Arriving in Atlanta

I am writing this from my airplane seat on the way to Atlanta, Georgia. For my trip, I chose to wear a t-shirt from the last regional which says “Puppet-o-rama” in big bold letters. I also am carrying a glorified sock puppet ™ which I also got at Puppet-o-rama. My advice to festival goers is to look like a puppeteer on the trip in because people can glance at you and identify you as a festival goer and point you in the right direction.  Also, if your fellow travelers happen to be festival goers too, you can meet up and travel together.

The lady at the ticket counter who took my bag and checked me in probably saw all this because she sat me in the back of the plane. It seems that AirTran likes to put families in the back of the plane. I guess she thought a puppeteer is a good person to stick back here too. I’m also in a row with a three-year-old and her bigger sister, who is nine. A mother behind me asked if I would be the emergency entertainment if the kids get restless. Who is she kidding? A four hour and forty-five minute flight = restless kids.

I spent most of the flight entertaining the three year old. I spent the final hour of the flight entertaining three children in my row and the two children behind me. But I did get one hour of sleep in there! BTW the flight ended up in a holding pattern for 20 minutes due to a storm over Atlanta.

I rode the MARTA in to Midtown and caught the campus trolley to Georgia Tech. It’s a huge campus but things are starting to come back to me. With a little help from the trolley driver, I find my way to the sixth street dorms where I check in to find that once again my name has been misspelt on my badge. Ely Leaverton instead of Elly Leaverton! I try to draw in another L but still get called Ely by a few people. *sigh* This time they did not immediately print me a new badge because the printer and computer was not at check-in. I may be called Ely all week! But who’s complaining? I’m surrounded by people who already know my name. Before I even checked in and got my badge I was greeted by two people by name and a hug.

I miss my window to check-in my light-up punching pens at the store by 5 minutes due to a combo of the flight delay and a missing dorm key issue...they ended up re-coring the lock and gave me and my roommate, Sarah "Call me Fred", new keys.  But I know Ed and he checked me in anyway. They used a super cool website to set up the store this year.  I'm really interested in seeing how it works out.

Well, I'm off to dinner!