Not much to report yet, but we made contact w/ the GTG guys last night. Adam had succumbed to the need for sleep, but Christopher and Paul gamely stayed awake long enough for dinner.
I hear that they made it out to the Showgrounds yesterday, found the Tabletop area, found the booth, confirmed the pallet had been delivered, and did a first pass on setup. Final setup today is expected to be easy, so Spouse and I are taking the morning off to enjoy Melbourne some more before heading over in the afternoon.
I had an opportunity to hear about some of the super secret plans for the future of GTG. Wow. Now I have an even better understanding about why they are so busy.
As has been the case for every single major convention, once again the guys don't really know what to expect from this one. How many people will want to play? How many will want to buy? Just how rowdy are Aussies? Who knows!
One expected difference is that since GTG isn't set up to take Australia credit cards, this will be a mostly cash event. Which reminds me, for those of you who may not have seen money from outside the US, US money is silly. It's all one color! It's all the same size! There are no dollar or two-dollar coins! How boring and hard to use.
Melbourne, by the way, is fantastic. It may be my new, favorite city. The public transportation system is great. Locals are bemused to hear me say that, as there are rampant complaints about timeliness of the system, but the trains, trams, and busses seem to go everywhere, pretty frequently, and be easy to use. The central business district is huge and vibrant. We went to the botanical gardens yesterday and they were gorgeous. We spent the rest of the day at the Melbourne Zoo. Besides the requisite native and African animals, it has some wonderful south american animals and small cats. Just gorgeous. It also has an INCREDIBLE aviary. A walk-in cage that is the height of a cathedral and the length of a football field, filled with beautiful and exotic birds. Yesterday we took a tour down to Phillip Island to see the famous pilgrim parade, a wonderful Koala park, an animal sanctuary where we hand-fed wallabies and kangaroos, and a working farm where I learned how to crack a whip.
Also amusing, as always when traveling internationally, has been checking out local television. Australian TV isn't quite as weird and wacky as TV in many other countries has seemed, but it's been interesting watching Australian Rules Football and trying to understand how it works.