October 11th, 2011 is the day that made me meet the best people ever, a call of Destiny!
Leeloo and I actually had known each other for years without knowing each other. It sounds complicated but I don't really know how to explain it. Our paths had met before but we hadn't really talked. And I got much closer to some friends since that day.
The day after we got back from Pierrefonds (heartbroken after those goodbyes) in september, Eoin posted a fund raising for his movie Cold. I have to say that I hadn't paid attention to Eoin's work before, because that's Leeloo's job! :-) But I gotta say that those few minutes of Eoin talking about Cold, and the few images, and the music, well, everything he showed us made me like this movie. It looks so beautiful and touching! (note to self: bring tissues when you go see this movie). So I gave him some money and spammed my twitter followers to do the same, because I believe in this movie.
And one october night, as I was just back home from a late train ride, I got a call from Leeloo "Is Eoin serious??? how can he do that to us?" so I turned Twitter on and discovered what the "that" was : "An invitation from Eoin Macken and Tom Hopper". On the phone with Leeloo, who was texting with Charlotte while I had Johanna at home, we got all our planning skills together to find a way to go to London on November 3rd. Eurostar, Airplane, bus, car, we checked everything. On tuesday morning, Leeloo's boss gave her the saturday off, that was it, we were going!
Saturday, November 3rd.
We went to bed at 2am... we woke up at 4:45, we were exhausted! I don't even know how Leeloo managed to drive as I could barely keep my eyes open... We arrived at the Eurotunnel early and got to take an early train (does that make sense?).
UK, 8am, sunny, and the most boring road ever! We finally made it to Melody's who so nicely accepted to let us all stay for the night. One of the 1st thing we asked was the Wifi access code... yes, I know, but, we had to know what was going on!! Turns out Eoin and Tom were not there yet and Vlavla was entertaining the audience. We took a quick breakfast and checked Twitter on last time before going, Colin Morgan was there. I wasn't surprised because Eoin's tweets were pretty obvious Colin was going to be there. But still, if Colin was there in the morning, who would we get in the afternoon?
After 30 minutes, we arrived at the Old Street Station, where we met Jenny and her husband. Funny how we were there at the same time :-)
So we all walked to the hotel where Sarah had already arrived. It was great to see again our Pierrefonds friends :-)
We quickly realized that the boys were having the autograph session in the hall and seeing them brought the Pierrefonds memories back.
We went to register for the afternoon session as Eoin, Tom and Vlavla were having lunch while signing the last autographs.
The afternoon session started one hour late, like the morning session, but we had Alan Rickard from The Evora to play us some really good music as Rhys (aka CoolLaptopGuy) was mastering the ColdCon hashtag on Twitter.
That's The Evora, check them out, they are very very good!!!
Eoin and Tom soon arrived, smiling and as wonderful as they always are. I was worried we would only have Merlin questions and was pleased that most questions were about Cold, Tom's acting experience and Eoin's directing work. They answered the best they could, always with humor. Then our Vlavla showed up and started to answer questions too. Then it was photoshoot time!! We were told that Vlavla had a phone call to make and that he would take photos with us during the autograph session. We were called raws by raws and so we had to wait. When we were finally called, only few meters from speaking to Tom and Eoin, a ColdCon Crew lady told us to go back to our seats as it was time for a special guest.
As we went back to our seats, guessing who that would be as Colin came in the morning, I told the girls "maybe Bradley recorded a message, he's good at recording videos when he can't be somewhere" and as Rhys turned the screen off I added "Or maybe we're gonna skype with Bradley!" wait what? Tom walks to Rhys with his phone in his hand, Rhys starts doing something on the computer "oh gosh we're really gonna skype with Bradley?", and that was it, Tom told us that someone who was in America wanted to say hello! I could barely breathe... I don't know if it was having Bradley on a big screen in front of us, or having guessed that we would have Bradley on the screen. Bradley answered few questions, being his adorable self, not caring about what people want him to say, but talking about his beliefs, sorry Merthur fans, but Arwen wins!!! haha (j/k) And then we lost the connection... this awkward moment when both Tom's and Bradley's Skype names appear on the screen... (Tom's name had been on the entire time, just sayin...) Tom tells us it's over when Bradley calls back to answer one more question and say goodbye. It was short but so nice!! (Yes I'm fangirling a little bit right now).
We go back to our photoshoots. I look like crap because of the 2 hour sleep and the long drive, but whatever, they don't look better haha. We start with Tom, who's a giant. Everybody knows Tom is a giant but I had never felt so small in my life, really! Then I walk to Eoin who welcomes me arms open with a big smile. I thank him for having us and he thanks me for being here, my pleasure Eoin, really :-) And than Vlavla! Vlavla had come back from his phone call, but just as I was going to him, few people who couldn't get their photo before arrived so I had to wait. Our friend Nao who was with us in Pierrefonds in June really likes Vlavla, but she couldn't make it to London... So she had sent me a photo of her asking me if she could be on my photo with Vlavla... So while waiting for everyone to finish their photo, I took my phone out put her photo on the screen. As Vlavla opened his arm towards me (finally!), I showed him the photo and told him that my friend really likes him, so he smiled, and explained it to the Crew Lady who was taking my photo (she seemed confused about me having my phone on the photo lol). I thanked him for being here and helping Tom and Eoin, and went back to my seat talk to Leeloo, who, from what I saw, had had a little chat with Eoin after he recognized her :-)
We're running out of time and Eoin tells us it's time for the autograph session. Once again it's raw by raw, so Rhys plays us some Merlin videos. Doesn't matter how many times we've seen the bloopers, we laugh everytime!
When Rhys tells us to go get our autographs, I feel sad, because it means it's over, we're leaving the conference room, forever! When we get out, our friend Amandine is here. I give her the grenadine I brought from France especially for her, and she stays with us as we're in the line for Vlavla's autograph. I had my own photos to get signed. For Vlavla I printed a photo of him in Pierrefonds, when he took a photo of the fans. Kajsa (his girlfriend) laughs and says that it's a pretty good photo (I know, I know). I thank Vlavla one more time and move to the next line, Tom's. For Tom I printed a photo from Pierrefonds too, he's on his horse with a funny smile, that made Laura laugh (laughing at funny pictures is such a girlfriend thing!! XD ). I ask him to sign his Cold photo for my friend's birthday, and then he asks me if I want one too, sure! Time for Eoin's autograph, the last one... I don't have any funny photo from Pierrefonds (and now that I think about it, I might from September but didn't think to check the September folder when I printed my photos... anyway), I have a promo pic of Sir Gwaine and his horse. One last thank you, one last goodbye, and we leave.
This convention was the perfect way to say goodbye. We know we probably won't see them again for a long time, or at least not together.
So I would like to say a huge thank you to Eoin and Tom for organizing this event, and for Cold, which I am sure will be a wonderful movie.
To Vlavla, who spent the entire day answering questions, taking photos and signing autographs... Welcome to the Merlin family Alex!!!
To Bradley for taking the time to support his friends and please fans, even when he's in LA.
To Alan and Serenna for the music
To Rhys for Live Tweeting
To all the ColdCon Crew people who did an amazing job, and I know how tiring it is to work on an event like this!
To Leeloo, Johanna and Charlotte for being crazy friends and sharing this journey and to Melody for having us :-)
