Beth Dolgner, Writer and Editor

This past weekend, I attended my first Star Wars Celebration. I go to DragonCon every year, but I was excited about attending a Con for nothing but Star Wars.

I was not disappointed.

Celebration V was held in the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Florida. Ed and I got to town Thursday night, but I had to go over by myself on Friday because he had to work from the hotel room. I was nervous since I was debuting my new 1950s-style homage to Boba Fett. “Will people think my outfit is dorky?” I asked Ed. (The answer was no: I got my pic taken all day, and Boba Fett himself gave me a sinister nod of approval.)

I shouldn’t have worried about going over alone. By the time I got on the shuttle, I was already befriended by Melissa and her mother, who showed me where to go and were great company in line to get into the show. After that, I met up with Charlotte and Bruce from the UAB Magic board, and we hung out.

Ed came over in the afternoon, then we spent Saturday there before heading to the Last Tour to Endor at Disney’s Hollywood Studios (more on that later). We went for one last hurrah Sunday morning before making the drive back home to Atlanta.

The highlights:

Star Wars Celebration V was an amazing experience. I am proud to be a fangirl, and brought home some Boba Fett goodies to prove it. (However, I passed on the circa-1979 Boba action figure in a box…$8,000 was out of my budget.) I get giddy seeing one or two Stormtroopers, and the occasional Mandalorian Merc. Seeing them come out in force for Celebration…well, it’s like Geek Girl Heaven for me.

After visiting The Battle Box, our Friday in Singapore was just getting started. We had an early lunch at a hawker center in Chinatown. Hawker centers are food courts with a flea market sort of feel, and they’re mostly patronized by locals. After seeing one of the food vendors featured on Anthony Bourdain’s “No Reservations,” we made our way to the booth selling chicken rice. This national dish of Singapore is simple but delicious, and the long line was well worth it. For $2.80 (in Singapore dollars), we ate the best meal of our entire vacation.

After a heavy rainstorm, we went to the Singapore Zoo for a couple of hours. The rain held off until the final half hour, but by then we’d seen all the monkeys and the cute “little” pygmy hippos, so we took shelter in an aviary. This aviary featured the usual birds, but there were also free-ranging mice deer (which are the size of house cats), bats, lemurs and even a sloth. On the whole, the Singapore Zoo is probably the best zoo we’ve ever visited.

Little free-ranging monkeys at the zoo entrance.

Another monkey.

Beautiful white tigers.

Baby monkeys!

This little guy was so cute, but oddly human.

The free-ranging mice deer were tiny!

Cute ring-tailed lemurs.

However, the adjacent Night Safari was every bit as good, and a unique zoo experience. Night Safari opens at 7:00 p.m., and seeing animals in the near-dark adds a whole new dimension: it’s so dark that you often can’t see the barriers between you and the animals. Of course, plenty of the zoo’s inhabitants are free-ranging, but the ones that would like to eat small children are kept out of reach.

Ed had visited the Night Safari once before, so this time we signed up for the VIP tour. We got dinner and a tour on a golf cart. Most visitors board trams that wind past exhibits and stop at trails featuring more animals. The golf cart was definitely the better choice. We were the only people who had signed up for the VIP package that night, so after seeing a show featuring nocturnal animals, we climbed aboard our cart with our very own tour guide. It was amazing, but the absolute highlight was getting to feed elephants. We fed bananas and apples to two elephants. One was close enough that I just reached out with the fruit, and she took it from me with her trunk. The second stood out of reach, but she’d lift her trunk and open her mouth when she wanted us to toss a banana to her. It was such a neat experience!

We finished our Night Safari around 11:30, so we were ready to get back into the city for some sleep.

Five days isn’t much time to see an entire country, but the task is a lot easier when the country is smaller than Metro Atlanta. When Ed found out that he was returning to Singapore for work, I decided to tag along. The country was the last stop on Ed’s two-week tour of Australia and Asia.

The view from our hotel room.

The flights to get there – about 14 hours to Tokyo and another 7 to Singapore – were enough to make anyone stir crazy. I arrived at 1:oo a.m. on a Thursday. Thankfully, navigating customs and falling into a taxi were easy to do on very little sleep. I happily slept in Thursday morning, but by noon I was ready to go out and see Singapore.

My first stop was Raffles City, one of the many shopping malls in the country. These people are serious shoppers! My aim wasn’t shopping, though: it was food. I wound up with a bowl of awesome that, though called a Portuguese dish, closely resembled my favorite Korean dish, Be-Bim-Bab.

Next up was Fort Canning Park. Only three blocks from the hotel, the park felt like something from an Indiana Jones movie. It was easy to forget I was in the middle of a huge city-country as I roamed pathways and checked out the historic sites. One unexpected encounter was listening to the sound check for a Placebo concert happening in the park that night. Sadly, it was only crew guys on stage!

Fort Canning Park felt like a jungle.

Headstones placed in a wall at Fort Canning Park.

Ed arrived Thursday night and we indulged in incredible “cook it yourself” steak at a Japanese restaurant. We followed that up with Singapore Slings at Raffles Hotel. Legend has it that Raffles is where the Singapore Sling was born. The bar was wonderful: I have no doubt that Disney Imagineers used it as inspiration for The Adventurers Club at the now-defunct Pleasure Island.

We went back to Fort Canning Park on Friday morning to tour The Battle Box. Singapore was a British colony from the mid-1800s through, technically, 1971. The British Army established a base there with a labyrinthine bunker built into the hill that now comprises the park. The bunker was used extensively during World War II. It was an interesting tour, though the mannequins used in the dioramas were so lifelike that I found them creepy. I’m convinced they come to life at night!

A room in the Battle Box.

The mannequins aren't so bad unless they're looking at you...

...Like this one.

I hate is when the escape route is a dead end!

This photo in the Battle Box museum cracked us up!

Friday afternoon and evening was all about animals, as we headed to the Singapore Zoo and Night Safari. Stay tuned for plenty of monkey pictures!

The economy finally caught up with me this year. On January 1, 2009, I had a full roster of clients and was slated to have a great year in terms on income. By February 1, cutbacks by clients had me wondering how I’d ever pay my bills. But I survived the year, and, in all other respects, 2009 was great. Here are a few highlights:

My first book was published: I finally became a published author in the spring of 2009 with the publication of “Georgia Spirits and Specters.” I still get excited when I go into a bookstore and see my book on the shelf.

DragonCon Thriller: This was my second year at DragonCon, and it was better than the first. I was there all four days, but Sunday was especially memorable because of an attempt to break the Guinness World’s Record for the most people dancing to Thriller. I was an instructor, and after four exhausting hours of rehearsals we had over 900 people dancing. We didn’t get the record, but teaching Stormtroopers, pirates, Aliens and other assorted creatures is a singular experience.

Yes, that's the Flying Spaghetti Monster behind me.

Denmark: The perk of Ed’s often insane travel schedule is that sometimes I get to tag along. At the end of his “tour of Europe” in the fall, I met him in Copenhagen for a quick vacation. I already wrote about the trip, and it was typical of our vacations: good timing, interesting chance encounters and a lot of fun.

A cute camel at the Copenhagen zoo. I swear he was watching me.

Two Girls’ Weekends: One Girls’ Weekend in a calendar year is a perk, but two is even better. In January, we went to California, where we invaded Hollywood and Disneyland. In October, we met up in Savannah for some Halloween fun. Whether I’m meeting Mickey Mouse or dressed up as Manslaughter Munchkin, I always have fun with Mom, Aunt Bonnie and Elyse.

Mom, Aunt Bonnie, Mickey, Me, Elyse

I met my favorite hockey player: In April, we went to practice for the Atlanta Thrashers for the first time. I took my great big Slater banner with me, and had Jim Slater sign it. Ed and our friend Rusty had to practically (okay, literally) push me over to him when the players came off the ice. What a terrible time for shyness to strike! Fortunately, I got the autograph on my banner, and Jimmy was super nice. He took the time to ask how I’d made the banner, and told me he expected to see it waving at the games. Between the last few games of the 08-09 season and this year, he’s definitely seen it waving.

Slater (#23) at warm-ups for the Thrashers season opener

How could you NOT see this waving?

My sewing skills improved: I started sewing a little over a year ago, so improvement was inevitable. I gravitate toward costumes, even though I don’t get much chance to wear them. I’m very pleased with the fairy and princess costumes I made for Rusty’s daughters to wear to the Georgia Renaissance Festival, and I can’t wait to debut my Italian Renaissance dress at the 2010 Ren Fest.

My Italian Renaissance dress in progress.

So what will 2010 bring? More DragonCon, more traveling, more Girls’ Weekends, more hockey and more costumes, to be sure. Happy New Year, and here’s to a fun and adventurous 2010!

Ed and I got home yesterday morning from a cruise to the Bahamas. It was a quick three-night trip on Royal Caribbean’s Monarch of the Seas, and the route went from Cape Canaveral in Florida to Nassau, Bahamas. Unfortunately, we found ourselves in the midst of Christmas Winds: unusually strong and gusty winds that make for cool weather and very angry seas.

Fortunately, I’m not prone to sea-sickness. The real downside is that our second off-shore day, scheduled to be held on the private island CocoCay, was cancelled. Ships anchor off-shore there, and passengers are ferried to the island in smaller boats. Big waves meant no ferrying, so we had to sit at sea for a day.

All that rocking back and forth on the ship was no problem. Once you get your “sea legs” it’s pretty easy to move with the rocking motions of the ship. The trouble for me started when we got off the ship. I was fine in the car, but every time we stopped, I could still feel that rocking. By last night, it was rocking and dizziness. Apparently, this is a common condition. Sometimes, your body leaves the cruise, but the cruise doesn’t leave your body. I’ve been told this shouldn’t last more than a few days. In the meantime, I’m working from bed.

On an up note, our first full day was in Nassau, where Ed and I took an off-road Segway tour. They put big knobby tires on the Segways and a guide leads you along trails. There were only five of us on our tour, and the Segways tackled the ruts, rocks and sand with no trouble. Our route followed the coast for part of the distance, and thanks to the beach’s location we were blocked from the wind. We sat on an entirely empty beach for a while, just enjoying the sunshine and the calm water (and air). It was a side of Nassau most tourists don’t ever see, and being out in the wild with no loud crowds or crazy traffic made the Segway tour a perfect vacation activity.

Ed and I recently returned from a brief but fun vacation in Copenhagen. A few highlights of the trip:

On the day we arrived, we took a short train ride over (and under) the sound to Malmo, Sweden. We window-shopped and had lunch there.

Malmo, Sweden

We got to pet this reindeer at the Copenhagen zoo. It was like petting a dog, only a lot more dangerous because when a dog rubs his face against your hand, you don’t have to dodge huge antlers that could stab you in the eye.

Sunday was busy, and included the Danish Resistance Museum (about Danes who fought against Nazi occupation during WWII), Rosenborg Castle and the Danish Armory. We also had the privilege of seeing Danish WWII vets laying a wreath at a Churchill monument.

Wreath-laying ceremony, Copenhagen

Rosenborg Castle, Copenhagen

Our last day in Denmark was my favorite. We took the train to Roskilde, a Medieval town on a fjord, to visit the Viking Museum. The museum features five Vikings ships that were sunk in the 800s. They were excavated, preserved, and pieced together. After that, we reboarded the train and went to the little coastal town of Helsingor, which also had a lovely Medieval district. The real reason we were there was for Kronborg Castle. Started in the 1400s, the castle is where Shakespeare set “Hamlet.” The castle was closed the day we were there, but we got to walk around the courtyard inside the castle walls. We had the place to ourselves, and it was amazing and eerie all at the same time.

Viking Museum, Roskilde, Denmark

Kronburg Castle. No one there but us and the ghost of Hamlet's father.

Kronborg Castle, Helsingor, Denmark