First of all, I'd like to thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster, for blessing me with the skill needed to play this game at a high level. lol jk ;D
So this season has just been spectacular. I've done a lot of traveling, spent a lot of time with old friends, and met quite a few new ones. This was also the first year I managed to earn an invite to Worlds. So I booked a flight to Phoenix, where I grew up and where my family still lives. My first flight was from Louisville to Memphis. I sat next to a older homosexual man from Houston and we talked about where we were headed and where we were coming from and how crazy the world is. Then I caught my connection to Phoenix and sat next to a guy about my age who was from Mississippi. He was flying to Phoenix to see his girlfriend, and was planning on proposing to her. I wished him luck in his love endeavors and he wished me luck in my slightly more trivial Pokemon tourney as we went our separate ways. My dad and sister picked me up from the airport and we drove through the night out to San Diego, arriving at around 3 in the morning and parking at the marina near the SD Convention Center. My sister Alyson and I got out and walked around while my dad slept in the back seat. Eventually we ended up at the Hilton and ran into Fulop, Sami, and Chuck. This was my first time meeting Sami. He wasn't anything like what I would have imagined. I couldn't even tell if he had a British accent at first. :3
I got to work teaching Alyson how to play Pokemon with the help of some of the best pros in the game. They helped me fix up a Kingdra deck for her to play in the grinder later that morning. We all cracked jokes and goofed off until the sun came up, then Aly and I headed upstairs to get her registered for the grinder, while the guys headed off to get some sleep. I ran into lots of friends and caught up with people and played a few practice games with a gimmick deck I had been toying around with, Luxray/Cresselia. It was great because it had Luxray (bcif) and some other strong techs in it, but I almost never had a chance to get a Moon Skip off, so I gave the borrowed cards back to my friend Adrian and went back to practicing with Palkia/Luxray. The grinder started soon after and Alyson was up against an Abomasnow/Manectric/Nidoqueen which ended up taking her poor Kingdra deck to town with a four prize sweep when time was called. =< (Anyways she continues on through the grinder and ends up dropping after round 6, going 2 and 4. Not bad for her first tourney, after learning the game hours earlier.)
So while she was grinding, I caught up with my buddies from Colorado and we all try and figure out something new to play for Worlds because Palkia has absolutely zero surprise factor now, and Luxray is looking to be obscenely popular. We pick up our worlds goodie bags (which were amazing by the way - sooo cool) and I end up walking out into downtown San Diego with Ian and his lady friend Boot to find the Subway. The weather was gorgeous! I seriously envy Californians. Even the homeless ones. If I'm ever homeless, I've already picked out the perfect street corner in San Diego to camp out on. We also stopped by a Ralph's and sampled their fancy cheeses, and then it was back to the Hilton to see how the grinder was going. When we get back only one round had passed. This 8 round tournament was looking like it would take 10-12 hours. =/ We chill for a while, playtest a little with my Regigigas deck just for fun (lol) and root for Johnny Kettler who is having an amazing grind with Palkia. He is truly the very best, like no one ever was. I'm pretty much 100% in love with Worlds by now. What an amazing treat for us Pokemon players! This game is so good to us.
So the day wraps up with Fulop and I playtesting down in the lobby. He dominates me with this amazing Flygon variant that just lols at my petty power locking. I build a copy of it, and we playtest a little more up in the Craigs' room, but I just haven't had enough time with the deck to feel comfortable running it. After I leave their room I end up talking myself out of playing it. I run into Justin and Tracy from Michigan down in the lobby and hook them up with a ride back to their hotel, since they've been having some bad experiences with cab rides (and they're obscenely expensive in SD, apparently). I get back to my family's hotel around 2 and crash.
In the morning I'm up and feeling great. I get ready, dress up nice for my very first Worlds, and head back over to the Hilton with my family cheering me on. We all settle in for the player meeting and opening ceremonies. The announcers are soooooo goofy. :3 So here's the meat and potatoes of my report - the games!
Round 1 - Switzerland national champ with Porygon Z
I have a decent opening hand and start setting up Palkia for a nice long Mespirit lock. I make a mental note to attach only basic energies until his Lv.X is out already out. I kill a Baltoy. He candies into Porygon Z on the bench and learnings into the Lv.X. He can't draw into any new cards due to my power lock so he ends up missing some energy attachments and just learnings up a Palkia X GE on the bench. I kill his Pory Lv.X with Hydro Shot. He topdecks a call and attaches it to his lone Palkia and calls for another Baltoy and a Porygon. I Luxray up the Porygon and knock it out. I think he psy balanced with the Baltoy? I knock that out too. Then the Baltoy.
1-0
Round 2 - California player with Beedrill
My hand has Unown G, Uxie and Mesprit. I see I'm able to burn a lot of cards and get off a pretty big Set Up so I put Unown G as my active. He mulligans and on his second hand complains about his bad start. When we flip he has a lone Unown G, which I would have had the outs to knock out on T1 easily. =< Oh well. I get off to a decent start, spray his early Azelf, knock out a Weedle and he never sets up a Claydol, but gets off a couple huge Set Ups of his own and double drawers, then double drawers again, and sets up a flutter wings bee and a band attack bee, and swings at my Luxray for 60. I poketurn to heal, and hit the attack bee back for 60. He retreats to an Uxie or something and I knock it out. I take a couple more prizes off of sacrifices and he isn't topdecking anything spectacular so he scoops. After the game I find out that he runs only 1-1 Claydol and no SSUs. Ouch!
2-0
Round 3 - French dad with Machamp
I open with Mespirit. Lame. He gets T2 Claydol but his first Cosmic only nets him a Machoke, which I bright look and KO. I guard an Uxie and Crobat and just get to work tediously knocking out his Machamps. He double drawers at one point and I cringe, expecting a bubble coat or something similarly unpleasant for my Machamp strategy, but all he gets is another Champ + candy. I psyrestore a Machamp for 50 and put the Uxie on bottom, sending out Crobat. He attaches and hurricane punches, but only does 10 after resistance. I retreat to my guarded Uxie, level up and KO with Zen Blade. He sends up an energyless Machamp which can't do anything to my guarded basic that turn. So I wail on it some more. I get down to two prizes left, take my fifth with a bright look, and my sixth with a Hydro Shot.
3-0
Round 4 - Sami with Flygon
I get off to an okay start but I think I had some energy issues? He gets one huge turn of powers but after that I lock him down and start knocking things out. His prizes were pretty bad - 2 candies, a Machamp and a Machop I think? At one point I triple flash bite and Hydro Shot his Flygon, which would have completely wrecked me if I had left it alone. He responds with a Machamp KO, but I have a guarded Uxie to deal with him. He goes for the hurricane punch and flips two heads. I level up and Zen Blade. He KOes with Nidoqueen. I don't have anything on my field that can deal with the Queen so I decide to go for a couple cheap KOs with bright look. I pull up Claydol and swing for 60. He doesn't have any way to get Claydol out of the active position that turn so he just folds. I'm not sure if I could have taken my sixth prize so easily - all of my poketurns were gone, but I could have let my Luxray X die and then recycled it with Aaron's for the last prize. But he just scoops instead of drawing things out. Great game though. Sami is so sophisticated!
4-0
Round 5 - British guy with Flygon
He sets up a Mewtwo X before I can snipe it. I scoop. lol.
4-1
Round 6 - Chris Fulop with Flygon
He starts with a Ditto to my ridiculous opening hand of Palkia, Turn, Turn, Gain, Gain, Gain, and something else equally useless. I topdeck a call going first and He has both of his Lv.Xes prized and keeps drawing garbage off of his Cynthias. =< This sucks because the SP matchup should be a cakewalk for him - it definitely was when we were testing the previous night. Next turn I get an Uxie, empty my hand as best I can, and draw into zero outs to get a water energy. So I attach a call to my benched Luxray and have to pass. He gets a good sized Mimic off of my lousy hand, but apparently isn't drawing into anything useful. I manage to get things going on my side and take a few KOs here and there, while his Cynthias keep disappointing him. I'm a few prizes up and time is running out so he just scoops.
5-1
Round 7 - Japanese player with Luxray Infernape
He mulligans and I see an energy pickup and bucks in his hand. So I try my best not to make any assumptions about his list based on what is normally run here in the US. His start is a Bronzong, and I get set up fairly well and have the Toxicroak ready to KO his first Luxray X. Then I get my Azelf MT into play and start beating up on stuff. The match was fairly one-sided.
6-1
Top 32 - Dante from Argentina with Palkia
We get random deck checked and end up with a 13 minute time extension on our match. I guess I didn't shuffle well enough after the deck check because my hand is absolute garbage. I scoop game 1 in less than ten minutes, and make sure my deck is better shuffled for game 2. I start off slow, holding an Uxie and some other goodies in hand until he runs out of Mespirits (which happened on T3 - I sprayed one on T2 but he dropped another anyways). We both set up our Palkia Lv.Xes and hit each other back and forth, then he snipes mine and I KO his with a bite from a basic Luxray, while getting Azelf MT into play on the same turn. He has no energy in play, so I don't get attacked that turn. He attaches to a Palkia and passes. I bright look it up and 1-hit it, and he's back to no energy in play. Then I take another prize on a random sacrifice. After I've taken four prizes and a time warning is announced, he scoops to get us into game 3 with him being able to choose whether to go first or second. I get 3 SPs in play on my first turn, with one spray in hand. He has a Raichu active and drops down Azelf. I let it go. He drops Mespirit. I let it go. He empties his hand and drops Uxie. I spray, and he's left with a 1 card hand. He proceeds to dead draw for several turns while I get completely set up. I figure he probably isn't going to get much going with a bench full of useless jank, so I go ahead and get as much stuff onto my field as I can before I start taking prizes. I'm up a prize or two when our time extension runs out, and it's my turn so I just end my turn for the win.
7-1
So I make it to day two! But the night is still young so I go out with some friends to a barbeque place. We get our pictures taken with a creepy cartoon pig sign. On the walk back, we cross paths with a cute little cockroach and one of my friends stomps on it. RIP la cucaracha =< We head back to the Hilton to try and swim, but the pool is closing right after we get in. So we go up to Jimmy's room and I try to get a little less soggy, then we go to a party and I get to watch a video of a certain 5867-time world champion kissing boys. How cute :3 One of the guys staying in that room needs to get some sleep for top 16 the next day, and I figure I should probably follow suit, so I head back to my hotel and crash (again).
Next morning, I'm up bright and early making sure I look spiffy for my impending autoloss. I get there a little early and get my picture taken with the inflatables, decorations, and any friends I can manage to round up.
Top 16 - Sebastian Crema from Canada with Flygon
He gets Mewtwo X out turn 2 both games. We're the first ones up from our top 16 games because I scoop as soon as he shows me the X. I guess I could've sat around and waited to make sure he didn't have, like, all of his psychic energies prized or something, but I didn't feel like drawing out the inevitable. Both games I had great starts, and I definitely could've dealt with the Mewtwo if I had one more turn, but that's just the way it goes sometimes.
7-2
The first thing I pull out of my goodie bag is a Mewtwo hat. :3 I wear it for a while, to be ironic. Not sure if anyone got the joke. I spend the rest of the morning playing league games to try and win some extra sleeves or maybe one of those neat ultra ball playmats. I whiff and just end up with a bunch of foreign packs. I get a few of my friends to play other non-pokemon games like Set, Blink, and Guillotine, and watch some of the finals. Then me, Jimmy, Tracy, and my family head down to the beach right on the border with Mexico. The waves were huge and awesome and the water was great and I didn't get eaten by sharks, not even once. It was strange, our side of the beach was completely deserted but the Tijuana side was crowded and they had music playing. I went over and talked through the fence to a guy named Julio. I tried speaking a little Spanish but probably sounded very foolish. Conversely, Julio spoke English very well. I'm such a language noob =< It wasn't long before the border patrol cruised by in a Jeep and honked at me to get away from the fence. The whole border situation is just so silly when you see it with your own eyes instead of just hearing about it in the debates and on the news. Whoever invented these imaginary lines and decided you can't cross them if you were born on a certain side? It just seems so absurd to me. In any case, the fence wasn't even all that great. I could probably fit through if I lost like five pounds. I saw little kids running through the bars, dancing around a bit on the American side, then running back over to their side. It reminded me of playing tag with bases as a kid, and how you would sometimes let go of the base to taunt whoever was "it" and then run back to the base when they came to chase you. So cute :3
So the beach closed at 7 and we headed back into town. We hopped into the jacuzzi at the Hilton, then into the pool, then back into the jacuzzi. Tracy taught Jimmy and me how to do towel turbans with our wet hair. Picture opportunities ensued. After we cleaned up from swimming, we headed out into town to find some dinner, ending up at Sushi Itta where I tried plum sake for the first time. So good! After dinner I had to say my goodbyes because my family had to be back in Arizona in time for church the next morning. Ugh, I wish I could've stayed for ever. Such an amazing weekend.
Props:
Everyone and everything!
Thank you so much to Pokemon International for hosting such an amazing event and taking such great care of your players. And thank you so much to the worlds staff that worked so hard to make this weekend possible. And thank you to all of my friends and opponents, and even everyone I haven't had the pleasure of meeting yet. You're amazing and I love you all.
A few particular people that I would like to mention by name: Chris, Sami, Jimmy, Tracy, Justin, Ian, Bret, Adrian, Colin, Anthony, Taylor, Clay, Vince, and my family. You all made this weekend extra special for me and I will have so many fond memories and fun stories to tell for years to come. lovelovelove etc.
Oh and a huge prop to the free vegetable juices in the main hall all weekend. I drank way too many :3
Slops:
Mewtwo.
Naw, not really. He's a cool guy and doesn't afraid of anything.
So this season has just been spectacular. I've done a lot of traveling, spent a lot of time with old friends, and met quite a few new ones. This was also the first year I managed to earn an invite to Worlds. So I booked a flight to Phoenix, where I grew up and where my family still lives. My first flight was from Louisville to Memphis. I sat next to a older homosexual man from Houston and we talked about where we were headed and where we were coming from and how crazy the world is. Then I caught my connection to Phoenix and sat next to a guy about my age who was from Mississippi. He was flying to Phoenix to see his girlfriend, and was planning on proposing to her. I wished him luck in his love endeavors and he wished me luck in my slightly more trivial Pokemon tourney as we went our separate ways. My dad and sister picked me up from the airport and we drove through the night out to San Diego, arriving at around 3 in the morning and parking at the marina near the SD Convention Center. My sister Alyson and I got out and walked around while my dad slept in the back seat. Eventually we ended up at the Hilton and ran into Fulop, Sami, and Chuck. This was my first time meeting Sami. He wasn't anything like what I would have imagined. I couldn't even tell if he had a British accent at first. :3
I got to work teaching Alyson how to play Pokemon with the help of some of the best pros in the game. They helped me fix up a Kingdra deck for her to play in the grinder later that morning. We all cracked jokes and goofed off until the sun came up, then Aly and I headed upstairs to get her registered for the grinder, while the guys headed off to get some sleep. I ran into lots of friends and caught up with people and played a few practice games with a gimmick deck I had been toying around with, Luxray/Cresselia. It was great because it had Luxray (bcif) and some other strong techs in it, but I almost never had a chance to get a Moon Skip off, so I gave the borrowed cards back to my friend Adrian and went back to practicing with Palkia/Luxray. The grinder started soon after and Alyson was up against an Abomasnow/Manectric/Nidoqueen which ended up taking her poor Kingdra deck to town with a four prize sweep when time was called. =< (Anyways she continues on through the grinder and ends up dropping after round 6, going 2 and 4. Not bad for her first tourney, after learning the game hours earlier.)
So while she was grinding, I caught up with my buddies from Colorado and we all try and figure out something new to play for Worlds because Palkia has absolutely zero surprise factor now, and Luxray is looking to be obscenely popular. We pick up our worlds goodie bags (which were amazing by the way - sooo cool) and I end up walking out into downtown San Diego with Ian and his lady friend Boot to find the Subway. The weather was gorgeous! I seriously envy Californians. Even the homeless ones. If I'm ever homeless, I've already picked out the perfect street corner in San Diego to camp out on. We also stopped by a Ralph's and sampled their fancy cheeses, and then it was back to the Hilton to see how the grinder was going. When we get back only one round had passed. This 8 round tournament was looking like it would take 10-12 hours. =/ We chill for a while, playtest a little with my Regigigas deck just for fun (lol) and root for Johnny Kettler who is having an amazing grind with Palkia. He is truly the very best, like no one ever was. I'm pretty much 100% in love with Worlds by now. What an amazing treat for us Pokemon players! This game is so good to us.
So the day wraps up with Fulop and I playtesting down in the lobby. He dominates me with this amazing Flygon variant that just lols at my petty power locking. I build a copy of it, and we playtest a little more up in the Craigs' room, but I just haven't had enough time with the deck to feel comfortable running it. After I leave their room I end up talking myself out of playing it. I run into Justin and Tracy from Michigan down in the lobby and hook them up with a ride back to their hotel, since they've been having some bad experiences with cab rides (and they're obscenely expensive in SD, apparently). I get back to my family's hotel around 2 and crash.
In the morning I'm up and feeling great. I get ready, dress up nice for my very first Worlds, and head back over to the Hilton with my family cheering me on. We all settle in for the player meeting and opening ceremonies. The announcers are soooooo goofy. :3 So here's the meat and potatoes of my report - the games!
Round 1 - Switzerland national champ with Porygon Z
I have a decent opening hand and start setting up Palkia for a nice long Mespirit lock. I make a mental note to attach only basic energies until his Lv.X is out already out. I kill a Baltoy. He candies into Porygon Z on the bench and learnings into the Lv.X. He can't draw into any new cards due to my power lock so he ends up missing some energy attachments and just learnings up a Palkia X GE on the bench. I kill his Pory Lv.X with Hydro Shot. He topdecks a call and attaches it to his lone Palkia and calls for another Baltoy and a Porygon. I Luxray up the Porygon and knock it out. I think he psy balanced with the Baltoy? I knock that out too. Then the Baltoy.
1-0
Round 2 - California player with Beedrill
My hand has Unown G, Uxie and Mesprit. I see I'm able to burn a lot of cards and get off a pretty big Set Up so I put Unown G as my active. He mulligans and on his second hand complains about his bad start. When we flip he has a lone Unown G, which I would have had the outs to knock out on T1 easily. =< Oh well. I get off to a decent start, spray his early Azelf, knock out a Weedle and he never sets up a Claydol, but gets off a couple huge Set Ups of his own and double drawers, then double drawers again, and sets up a flutter wings bee and a band attack bee, and swings at my Luxray for 60. I poketurn to heal, and hit the attack bee back for 60. He retreats to an Uxie or something and I knock it out. I take a couple more prizes off of sacrifices and he isn't topdecking anything spectacular so he scoops. After the game I find out that he runs only 1-1 Claydol and no SSUs. Ouch!
2-0
Round 3 - French dad with Machamp
I open with Mespirit. Lame. He gets T2 Claydol but his first Cosmic only nets him a Machoke, which I bright look and KO. I guard an Uxie and Crobat and just get to work tediously knocking out his Machamps. He double drawers at one point and I cringe, expecting a bubble coat or something similarly unpleasant for my Machamp strategy, but all he gets is another Champ + candy. I psyrestore a Machamp for 50 and put the Uxie on bottom, sending out Crobat. He attaches and hurricane punches, but only does 10 after resistance. I retreat to my guarded Uxie, level up and KO with Zen Blade. He sends up an energyless Machamp which can't do anything to my guarded basic that turn. So I wail on it some more. I get down to two prizes left, take my fifth with a bright look, and my sixth with a Hydro Shot.
3-0
Round 4 - Sami with Flygon
I get off to an okay start but I think I had some energy issues? He gets one huge turn of powers but after that I lock him down and start knocking things out. His prizes were pretty bad - 2 candies, a Machamp and a Machop I think? At one point I triple flash bite and Hydro Shot his Flygon, which would have completely wrecked me if I had left it alone. He responds with a Machamp KO, but I have a guarded Uxie to deal with him. He goes for the hurricane punch and flips two heads. I level up and Zen Blade. He KOes with Nidoqueen. I don't have anything on my field that can deal with the Queen so I decide to go for a couple cheap KOs with bright look. I pull up Claydol and swing for 60. He doesn't have any way to get Claydol out of the active position that turn so he just folds. I'm not sure if I could have taken my sixth prize so easily - all of my poketurns were gone, but I could have let my Luxray X die and then recycled it with Aaron's for the last prize. But he just scoops instead of drawing things out. Great game though. Sami is so sophisticated!
4-0
Round 5 - British guy with Flygon
He sets up a Mewtwo X before I can snipe it. I scoop. lol.
4-1
Round 6 - Chris Fulop with Flygon
He starts with a Ditto to my ridiculous opening hand of Palkia, Turn, Turn, Gain, Gain, Gain, and something else equally useless. I topdeck a call going first and He has both of his Lv.Xes prized and keeps drawing garbage off of his Cynthias. =< This sucks because the SP matchup should be a cakewalk for him - it definitely was when we were testing the previous night. Next turn I get an Uxie, empty my hand as best I can, and draw into zero outs to get a water energy. So I attach a call to my benched Luxray and have to pass. He gets a good sized Mimic off of my lousy hand, but apparently isn't drawing into anything useful. I manage to get things going on my side and take a few KOs here and there, while his Cynthias keep disappointing him. I'm a few prizes up and time is running out so he just scoops.
5-1
Round 7 - Japanese player with Luxray Infernape
He mulligans and I see an energy pickup and bucks in his hand. So I try my best not to make any assumptions about his list based on what is normally run here in the US. His start is a Bronzong, and I get set up fairly well and have the Toxicroak ready to KO his first Luxray X. Then I get my Azelf MT into play and start beating up on stuff. The match was fairly one-sided.
6-1
Top 32 - Dante from Argentina with Palkia
We get random deck checked and end up with a 13 minute time extension on our match. I guess I didn't shuffle well enough after the deck check because my hand is absolute garbage. I scoop game 1 in less than ten minutes, and make sure my deck is better shuffled for game 2. I start off slow, holding an Uxie and some other goodies in hand until he runs out of Mespirits (which happened on T3 - I sprayed one on T2 but he dropped another anyways). We both set up our Palkia Lv.Xes and hit each other back and forth, then he snipes mine and I KO his with a bite from a basic Luxray, while getting Azelf MT into play on the same turn. He has no energy in play, so I don't get attacked that turn. He attaches to a Palkia and passes. I bright look it up and 1-hit it, and he's back to no energy in play. Then I take another prize on a random sacrifice. After I've taken four prizes and a time warning is announced, he scoops to get us into game 3 with him being able to choose whether to go first or second. I get 3 SPs in play on my first turn, with one spray in hand. He has a Raichu active and drops down Azelf. I let it go. He drops Mespirit. I let it go. He empties his hand and drops Uxie. I spray, and he's left with a 1 card hand. He proceeds to dead draw for several turns while I get completely set up. I figure he probably isn't going to get much going with a bench full of useless jank, so I go ahead and get as much stuff onto my field as I can before I start taking prizes. I'm up a prize or two when our time extension runs out, and it's my turn so I just end my turn for the win.
7-1
So I make it to day two! But the night is still young so I go out with some friends to a barbeque place. We get our pictures taken with a creepy cartoon pig sign. On the walk back, we cross paths with a cute little cockroach and one of my friends stomps on it. RIP la cucaracha =< We head back to the Hilton to try and swim, but the pool is closing right after we get in. So we go up to Jimmy's room and I try to get a little less soggy, then we go to a party and I get to watch a video of a certain 5867-time world champion kissing boys. How cute :3 One of the guys staying in that room needs to get some sleep for top 16 the next day, and I figure I should probably follow suit, so I head back to my hotel and crash (again).
Next morning, I'm up bright and early making sure I look spiffy for my impending autoloss. I get there a little early and get my picture taken with the inflatables, decorations, and any friends I can manage to round up.
Top 16 - Sebastian Crema from Canada with Flygon
He gets Mewtwo X out turn 2 both games. We're the first ones up from our top 16 games because I scoop as soon as he shows me the X. I guess I could've sat around and waited to make sure he didn't have, like, all of his psychic energies prized or something, but I didn't feel like drawing out the inevitable. Both games I had great starts, and I definitely could've dealt with the Mewtwo if I had one more turn, but that's just the way it goes sometimes.
7-2
The first thing I pull out of my goodie bag is a Mewtwo hat. :3 I wear it for a while, to be ironic. Not sure if anyone got the joke. I spend the rest of the morning playing league games to try and win some extra sleeves or maybe one of those neat ultra ball playmats. I whiff and just end up with a bunch of foreign packs. I get a few of my friends to play other non-pokemon games like Set, Blink, and Guillotine, and watch some of the finals. Then me, Jimmy, Tracy, and my family head down to the beach right on the border with Mexico. The waves were huge and awesome and the water was great and I didn't get eaten by sharks, not even once. It was strange, our side of the beach was completely deserted but the Tijuana side was crowded and they had music playing. I went over and talked through the fence to a guy named Julio. I tried speaking a little Spanish but probably sounded very foolish. Conversely, Julio spoke English very well. I'm such a language noob =< It wasn't long before the border patrol cruised by in a Jeep and honked at me to get away from the fence. The whole border situation is just so silly when you see it with your own eyes instead of just hearing about it in the debates and on the news. Whoever invented these imaginary lines and decided you can't cross them if you were born on a certain side? It just seems so absurd to me. In any case, the fence wasn't even all that great. I could probably fit through if I lost like five pounds. I saw little kids running through the bars, dancing around a bit on the American side, then running back over to their side. It reminded me of playing tag with bases as a kid, and how you would sometimes let go of the base to taunt whoever was "it" and then run back to the base when they came to chase you. So cute :3
So the beach closed at 7 and we headed back into town. We hopped into the jacuzzi at the Hilton, then into the pool, then back into the jacuzzi. Tracy taught Jimmy and me how to do towel turbans with our wet hair. Picture opportunities ensued. After we cleaned up from swimming, we headed out into town to find some dinner, ending up at Sushi Itta where I tried plum sake for the first time. So good! After dinner I had to say my goodbyes because my family had to be back in Arizona in time for church the next morning. Ugh, I wish I could've stayed for ever. Such an amazing weekend.
Props:
Everyone and everything!
Thank you so much to Pokemon International for hosting such an amazing event and taking such great care of your players. And thank you so much to the worlds staff that worked so hard to make this weekend possible. And thank you to all of my friends and opponents, and even everyone I haven't had the pleasure of meeting yet. You're amazing and I love you all.
A few particular people that I would like to mention by name: Chris, Sami, Jimmy, Tracy, Justin, Ian, Bret, Adrian, Colin, Anthony, Taylor, Clay, Vince, and my family. You all made this weekend extra special for me and I will have so many fond memories and fun stories to tell for years to come. lovelovelove etc.
Oh and a huge prop to the free vegetable juices in the main hall all weekend. I drank way too many :3
Slops:
Mewtwo.
Naw, not really. He's a cool guy and doesn't afraid of anything.
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