BEA Recap- Monday and Tuesday, May 24-25

My recap is not going to be as awesome as Kristi's, but I hope you all enjoy it anyway! I have way too many posts going on these next few weeks, so I'm not sure when I'll be able to finish, but I'll do my best to do like one post a week. Most of the photos below are from Kristi's blog because she is better at actually using her camera than I am. There will be four pictures from me- one of the third TAC panel, one of Javits, one of BoW signing, and one of me with Holly.

Monday: I woke up early, went to Susan's house, drove up to MD in Susan's car to pick up Monica, then we continued on our drive to NYC. We stopped at a rest stop that had Popeyes, which is one of my favorite fast food places ever, and the food was OMGAMAZING. I was surprised because for some reason, whenever I go to a Popeyes not in my home town, the food just isn't that good. But anyway, enough about food. Once we got to NYC, we got a tad lost trying to find the Paramount Hotel due to the only signage being a small placard hidden behind some foliage. We checked in, waited for luggage to be brought up, which took a while, then took the subway to Teen Author Carnival at Jefferson Public Library after some stops at Bank of America and Walgreens.

At the TAC, I met tons of bloggers (like Sharon, Kristi, Carol, Erika, Lenore and husband Daniel and several more) and chatted with Sarah Ockler, Amy Brecount White and Melissa Walker beforehand. I went to all three panels, though I snuck out of the third one to get started on the signing. The panels were really cool, though I think my favorite was the Real Life one, which had such names as Courtney Sheinmel, Lauren Oliver, Barry Lyga, and Sarah Mlynowski.

At the huge signing afterward, I met Kody Keplinger, Sarah Ockler, Linda Gerber, all of whom had ARCs to give away, so that was totally awesome, though I felt like I made myself look like a loon in front of Kody. Le sigh. Aside from those books I received, I had also brought books from Melissa Walker, Holly Cupala, Michelle Zink, and Susane Colasanti, and I met all of them and they were all so sweet. Holly was so cute because she was very excited to be signing an actual book instead of just the two-chapter previews she had brought.

While waiting for Susane, I was standing next to Courtney Sheinmel, but I was too shy to say hi because I'm never sure if authors are going to remember me or not, but mainly because I was too shy, lol. Susane recognized me right from the beginning and it was funny to watch her try and recall my blog name (as well as my LJ and real name; to be fair, I do write to her under quite a few names, lol); we hugged and she signed my book, but alas, no picture, but we've made plans to take one next year. Michelle recognized me too, once I introduced myself, and she was so sweet and was like "Give me a hug!!" so we hugged and she wrote in my book that my visit brought a smile to her face, which made me happy. But I'm not sure if she says that to all the bloggers, so maybe I shouldn't feel too special. :P

Afterward, I chatted with Anastasia Hopcus, author of Shadow Hills (amazing book!) for a bit before being kicked out of the library- they kept turning the lights off on us! We then went to this Italian place for a blogger dinner where I met tons of bloggers and mainly chatted with Amy (My Friend Amy), Natasha (Maw Books), Gail (Ticket to Anywhere), and Vania (Reverie Books). I also met Pam (Bookalicious) and Sarah (Sarah's Random Musings), which was awesome. The food was good; I was not adventurous and basically got spaghetti with meat sauce. After that, we went back to the hotel, read for a bit, then I went to bed while Susan did some stuff on her laptop. We had to pay for wifi, which really sucked because it cost way too much ($40 for one week). Kristi (yes, THE Kristi!) came in shortly after because apparently she was tweeting that she wanted to come to our room and she saw me half naked (not really- my blanket mostly covered me). SCANDAL!


Tuesday: We woke up early and went to Javits to get our badges, and had a wonderful breakfast at a diner with Alea, Gail, Susan and Monica. Once we finished, we walked over to the Penguin building, where we were going to have a tour of their offices. Outside the building, a protest was going on, so that was interesting to walk through to get into the building. I was able to crash the tour and come along. Our guide was very funny and informative; I really enjoyed it, though it wasn't in the Young Readers offices, so it wasn't as much fun but still interesting. We got lots of catalogues and some free books as well as met some publicists before we left. After that, we met up with Anastasia Hopcus and Chelsea Campbell for lunch at Hollywood Diner, which was really good, then went to the yarn store with Chelsea.

We split up from Chelsea after that and went over to this tea place called Sweetie Pies where we were pretty much mugged by them, as the price was way too high for the service and food that came with it. But on the upside, lots of laughs were had and I met Khy (THE BANGS!) in person (along with her mom, who was very cool) and we got to take pictures like the one found here (the last photo in that entry, but read the whole thing as it's awesome). We went back to the hotel for a bit after that, then went to Books of Wonder for an event. On the way there, we saw Jackie Dolamore, author of Magic Under Glass, and Dia Reeves, author of Bleeding Violet, and chatted with them for a bit before heading in. At the event, I chatted with some bloggers including Mitali, Carol, Cat, and Kristi and talked to Holly Cupala for a bit and got a picture with her.

After the event, we attempted to go to the Strand but got horribly lost (I made a joke that we should've made a Blair Witch Project-like video to accompany our travels after Kristi mentioned that she had thought about shooting a video of us going to the Strand). So we just found a subway and went back to the hotel instead with some pizza we got from the restaurant next door. While we ate, we watched Glee, which was an awesome episode (Yay Lady Gaga tunes!!).