Being a fan of something can be a painful experience.
1) You obsess over footage, both public and those grainy, home videos that cost $500 a pop where your obsession plucked his eyebrows out with a lobster claw.
2) You buy all the merchandise you can afford. It could be as small as a Yoda keychain, or as large as a car replicating an X-Wing.
3) You write letters every day to your obsession, even though you rarely hear back. When you do hear back, it’s usually a quick note to say, “RETURN TO SENDER”.
With this in mind, it’s obvious that I’m a fan of Game of Thrones. I’ve written character descriptions, comparing many of them to beer, and then more beer. I’ve practiced ways of proposing to Daenerys Targaryen, with or without dragons and with or without clothes. I got involved in a photoshop contest.
But, it wasn’t enough. I needed more. Luckily, I found a cross-dimensional device that could very well help me get to Westeros, a place which my feeble nerd brain believed was not in the past, but in some weird, linear past where stunted men ran around screwing hot women, where political leaders were corrupt and suspicious, where Sean Bean would survive a movie or season.
So with my hover-board, a photographer, a bit too much alcohol consumption, and a few hours in the desert surrounding Las Vegas, Nevada, I bring to you my trip to Westeros.
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Day 1: Awkward Photo Ops
Like any good, deserving Game of Thrones fanatic, my first stop was to Winterfell, the northern-most region of Westeros where I probably wouldn’t be killed moments after I appeared. I arrived to find the lord of the region, Eddard “Ned” Stark, deep in thought as he was to play executioner to a deserter from The Wall. Unfortunately, Mr. Grumpy wasn’t very photogenic. Some people just don’t know how to act natural for the camera.
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Day 2: Daenerys, the Essos of My Trip
While many would think a trip from Winterfell across the Narrow Sea to find the Dothraki people would take longer than a few hours, you forget that I have a hover-board, the knowledge of the future, and a drunken concept of time. Therefore, off we go to find my lovely lady, Daenerys Targaryen. As luck would have it, I found her being taught the details of girl-on-girl action by her slave girl, Doreah. Luckily, I had my HD camcorder on hand for just such an occasion. The next time I tried this approach, her husband, Khal Drogo, was present. The camcorder did not survive.
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Day 3: Party Like the Dothraki
Luckily, the Dothraki don’t hold grudges, and invited me to participate in the reception after the Khal’s wedding. The wedding itself was pretty much Khal Drogo yanking on Daenerys’ hair and slapping her ass, so I didn’t miss much. Things got a little weird when the public sex and beheadings started, but I rolled with it.
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Day 4: Kill Whitey(Walker)
Unfortunately, a good travelographer must press on, so back I went to Westeros. Unfortunately, we veered a bit off course, and ended up in The Lands of Always Winter. And here I am without a jacket. Things only got worse, as I found a group of people who were also missing their jackets.
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Day 5: The Boy Ain’t Quite Right
As far as I know, it could be Day 5, or Day 25. All I know is I found myself at King’s Landing. Things got a little heated when I started slurring about how the new king is an inbred hillbilly and how a real man would have given Cersei a kid that didn’t look like a Gelfling from The Dark Crystal. Suffice to say, I found myself in the dungeon.
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Day 6: Partying with Mini-Me
Luckily, my time in the dungeon didn’t end up with my head on a pole, as a short, educated dwarf named Tyrion Lannister rescued me from certain embarrassment. I don’t know if it was sympathy, or he just wanted a clown that drank and pursued women more than he did to entertain him, but he brought me back to his place to drink and play mind games with his lovely foreign wench. I usually ended up losing.
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Day 7: Back to Reality
Ugh, hangover. Since when did Westeros have a black pyramid with a beam of light shining up through the stratosphere? Why is there a coyote peeing on me?