All great journeys must come to an end...

The moment I've been waiting months for is now over.  I feel happy and sad all rolled into one.  Many stories have been shared about the weekend and now I will share mine.

The story begins Friday.  Work was difficult that day, and the day seemed to drag on despite leaving 2 hours early.  Finally the time had come and off I was to collect the Husband and head to the airport.  Everything was going smoothly, that was until we hit the baggage drop off.  Here a lady for the airline scanned my boarding pass and then took it from me to check something.  She came back and said that she had good news and bad news.  The bad news was that the flight had been over booked and that I was randomly chosen to be on standby.  The good news was that 99% of the time people will still be able to get on their flight.  To me this wasn't good news.  This was all freaking bad news!  How could this happen?  I booked my ticket months ago and had even checked in the night before and was assigned a seat.  Now this lady was telling me that the seat had been taken from me and I might not get on this flight.  I wanted to go full Malcolm Tucker on this woman, but as we were in an airport I refrained. Once we made it through security and customs, I headed to a help desk for the airline I was flying another lady what had happened.  She didn't understand why and said that I had a seat, but that I should still wait and confirm with the agent at the gate.  With a pit in the bottom of my stomach we went and got a bite to eat and a shot of tequila.  I sat there looking at the pictures that were now being posted of the Dallas Fan Expo, convinced that I wasn't going to get on the plane and I wasn't going to meet Peter Capaldi.  Finally the time had come to head to the gate where I explained my story a third time.  The new person confirmed what the second lady had said, I did indeed have a seat and the flight wasn't even sold out.  Relief swept over me as I was once again on track for meeting Capaldi.

Fast forward to Saturday.  We had decided to pick up our passes this day and scope out the convention in preparation for Sunday. We didn't spend much time here and in retrospect, I wish we had, but as we had never been to Washington I had other sites I wanted to see.  As the day went on, I was getting increasingly more nervous about the next day.  To no surprise I did have trouble sleeping that night.  But who wouldn't, it was like Christmas Eve!

Finally the day was here!  I awoke with an army of butterflies in my stomach, convinced that whatever I ate for breakfast that day would make an appearance in my photo op.  We left the hotel and got to the convention centre (yes that is how we spell it in Canada) around 9:10 or so.  At this point there was already a line of about 100 or more VIP ticket holders ahead of us, most of which were Doctor Who fans.  Having been the day before, we knew that Peter was going to be doing autographs at 10, so once we were allowed in, I and the rest of the hoards of people headed straight for Capaldi's table.  Some people waited for Jenna Coleman, but a long line had already started to form for Peter.  Confusion set in as no one seemed to know which line people should be standing in, and at one point we were told to stand in a different line, only to be told we should go back to the one we were in.  Luckily the people who were standing in front of us and behind us in the original line were great and let us back into where we were standing.  Once it seemed sorted we had to wait, but that was OK as I got to talk to some fellow Who fans who gave us the low down on photo ops and panels.  (This was my first time going all out and only the second comic convention I've been too).  With my new information I felt better equipped for the day.

After waiting for about 40 minutes the crowed cheered and I could see a glorious head of grey curls appear.  There were about 50 people in front of us and probably a 100 or more behind, so we were lucky we got the spot we got.  At last the line started moving and we started getting closer and closer to the front.  Suddenly, there he was in plain sight.  My heart was beating and I couldn't take my eyes off of him.  He looked just as wonderful in person as he does on screen.  It was so great to be able to watch him as he was meeting fans.  A family was ahead of us in line and the father told Peter that the little girl was nervous.  He bent over the table and shook her hand, told her not to be nervous because he was nervous too, he had to meet all of these people.  He finished with the family and then looked at the Husband and I.  We were greeted with a warm smile, a hand shake and a nice to meet you.  I was suddenly put at ease as he was just so gracious and warm.  I expected this to be all for the interaction, but then he asked us where we were coming from and I told him Toronto.  He said, "Oh wow."  I replied, "We came here just to see you."  To which he said "thank you so much" with such a big smile.  We chatted a bit about Toronto as he signed our photos and told us that he was pretty sure he was coming to Toronto towards the end of the year then he said he would see us later.  I walked away with a huge smile on my face and shaking, but thank god I didn't throw up on him or start crying.


The next thing we had to do was line up for the Doctor Who Trio (Barrowman, Capaldi, and Coleman) photo op.  Again there was some more confusion around the photo op area, but I feel that this was mostly due to not enough announcements being made or lack of signage.  A few white boards around the area where volunteers could write what photo ops were being taken and which line to be in, would have helped with the congestion around this area.  That aside, this was my first time doing a photo op and I have to say everything I had heard about it being fast was true.  Everything is such a blur that I all I remember is John Barrowman saying hi and telling us to come over, positioning me next to Capaldi and the Husband next to me and then Barrowman and Coleman on the ends.  Then the photographer says, 1, 2, 3!  You're ushered out and then suddenly handed a photo.  At this point I didn't care that it was so fast, I was just ready to line up and do the ride again!  And that's exactly what we did since the next photo op was for Capaldi VIPs.  This time the Husband and I each had a photo op ticket, so that meant that I could have my own and also be in the Husband's photo.  Suddenly I'm at the front of the line and it's now my turn.  Capaldi greeted me with a huge smile, said something like hi or how are you, but I don't remember.  I walked towards him said hi, put my arm around him, he put his around me, and just before the photographer started his count, I remembered that I wanted to ask Capaldi to smile.  So many pictures I had seen of him in photo ops, he would always do a Doctor face and look angry or very serious.  I just wanted a nice picture of us together him smiling.  So at the last second I asked him to please smile and he said absolutely!  This is what I got....

That was exactly the smile I had wanted!  So then the photo was finished and the Husband walked over as I told Capaldi that there was one more and in which my husband was going to stand off to the side and look sad.  He said, "Sad? OK" and we repeated the above pose while The Husband stood off to the side next to Capaldi.  After the photo was taken, Capaldi said as he was smiling "You've got a whole story here."  The Husband said yes, but in his mind thought you don't know the half of it.  Once again we were ushered out and handed photos.  I was so thrilled with how they turned out.  I won't post the second photo here out of respect to my husband who asked me not to, but I will tell you it looks exactly like the one above, but just with him off to the side.  This photo was an instant hit with all of our family and friends, as they thought it was hilarious.  I have to say I have the best husband ever!

So that was it.  All of our interactions with him were over by about 1:15 and now all we had to do was go and wait in line for the Q&A.  And boy did we wait!  It was supposed to start at 2:30, but didn't start until almost 2 hours later.  I won't go into detail about the organization of the event because I know there were a lot of unhappy people, but I do know that Peter and Jenna were very nice and said they weren't leaving the building until everyone had left with what they had paid for.  I will say that I am incredibly happy that I paid for the VIP tickets and arrived at the convention centre when we did.  All that aside here's a nice video of the Q&A, but I'm sure all of you have already seen it...

And just like that it was all over.  What a fantastic day it was.  I had read that Peter was a very nice person, but you really have to meet him to understand just how nice he is.  I have read several stories that people have shared from the day and I have to say the man is very good at making people feel as if we all got a little one on one time with him and that our experience was unique to ourselves.  It's going to take a very special person to knock Capaldi off the top of my list because after the weekend he has sky rocketed above all of my other obsessions.

I want to thank everyone who has followed me on this journey and those that have had to put up with me talking about it for sometime, but most of all I want to thank my husband for taking this trip with me and having just as much fun as I did.  Not to mention his understanding of my love for older British men.  Until the next journey begins (if he does indeed come to Toronto this madness will be repeated), I bid you farewell.