I arrived at the Fairmont and immediately had a powerful sense of deja vu, as this was the same hotel I spent much of the San Jose Worldcon partying at back in 2002. I missed yesterday’s opening ceremonies, and showed up too late to register, but I was immediately in a boisterous maelstrom of friends. No name badge was needed with this crowd.

I ended up going to dinner almost immediately with John Kessel, Paul Park, Kij Johnson, Leslie Howle, and Neile Graham. We ended up at a joint called Don Pedro’s, where I had a big bowl of goat soup—but only because they were all out of the fried pork skin!

Here I am on one side of the table with John and Kij:

You can see the rest of my few initial World Fantasy photos here.

I partied much too late—at least for this East Coast body&#8212and so by the time I crashed my internal clock was telling me it was 3:00 a.m. I’m sure I missed most of the fun. I look forward to being a more well-adjusted partier tonight!