I'm going to preface this by just stating ahead of time that this is gonna be a long one. You can just scroll through the pics and get a pretty good sense of the trip if you don't want to/can't read. >.>

I finally decided to attend my first proper "Newgrounds meet up" and a video game convention seemed like a great excuse to finally visit Philadelphia for the first time too, so my bf and I packed up and headed off last Thursday, flying all the way out there!

Things started off smoothly enough, and we even got a free upgrade on the car we rented because they were out of the cheaper option. This turned out to be both a blessing and a curse, in that I'm not sure I'd ever want a car this advanced myself (We couldn't even figure out how to turn it on without help...)

We were greeted to Philly by Top Dog and his countless doppelgangers across the interstate (we have someone similarly oversaturated here named Kris Lindahl. If you've ever been to Wisconsin or Minnesota, you'll immediately recognize this guy)

Once we made it to the hotel, things took a real hard turn, as the "Hotel 6" we had reserved a room at for the entirety of our stay turned out to not actually be a Hotel 6 at all, and had not been a Hotel 6 for quite some time. This turned into a real fiasco, which I'll spare the details on, but we ended up getting transferred into a REAL Hotel 6 considerably closer to the convention a few hours later. Coincidentally, we even ended up with a room right across the hall from @Teravex and @Connorgrail, which was a real blessing, because the room we were given didn't have a refrigerator T_T We got to play a bit of Mario Kart together that night, and Teravex ended up destroying the rest of us, despite claiming he was "only okay".

The next day was the first day of the convention, so we headed over early, grabbed up our badges and sat down in the waiting area, where we met @DAMOCHINE and @Malfromed. We got to do a little sticker and sketchbook swap around our little circle and before they opened up the floodgates.

The meetup itself didn't start for about an hour after it opened, I got to explore the vendor hall a bit and JEE-SUS, Too Many Games lives up to its name. I have never seen so many games in my life, I even spotted a Panasonic Gamecube and a couple copies of Panzer Dragoon Saga in the wild for the first time. A lot of the prices on things at the con were pretty high, so I didn't actually buy too much, but other the course of the three days, I did grab up a few things. More on that at the end though!

The meetup itself was both a lot of fun and a lot of me trying to read name tags and fumbling around with my box of prints I'd decided to bring a lot with me without a proper lid. I first spotted @Hibachi, and then @Tyler, (who I really wish I could have spent a bit more time with, because I feel like our art has a lot in common and we're both around the same age, so we've both kind of watched Newgrounds really evolve over these last 15 years or so)

Shortly after, I got "goosed" by @DeuceLeGoose, who gave me a little ribbon for my badge, but from there, things all become a bit of a blur. I really didn't get to spend more than a minute or two with any one person, but I'll try my best to list off a bunch of folks I know I did meet in there.

I was really happy to finally get to meet @Kekiiro, even if I didn't get to spend enough time with her either, she gave me three of her stickers sheets, so I let her have two prints

I think @Tamag0 was the only person I got a picture with besides Connorgrail, who was taking some pics with his 3DS (I still think this was a good gimmick)

@MSGHero asked me a bit about working in Flash, (Flash for life baby!)

@Figburn gave me a couple of super cool character cards

@Nicksenny had the coolest jacket out of anyone there, and I felt like I got to have some good (if brief) conversations with both him and @RickSteubins

@Yendor popped out of nowhere for a surprise interview

I also got one of those Pico Day trading card packs like I dreamed I might, and I had @Chourios sign the card I got of her in there

Some other folks I know I saw, but didn't want to leave out!

@Goobus-Doobus, @Slimygoo, @EugeneDoesArt, @Dungeonation, @neatoshin (I had not seen your art before the meetup, but it's real cool) @brandybuizel, @CorTat-G, @wayyward, @kiyo, @Psychogoldfish, @ManlyPotato, @Forgefrog, @Broly, @Anislug, and probably some more folks I'm forgetting (I'm sorry!)

And then I also spotted @PKettles and @MKMaffo but I was too shy to talk to either of them (I love both you though!)

At the tail end of the meetup, I talked to Tyler again for a bit and when I told him I never actually met @TomFulp during the whole meetup, he decided we were gonna wait for him once he was getting ready to go. I feel bad now because I didn't even think to give him anything in my box of prints or even my stickers, but I'm very bad about thinking in the moment or initiating anything, so it was a pretty simple "hi" in the end. (In case you end up reading this, I just wanted to say I really like what you're doing with the site and its a real breath of fresh air though!)

Okay, so meet over, let's get to the haul picture to close out the meetup section of this post:

The next day we'd go back to the convention and I ended up participating in a Smash Ultimate tournament for the first time. I ended up losing in the first round and getting sent to the losers bracket right away, but ended up winning a couple matches in a row there before finally losing again and dropping out of the tournament. It was fun though! Would try again sometime! (I'm a Piranha Plant girl)

We also met up with a couple of my bf's friends from New Jersey this day and spent the rest of the day browsing around the con and then capped off the night with a trip to the Cheesecake Factory and some video games back at their hotel room.

Sunday was the final full day of our trip, so we decided it needed to be the day where we really get out to the city itself to do some exploring; take in the sights and sounds and try to get a little sense of the culture. I took a lot of pictures on this day, so I'll let those do most of the talking here.

Our first stop was Philly AIDS Thrift, which was very much the sort of place I love to see. Lots of colors and a real eclectic sort of style to the whole place.

From there, we got a true "Philly" cheesesteak from Jim's South St, which was recommended to me by some locals, and afterwards, we headed to the Chinatown area, which had a lot of fun little shops and sights.

(I'm going to steal this color palette at some point)

Look at this goofy little guy!

And this guy! We love him!

After visiting all the shops, we decided we'd better head on down to the Liberty Bell (because we needed to pay our respects before it all comes crashing down soon >.>) We got there five minutes before they closed it down for the night, but the second we stepped inside it started an absolute downpour and by the time we made it back out to our car we were completely and utterly drenched head to foot. It was a bad time. We got a couple more good pics though!

We ended up going to the Philadelphia art museum earlier today, which was also pretty neat. I got to see some Monet's up close, which is all I really needed to get from the experience to be satisfied. :)

And I think that about wraps everything up! Here's that game/art haul from the convention I promised earlier.