have some of tomorrow still to do things, just the morning though), as I love taking boat trips and especially find them calming whilst travelling.

To get there in time - 8.15am - I rushed out and took the train directly to the pier. I would have gotten there early, but for the fact that I stupidly bought the wrong ticket for the train; a daily pass which actually only works after 9.30am.  What kind of dumbass system is that? So I had to buy another ticket… and was really glad I went to the ATM before heading to the train.

The cruise took about 1.5 hours to get to Mount Vernon, and on the way the captain - or whoever it was - gave a guide to the sights along the way. Many things involved colonial buildings, which were very nice; also navy and army stuff and parks.

Mount Vernon itself is huge, with the main buildings on the top of a hill. There’s lots of parks and gardens, the main house and servants’ quarters, lots of servants work areas and other stuff. I didn’t look at most of it, as I spent most of my time standing in line for the main house tour (worth it, but totally ridiculously long lines: tip, if you go, avoid the school groups as they cause the lines to take as much as 2 or 3 hours long - for a 20 minute tour!).  There’s more pics on Flickr.

The destination wasn’t the point for me today, so I didn’t care as much about wandering around and catching every single exhibition. I really just wanted to find a nice quiet place to sit and read. But actually, when I got there and saw the beautiful view from the main house, and was amazed. It would make a really fantastic home, and anyone these days would spend a good $50 million or more on something similar. In particular, the wooden chairs on the front porch (if there was a zoom function on the photo above you’d see them) made me want to sit there with a fan and read my book until sunset hit.

Well, before long it was time to go back - only three hours there, I’d recommend more as there’s lots to see - and the second half of the cruise was really nice and relaxing. I’m having an early dinner tonight, repacking my suitcases, and then tomorrow I’ll be trying to go to the Air and Space Museum before leaving for the airport. 

So this will be the last you hear from me for a few days: I may leave on the 25th, but I’ll be arriving in Melbourne on the 27th. When I get home I’ll upload the last of the photos from tomorrow if there are any, a festival round-up, and a collation of review ratings.

See you on the other side! … Oh hey, you’re probably wondering about the title of this post: I crossed state borders to get to Mount Vernon (from DC to Virginia and also Maryland I think); there was a ‘gum barrel’ - literally - at Mount Vernon for people chewing gum, before they entered the main house; and the captain on the cruise explained what Titanic was… is there anyone who doesn’t know by now?

Read last diary post here.

Day Twelve: Free umbrella anyone?

As mentioned in yesterday’s post, I decided to skip my tour for today - and I’m so glad I did. I got up early - ish, because I actually fell asleep rather late - and had breakfast at my B&B. The place is quite nice, but breakfast isn’t a patch on the first place I stayed (ie. respectively, basic breakfast foods vs homemade foods), although the host here is very friendly and we chatted about the current health policy plans Obama is trying to pass. 

As I knew I was going to spend the day doing nothing, I just went back to my room and wrote up yesterday’s post. Then I fell asleep - thrilling I know, but it’s very rare of me to fall asleep whilst doing something, so that proves that yesterday’s little panic attack was the result of exhaustion and hunger: and I really do know better than to let that happen.

Anyway, by the time I woke up it was time for dinner. So I headed out to California Pizza Kitchen, a place my sister recommended. The following is mainly for her… I had a pear and gorgonzola pizza, plus a red velvet cake (I splurged). The pizza was good, although not as good as the Tomato Brothers (in Queensland) which I still have fond memories of from about 10-15 years ago.

Some interesting sculptures in gardens along the way to Dupont Circle; this is a donkey. More pics of sculptures, Dupont, and my pizza can be found on Flickr

Backtrack a little: to get to CPK is a fair walk from my B&B, about 15-20 minutes, and I pass through Dupont Circle to get there. It’s dirzzling rain, but not enough to bother me (I don’t have an umbrella or a raincoat with me). Just after I cross over the circle, I stop to give my feet a bit of a rest; just happened to stop next to a divinely looking cupcake shop, and at this point it’s pouring. I decide to sit outside at a small table under the awning, wait until I stops raining, I wait a few minutes and it doesn’t let up, when two women walk out of the cupcake shop. One of them walks up to me and offers me her small umbrella; she said someone did it for her once, so she’s ‘passing it on’, as it were. How cool! That totally makes me feel better, and I think I thanked her about three times before leaving with my free umbrella.

So yeah, I have dinner and walk back and it starts raining again. By the time I got back to my B&B my shoes (light flimsy summer shoes, totally not waterproof) are soaked through, the bottom of my pants are sopping… when I get to my room and pull out my keys, I realise that my bag is also so water-logged it’s got puddles. Luckily nothing inside the bag got too wet.

I’m really glad I didn’t do anything today. I’ve eaten proper meals - over eaten almost - had some decent sleep, and relaxed. The difference between my mood yesterday and my mood today is astronomical. 

Tomorrow is my final full day in DC/America. This time I’m sticking with the planned activities; a cruise to Mt Vernon, the home of George Washington. Should be interesting… plus, it’s my favourite activity to do whilst away from home (and will hopefully make up for missing out on ferry rides in Perth). 

Read next day’s post here.

Day Eleven: Naughty Naomi

Ok, now that’s a more R-rated heading than really needed, but it’s apt. If you’ve been following me since last year, you’ll know that I don’t do travel very well. I’m trying to teach myself how to handle it, and yesterday things started unravelling. I didn’t really eat much, which is where the naughty part comes in (is there any way to phrase that that doesn’t sound like it’s adult?), because not eating whilst travelling is one of the worst things I can do. I thought I was fine, until (as continued on from the end of yesterday’s diary post), I headed out to Union Station for my first activity. I thought I’d grab dinner on the way, but the place I wanted to go looked closed, so I just thought I’d get something at the Station. (I am again grateful for pre-planning and printing out the train line maps, because using the train in DC is much more confusing than in Atlanta… although other things are just as confusing as you’ll see in a moment) I got some fairly ok Chinese food and this is where things went downhill mentally-wise. I think my body got a jolt of energy, woke up, and just went, "oh , I haven’t eaten much today, I think I"ll freak out now". 

No, you’re not seeing things. I took this picture on an angle on purpose, cause I got sick of looking like a tourist and wanted to do something artsy. The Washington Monument at night, on diagonal…

Well, I had some time to kill before my tour, so I wandered around Union Station (no pics of that, sorry) and managed to get accosted for the third time this whole trip by someone begging for money. I think I should start wearing my old clothes I’d packed to wear on the plane so I don’t look like a target 

Now my tour said to meet at the main entrance of Union Station - and seeing as how I’d been there this morning, getting off Amtrak, I knew roughly where to go. It’s right outside, where all the tourist buses sit and collect people…. right? No. You have to go inside, to a totally unmarked and unnoticeable desk, and get your ticket stamped and exchanged for a proper boarding pass. I wouldn’t have known this except on my way out through the main doors I saw what looked like the tour-bus desk; and worried I was in the wrong place, I went in to double check. Except they were they wrong tour company… It didn’t help that the company listed on my eticket was not the same company listed on the actual tour company desk and bus. Anyway… I finally manage to figure it out and get on my tour.

It’s a Monuments by Moonlight tour on a trolley, which basically means it’s the trolley tour only you get on at 7.30pm. (Tip: if you try to book, don’t use the link above. It gives some sort of security error. Instead, go to viator.com - not partner.viator.com) You do a two and a half hour tour around DC, with a few stops: the FDR Memorial, Lincoln Memorial, Iwo Jima Memorial… Check out my Flickr set for more pics. The trolley is a good way to see everything, seeing as it’s open-window/no-windows (up the back at least), and is small so you get a more intimate experience. The bus driver/guide was very good, informative and chatty, even throwing in a few relevant and current jokes on various political events. My favourite part of the trip is probably seeing the Lincoln Memorial (at night it is pretty spectacular, even if a cliche of American TV and movies), both the memorial itself, or turning around to see the Washington Monument lighting up the ponds below. (I do wish my camera did better with the lighting, but hey, what can you do?)

All of this would have been much more fun if I weren’t having mini panic attacks the entire way through. It really hit me hard. I guess the combination of bad sleep, overall stress of travelling, and not eating properly today just got to me. By the time we got back to Union Station, I was done - wrap me up in a box, send me home already.

I took the train back to where I’m staying, which was a semi-good idea. I had planned on taking a taxi - it was 10.15pm by this time and I really hate being out after dark in a strange city, even if there are lots of cop cars about here - but there was a huge line and I couldn’t be bothered waiting. Taking the train luckily was pretty easy going back, now that I knew what I was doing, and quick too. 

I have another tour (pretty much the same thing, only during the day and with a few more stops/sights) tomorrow, but won’t be taking it. I’m going to spend the day doing nothing, eating (making sure I eat rather, instead of rushing off to do tours and not giving myself a chance to eat properly) and lazying around. I know it seems like I miss a lot of activities, but actually, I’m more worried about just taking care of myself than missing out on sightseeing. There’s no point in marvelling at the buildings/history/memorials/etc if you feel like you’re about to panic.

… So yeah, I think I’ve hit a wall. And am very much looking forward to coming home now.

Read next day’s post here.

Day Ten: Ot-ters, ot-ters, ot-ters

(Say it fast with an American accent)

So I’m writing this on Day Eleven, because I didn’t get a chance yesterday. Recall that I did the segway tour the day before, got sunburnt… and from there I had a bad night’s sleep (big surprise, I know) and got up early. I checked out and left my luggage at the hotel, and headed to the Georgia Aquarium. It was pretty short walk, luckily, because I really was in no mood to get sunburned again. (I seriously look like a lobster)

The aquarium is the largest in the world, but amazingly enough, I prefer the one in Sydney. In Sydney you spend most of your time underneath the glass tanks, ’submerged’ in the aquarium; the Atlanta one is more like a bunch of exhibits, plus a two-minute submergence under the largest tank in the world. I have to admit, the latter is the best part: there is a giant wall of plexiglass (at least a metre thick) where you can sit and watch the fish. There were four whale sharks, large stingrays and some very big fish in there, which is pretty cool. You can see some video and more pics at Flickr (it was easier to get video than photos in some cases). The small exhibits were your average things you’d see in an aquarium part of a zoo; tropical fish displays, jellyfish, snakes and frogs, an Amazonian section, some otters. There were some belluga whales and sea urchin/starfish/etc displays too. 

I would have enjoyed it more if it weren’t for one thing: it was packed! Evidently - this being school holidays in America - everyone and their kid was there. Standing in line for my next activity (I’ll discuss more in a second) I looked out over the balcony, and saw hundreds of people below… and that’s not within the exhibits themselves, but in the main foyer area! Just trying to see even one of the displays meant standing around waiting for 20-30 people to move out the way. And no one was patient either; everyone blocked the passageways just trying to pile up around the glass. After a while it was just too annoying to cope with. (Hey, I’m patient, but when you have about 40 people walk past and say "Otters, otters, otters" in the space of fifteen minutes, it does get on your nerves a little)

Anyway, by the point I was getting really annoyed, it was time to go to the Aquarium’s 3D "Deepo Experience" (which is basically their way of saying it’s a 3D movie). The movie is an extra admission fee, but I love 3D stuff so I wanted to see it whilst I was there. (And actually, you can get a range of admission passes for the aquarium that make doing two or more activities cheaper depending on the pass… PS. You have to have your bag checked before entering the aquarium, and then you go through and get a picture taken, very customs-like. Actually, the picture is so that on your exit, you cough up money to purchase the photo. Which of course, I didn’t)

The 3D movie is about what you’d expect: it’s all about this marine biologist guide (who apparently was hired to explain the displays, even though he knows nothing about them ) who turns into a fish and gets taught all about ecology/saving the oceans by a bunch of different marine lifeforms. It’s like someone took Finding Nemo and crossed it with Shark Tales; an orange goldfish, funky songs sung by a trio of turtles, a misunderstood shark, and underwater luminescent fish. Combine that with a few surprise effects (real bubbles, some air blasted from behind, etc), and it was something that kids loved. It probably lasted about 15 minutes though, and I personally don’t think it was worth the $US 5.50 (hey, that translates to about $8 Australian, which is also the cost of a cheap movie ticket at home)… but hey. It was a good way to kill some time.

At this point I’m thinking lunch would be good. I head to the aquarium cafeteria, after being intrigued by seeing other people with yummy-looking brownies. But there’s a huge line. Not being in the mood to wait, I decide to head out to the Centennial Olympic Park, where I knew there was a cafe. I was right, but the food options were very limited. I ended up having a very bad hot dog.

The next part of my plan went well; I took the opportunity of being around a park/pond area, and did some nicer (ie. outdoors) shots of my shadow puppets. I found a particularly rocky waterfall part of the park and did them one by one. For the less underwater puppets, I found a tree and some leafy bushes, and did some shots there.

And here’s where it starts to go downhill again; I was pretty hot by this time and needed to put my puppets back in their box, so I went and found a series of undercover park benches (picnic tables actually). A family was sitting a little away from me, and whilst I was putting my puppets away, a young boy comes up to me and starts asking me what they were, etc. Well, I wasn’t in that much of a bad mood, and was happy to let him play a little with them. This went on for about 10 or 15 minutes, and the boy picked up my shadow puppet rods and started playing with them too: actually bending them quite horribly. Well, at this point I was losing patience - hey, I’m hot and tired here - so I started to pack up and gathered everything. But he liked my puppets so much, I thought why not let him have one. I gave him the long dog (which he’d stuck the tail of into his mouth anyway) and then he said he’d like another one and before I could say anything, grabbed one. I looked at it, and it was an unsellable one (a salvaged puppet that I could still use for pics, but wouldn’t dare try selling) and so let him have it… only it turns out it wasn’t the unsellable one! It was the mermaid that I had made for the exhibition, which on a quick glance, looks very much like the merman version, the one I actually did screw up.  So now I’ve given away a puppet that I could have sold, and am pissed off with myself for wasting the money/materials. Even though I don’t feel that stingy about doing things like that, I’m just mainly annoyed because I will be going home without a job, with enough money to pay my bills and that’s it, and not a lot of puppetry work on the horizon. This is not the point at which to treat my puppets like a hobby and not a business, and business means not giving away sellable puppets!

… Rant over… I was planning on spending the afternoon reading in the park, but had to get away from the noise and heat, so I just went back to the hotel where I sat in the lobby reading/dozing. By about 7pm it was time to leave (five hours waiting to leave in the lobby sure is fun ), and happily the hotel had a free shuttle that takes you anywhere within 3 miles of the accommodation. So they dropped me off at the Amtrak station… Yep, I took the train to DC.

Amtrak is bloody confusing. Here I was thinking it would be a little more like a central station, and it was more like something you’d expect in the middle of nowhere. I’m lucky that I remembered that I had to scan in my booking at a check-in machine (to get my official ticket, kind of like doing online check ins for flights), because otherwise I wouldn’t have had a clue what to do. There were a couple of people working the station, but none of them at the actual desks. People with lots of bags were just lining up, so I thought perhaps checking bags was done as you got on the train (although I read the Amtrak site thoroughly before leaving home, it didn’t explain anything about where/how to check bags in). When I finally realised I had to go to the station desks to do my baggage, the guy there unhelpfully just says, "Too late, we can put them on the next train tomorrow, or … (I forget what the ‘or’ was)" I assumed that meant I could take them on the train with me - bloody hoped so, because there was no way I was leaving any of my luggage behind. 

We go down a lift, and then onto the platform, where I have to go to the other end of the train - I booked a sleeper cabin - at which point one of the train attendants helped me lift my bags on the train. The actual train ticket/boarding pass didn’t have my cabin number listed on it that I saw: stupid idea number one. Luckily my eticket did, although I was so busy just trying to get my suitcase on the train I barely had a chance to look for it. Stupid idea number two: making the train passageways so small my bag actually scraped both sides of the walls (this is an average sized travel suitcase here, nothing out of the ordinary). Luckily I stepped into a cabin to let someone go past whilst I figured out where I was: and it just happened to be my cabin!

Well, it turns out the cabins are tinier than expected. Oh, if I’d had time to check my luggage in, it wouldn’t have been so bad. (The cabins are designed thus: two seats facing each other, next to the window. On the aisle side there is a small toilet/sink area, and a small bench opposite. Above the seats is a bed that pulls down as needed. The two seats pull out to form another bed) I ended up having the suitcase blocking the doorway, with my other bags sitting on the toilet/bench. Barely room to turn over in bed. The pictures here and on Flickr in no way convey just how small it really was.

The fun part was the night: I turned off all of the lights and listened to my podcast (Astronomy Cast, all about the cosmos) and watched the sky get darker. After a while I fell asleep, and it was a nice way to fall asleep. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get the temperature of the cabin to be warm, so I spent most of the night quite cold and tossing and turning. The whole trip from Atlanta to DC is about 14 hours, hence the sleeping overnight thing. Despite all the issues, I’m glad I got a sleeper cabin instead of a normal seat, kind of like upgrading from economy to business on an airplane, because if nothing else I could stretch out on the bed and look out the window.

After a few more hours of travel from breakfast time, I arrived in DC’s Union Station and took a taxi to my B&B, where I currently am. I’m going out this evening, so an actual Day Eleven post will be added once I get back. Read next day’s post here.