*WARNING: Lots of photos in this Blathering!*

Above: Leafy Sea Dragon, at the Georgia Aquarium.

One of my favourite GAfilk highlights was at the hotel restaurant. There were nearly a dozen of us, laughing and chatting, when a man in a suit came up to our table. At first I thought he was going to complain about the noise but instead, he asked who we were and where we came from.

"Y'all seem to be so enthusiastic and having so much fun," he told us with a grin. "It's obvious you're here voluntarily."

So we told him about filk conventions and why we all got together. He was highly intrigued, asked lots of questions. We invited him to come have a listen, but he laughed and said he had to go, wished us well for the rest of the weekend.

Similar thing happened on the shuttle from the hotel to the airport, where we were going to catch the MARTA to the Georgia Aquarium. Two older women sitting near us on the shuttle were astounded that some of us were from Singapore (Terence), Germany (Eva, Rafael & Crystal) and Canada (Jodi and me), all here just to hang out for fun and make music. One of the women even had a short conversation with Eva in German. :-)

Another highlight was hanging out at the Suttons' place after the convention with Jodi, Eva, Crystal, Rafael and Terence (Allison had to fly back on Sunday afternoon because she needed to teach the next day). It was a chance to decompress as well as have conversations longer than a few minutes at a time. I actually came home feeling better rested than I had before the weekend!

I got to meet Lucy and Jack:

Sat in on a gaming session:

Went for walks around the neighbourhood, napped, had lots of tea and comfort food, many interesting conversations including learning about German wedding traditions, watched an old episode of Forever Knight with Terence (it was filmed in Toronto, eh?), and played some music.

On the recommendation of Steve Stirling, we decided to visit the Georgia Aquarium, which is the largest aquarium in the world; it has more than 100,000 animals from 500 species! We had a ton of fun, and were amazed by the huge aquariums all around us:

While the rest of us oohed and aahed over the gorgeous colours and sealife, Terence commented on the edibility of each. :-D

RAFAEL: "Wow, look at that fish!"

EVA: "Gorgeous!"

CRYSTAL: "What colours!"

JODI: "Beautiful!"

TERENCE: "I've had it before. Too chewy."

The place was divided up into different galleries. The Georgia Coast Gallery has "touch tanks" full of horseshoe crabs, sea stars, stingrays and shrimp that visitors could touch (gently, with two fingers) during certain time periods:

In another gallery, you could crawl up through a tunnel and look at penguins close-up through a plastic bubble:

And there were so many places where you could look UP through the water at all the creatures swimming above:

These garden eels were also pretty cool:

And the jellyfish tank was mesmerizing...

I could spent hours in each single room, just watching the wildlife. I envy you Atlanta area types!

Many thanks to Bill and Brenda Sutton for hosting us! You can see my other post-GAfilk photos in this Flickr set.

To finish off, here are the lyrics to "Hey J.K.!", one of the new songs we premiered in our concert. I asked Allison and Jodi for help brainstorming re: ideas and phrases for the song, then I put the lyrics together and added music. You can find the sheet music in the GAfilk songbook (courtesy Mary Crowell), but here are the lyrics:

HEY, J.K.!
Lyrics by Urban Tapestry
Music by Debbie Ridpath Ohi
Dec/2006

CHORUS:
Gm F
Hey, J.K.!
Bb
Who ya gonna kill
F
Who ya gonna kill, who ya gonna
Gm F
Hey, J.K.!
Bb F
Won't you let us have a look
Gm F
Hey, J.K.!
Bb
Who ya gonna kill
F
Who ya gonna kill, who ya gonna
Gm F
Hey, J.K.!
Bb F Gm
Who ya gonna kill in your next book?

Gm F
No, no, Snape can't die <-- Allison
Eb
He's a bad apple <-- Jodi & Debbie
D
That's not a fact!<-- Allison
Gm F
No, no, Snape won't die
Eb D
Allison, he wears only black! <-- Jodi & Debbie

Gm F Eb
Ok, it has to be a Weasley <-- Jodi
Gm
No, you're wrong <-- Allison
F Eb
There are so many of them, one of them has to go <-- Jodi & Debbie
Gm Eb
Ok, it has to be a Weasley <-- Allison
Gm
Then it's Ron! <-- Jodi & Debbie

Gm F
No, no, Ron can't die <-- Allison
Eb
But he's a sidekick <-- Jodi & Debbie
D
That can't be his end <-- Allison
Gm F
No, no, Ron won't die
Eb D
Allison, but he's Harry's friend! <-- Jodi & Debbie

Gm F
I think Hagrid's a goner <-- Jodi
Eb F
Always into trouble, breaking rules
Gm F
I think Hagrid's a goner
Bb F (G)
He'll be dead or maybe kicked out of school

Gm F
No, no, Hagrid can't die <-- Allison
Eb
He'll die for Harry <-- Jodi & Debbie
D
He'll never fall <-- Allison
Gm F
No, no, Hagrid won't die
Eb D
Allison, he's just way too tall! <-- Jodi & Debbie

Gm F Eb
Oh, J.K. Rowling, are the rumors true <-- Jodi
Dm
Who will we have to bury
Eb F
Weasley, Hagrid, Snape, or Peter Pettigrew?
Gm F
Oh J.K. Rowling, please just
Eb F
DON'T KILL HARRY <-- all three
G F Eb F
We promise not to come unglued. (Yet...)

CHORUS

Photo below: one of my favourite moments in the convention. I was walking down the hallway when I came across Teresa Powell and Dave Rood, both with guitars and singing one of Dave's songs (I think the title is "Only"?), with Teresa harmonizing. It was truly gorgeous, and I felt incredibly lucky to have been there at the right time; moments like this one are never listed in programming, and they tend to happen a lot at a convention like GAfilk.

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