Elise and Electra Avellan and Barbara Nedeljakova Wizard World Austin 2011

I left work in Dallas and went straight to Wizard World in Austin.  Since I got there later than I hoped I made a command decision skipped going to my hotel and changing. I arrived at the convention in my dress pants, shirt and tie instead of blue jeans, sneakers, and Uof A shirt.

After I got a couple of autographs I worked my way over to Barbara Nedeljakova.  My plan was to get a photo of her in something from Hostel. The movie is violent and graphic but preys on the paranoia that every wise tourist has in the back of their head.  Then I saw this photo and couldn’t resist.

As I walked up to her a guy was leaving and singing in a foreign language.  She was shaking her head and I asked if she understood what he was saying. She said no and that he was singing in Russian. I asked if his Russian was bad or she didn’t know the language.  She said she didn’t speak Russian.  She mentioned a few other languages she spoke and then mentioned if the guy was speaking in Hungarian or Polish she would have understood as those languages were close to her native language of Slavok.

We spent several minutes talking about our family histories and the languages we were exposed to growing up.  While I thought about speaking the few token words I know of Polish to impress her, discretion won out and kept me from making a fool of myself.

We never met before but we were talking about our family histories.  Always a boring topic and certain to end most conversation but that’s what we did for several minutes.  As someone came up, I excused myself and let her get back to work.

I then wandered over to Elise and Electra Avellan.  I found the twins laughing because the singing Russian had just finished serenading them. They saw me and asked if I just came from work. I said yes and then they followed up with where I worked.  I told them I came from Dallas.

They both frowned in sympathy and one of them asked how long the drive was.  They seemed to know the trials of driving from Dallas to Austin and knew 4 hours wasn’t fun. 

Then one squealed like a 13 year old going to see Twilight and dashed off – she did pause for a micro-second to say ‘excuse me’ and was off. The other twin apologized for her and said she always runs off when she sees a friend. I knew that was my clue to leave and I said thanks and picked up my photo. I saw the remaining twin make her way to the friend.

Both encounters were relaxed and enjoyable and made me feel like I was more than just 'some fan'.

AH