Day 2, the Saturday before Labor Day is the annual Dragoncon parade! The locals, children, and freaks and geeks come out to masquerade on the street and bask in the glory of costumes and nerdy celebrities! This is definitely a big thing that Atlantians love and loathe but mostly love. Locals are excited to serve us in restaurants, stop us for costume photos, and can’t stop talking about what they’ve seen.
My boyfriend and I woke up early to get front row views on the curb despite it being a longer parade route. We get to the corner of Peachtree Lane and Baker St at 8AM and waited patiently with coffee from The Corner Bakery and watched as costumers gather and make their way to the starting point.
The disappointing event of the parade was when these locals show up 5 minutes before the parade start and use a child as an excuse to sit in front of us. I believe in fairness. Lateness should not be a reward and cheating by cutting in front of other people is a bad example to your child. I was sorely disappointed by this family. Several people around of us kept yelling at them and they remained ignorant to their rudeness and kept their position. Incredible, indeed. No wonder people around the world thinks American are rude people. Prime example.
The parade concluded with a wedding. Yes, a couple got married at the end of the parade. We, of course, exited out of the parade area as soon as possible to make it to the vendors before the crowd picked up. Since it’s a Saturday, the crowd thickened like a Southern humid heat wave, impalpable in air and surrounding.
To find a lunch spot, there was a 30 minute wait for any restaurant on Peachtree Street. We eventually found a seat at the bar at Alma Cocina. The waitress who served us the day before remembered us!
It was almost 2PM by the time I got through the crowd to get back to the hotel and into my costume as a steampunked version of Storm. I tried to attend a Star Trek track but was sorely disappointed when the main speaker read from a paper—without looking at audience—to what sounded much like her dissertation. I jumped out of the room with a shock disbelief. Instead, I moseyed back to the science track and got to view solar flares!
After resting and relaxing by the pool looking at the various Princess Leia’s cosplayers, we made our way to dinner at White Oak Kitchen and Bar where a wonderful meal awaited us! Appetizers were fried oysters, pimento cheese on fried green tomatoes, and watermelon and tomato gazpacho with shrimp. Main entree was a delicious honey fried chicken over grits which I kept mistaking as mashed potatoes, and a delicious shrimp and clams soups with Southern vegetables. We topped dessert with peach cobblers and goat cheesecake.
What a better way to end than people watch at the Marriott Hotel and listen to fun karaoke at the Hilton. Exhaustion came early again as the sight of hundreds of fake nerds awashed my senses. There’s only so much fakeness I can handle before I need my peace and quietness to remind myself that solitude is my best comfort.