From What I Remember: San Francisco + ALA

As you guys have probably noticed, I haven’t been posting much of anything for nearly a week. If you’ve read the post where I revealed that I was going to attend ALA and FINALLY meeting Cee from The Novel Hermit and sharing face space with her, you can probably tell from the title of this post that that did indeed happen. (YESSSSSSSSS.) My only problem is that there were so many things that had happened in San Francisco and ALA that I can’t remember much of anything – everything is a blur. Add the fact that I didn’t take any pictures – well, with the exception of five pictures (not counting the I’m on an airplane pictures) – and that wouldn’t help me remember much either, will it?

I flew into San Francisco on Wednesday, June 24. It was my first time flying alone and I was extremely nervous because what if I somehow managed to mess things up? With me, anything can happen. Luckily, everything went okay – I didn’t somehow manage to lose my boarding pass, be late for my flight, or even board the wrong plane. I arrived at SFO safely, where I was wandering, lost (SFO, why are you so confusing with all your longgggg hallways and confusing signs?!), and was stranded at the airport for about thirty minutes while Cee was trying to find and rescue me. Cee finally found me and I was freeeeeeee from SFO.

On Thursday, Cee bought me to Pier 39, where I saw seals – not seals in an aquarium, but real live seals in their natural habitat. I also hunted for a plush shop at Pier 39 because I LOVE sea creature plushies – you should see my dolphin and whale plush collection – but alas, I sadly couldn’t find one. I also tried an In & Out near Pier 39, which was disappointing with too watery and soggy lettuce, but like Cee says, you can’t expect food near tourist spots to be great.

On Friday, Cee and I headed to the Moscone Center to pick up our ALA badges. There, we met up with Angie, Katie, Nikki, Anya, Tabitha, Vanessa, and Sydney for dinner. Originally, we planned on eating dinner at the Cheesecake Factory, but since there was an hour and thirty minute wait, we decided to eat at Mel’s Diner near the Moscone Center instead. There, we had tons of fun chatting and talking about the too expensive food at Mel’s and what was in store for us at ALA.

Saturday was the first day of ALA for me. I came in with only two goals in mind: snag a copy of The Boy Most Likely To by Huntley Fitzpatrick and When We Collided by Emery Lord. I went to the Bloomsbury booth first to snag a copy of When We Collided (YESSSSS! – can’t wait to read it!) and proceeded to the Penguin booth, located across the exhibit hall. There, to my great dismay, I found out that Penguin didn’t have any ARCs of The Boy Most Likely To, my number one priority. I also discovered a new adult book that really piqued my interest: Ally Hughes Has Sex Sometimes by Jules Moulin. Just look at that synopsis!

On Sunday, day two of ALA, I was wandering the halls of ALA when Cee informed me that HEY. HarperCollins has ARCs of Lisa Kleypas’ brand new historical romance, Cold-Hearted Rake, something I never, in a million years, had expected to happen! I rushed to HarperCollins and managed to snag myself a copy and proceeded to dance with glee as it’s LISA FREAKING KLEYPAS’ book in my hands.

I got extremely, and I mean EXTREMELY, lucky on day three of ALA. In the morning, I heard that Tor might be giving away full ARCs of Riders instead of a sampler. Therefore, I headed to Tor and lingered around the booth until a representative for Tor came. There, I received the second to last ARC of Riders as there were only four ARCs left. Later on in the day, I planned on attending the Penguin display copy giveaway – where Penguin will give away their display copies – at noon, only to find out fifteen minutes before the giveaway that I have been waiting at the wrong spot all along and that there was already a VERY long line waiting two booths away. I was devastated as that means that I wouldn’t be able to snag the books I’ve been eyeing at the Penguin booth. (Luckily, fate was on my side as you will soon see.) After fifteen minutes, when it was finally my turn to check out the Penguin booth, I went around it looking for titles that interested me. As I was ready to leave the booth with the books I chose, I turned around and studied the books available for grabs again and saw ONE ARC COPY OF THE BOY MOST LIKELY TO. I proceeded to run up to the shelf, asked someone to get it for me since it was up on the tallest shelf (I am sadly born short), and proceeded to hug the book once it was in my hands. I felt sooo happy finally having The Boy Most Likely To in my hands and was dancing in the inside like you won’t believe. I proceeded to hug the book some more, resisting the urge to not shout “IT’S FINALLY IN MY HANDSSSS!” out loud and getting you’re crazy looks.

I left San Francisco Tuesday afternoon. Most of Tuesday morning was spent waiting: waiting in the car for an hour because of early morning traffic, waiting in the counter line because there was something wrong with the kiosks, waiting to board the plane, and waiting for the plane to take off and reach NYC. When I was on the plane, I was scared out of my mind a couple of times as it was really windy and the plane kept moving up and down wildly. Articles of pilots who purposely crashed their planes went through my mind and I imagined it happening to me and just AHHHH. When I was finally home, I wanted to jump for glee and hug my bed as flying is SCARY.

And that is what I can remember about my trip to San Francisco and ALA! Stay tuned to hear about my take on the differences between BEA and ALA and which one I ultimately prefer!