SlyCat's Journal

Right, on with the final day, I shall complete this report!

The Sunday was the only day I didn't get down for breakfast.  Instead, we were all busy making sure we were packed up and ready to check out.  On returning the keys, we got our 20 euro deposit back, which would come in handy as I had spent all the cash I had bought previously.  The only real event of the day was the group photo which eventually took place at noon.  Until then, we pretty much just socialised with people we had come to know via the con.

The photo itself took place quite a distance from the hostel infront of a large archway.  Somehow everyone managed to fit in for the photos, which I doubt I'll appear in any of cos some twunt on the row in front insisted on holding up ferret puppet the entire time, blocking my face... anyway, after the photo, people started leaving and going their seperate ways.  Our flight wasn't until 7pm and so we had plenty time to kill.  We were allowed to store our baggage in the dining room while we went off into Nuremberg in search of food.

Now, I'm not sure if it's a religious thing or what, but unlike in the UK, pretty much everything is closed on a Sunday, even restaurants.  We had planned to go to a restaurant which was below street level which had caught our eye before, but unfortunately it was closed, much like everywhere else.  So while we pondered where we could go for food, a helpful old german man, who had obviously worked out that we were foreigners after a place to eat pointed at his mouth asking "Essen?" ("Eat").  colifox took the directions from him and we ended up at some sort fo English themed bratwurst restaurant.  It wasn't a great service, nor was I took keen on the food either (I had 10xbratwurst with sourcraut) but it was somewhere to eat and spend our remaining time in Germany.

We then made our way back to the hostel to meet up with the others who were getting the same flight, and got the hostel to send 2 mini-bus sized taxis to take us to the airport.  Worked out very cheap this way as we had 7 in one vehicle which split the cost nicely.  As it most non UK airports I've been to, Nuremberg airport was pretty much devoid of any interesting shops and things to help spend the time.  We ended up just sitting at the seats playing DSes until checkin opened.  Once through checkin, shopping and entertainment were even worse, with there literally being 2 shops there... and that was it.  Security was much more swift than coming from the UK but that was partly due to it being a smaller airport and secondly due to the fact that their security wasn't as highly strung as in the UK.

For some reason Air Berlin didn't just have a walkway from the airport terminal to the plane itself, raher we had to get on a bus which ferried us over to the plane which was waiting in a deserted area in the grounds of the airport.  Flight back was again relatively harmless.  Food was better this time round, but still very basic.  The flight itself took no time at all, leaving only security and baggage claim before the long journey home.  For some reason, on arrival to Stansted I was pretty giggly and couldn't help smiling at security after realising the security officer looked like Howard from the Halifax ads (not helped by mecklar shouting "Who gives you extra?" while queuing).  Slowly but surely, the remaining people we had spent the past 5 days with made their own way home, leaving andysquirrel to drive arakinuk and myself home.

Fortunately, I remembered which zone we were parked in as Andy had completely forgotten.  Kinda worrying really cos had I not just happened to remember the letter K, we might still be looking for the car now :P.  The drive home seemed to be quicker than the drive there, eventually getting home around midnight.  Needless to say, I crashed out and slept soundly in my own bed that night.  I really appreciated the fact that I had the Monday off as I would have been pretty useless at work if I had to go in.

Anyway, that's the end of the report, had a great time which I won't forget.  I expect to be making one last EF12 post to summarise my time at the con.

Really need to do these, otherwise I'm in fear of forgetting what I did, like I did for AC2002...  I expect each report will get shorter and shorter as what happened slowly becomes a distant memory... anyway, on with the report.

Up early again for breakfast, but there were no events that were worth attending that morning, so I went to Nuremberg with arakinuk and colifox, where we had some delicious ice cream (I had mint choc chip and Snickers flavours) before walking further into Nuremberg where Arakin introduced us to the delight that is Currywurst (large red sausage, sliced into small chunks and then covered with curry powder, paprika and curry sauce which only the Germans know how to do...) mmm!  Then went to a gigantic comic book store which put Forbidden Planet to shame.  Time was getting on, and I wanted to get back for the fursuit parade.  Got back to the hostel around 1pm which gave us time to cool down (after the exhausting hike back to the hostel) before the parade.

Got suited up and walked the short distance to the main stage hall where there were already a large number of fursuiters and photographers.  Did my best to mingle with the other fursuiters, posing for photos and the like before the parade began.  The parade had what must have been in the region of 80 fursuiters walking around the grounds of Nuremberg castle, following Mystifur (dressed as his raccoon) who was playing cheesy music from a ghetto blaster for people to bop along to :P  It was a rather cool, if totally surreal experience, but I really enjoyed the attention.  At one stage, even unclekage stopped to take my photo which I thought was pretty cool :D.  Come to the end of the parade, we gathered around a kinda rocky formation.  As I was one of the first there, I thought it'd be good to get up at the back to allow more people at the front.  However the side effect was I ended up right behind the tree so no real good photos exist of me in the group shot.  After it was decided enough photos had been taken, everyone disappeared back inside the hostel and I went back to my room to change.

The whole experience had been pretty sweaty, and because I had no protective balaclava type thing, the inside of my fursuit head got pretty moist, and you could see the inside of the white fur had got a bit dirty.  Now, I'm always one who takes pride in my posessions, especially something like this, and so I have to say I felt a little depressed at what happened to the head and got it in my head (my mind, not the fursuit head this time) that the suit didn't look any good as a partial.  As such, when people were suiting up for the second (and final) fursuit photoshoot, I decided to opt out.

Instead, I watched the fursuit masquarade which was very short before going too to Nuremberg with Arakin and Colifox again.  Arakin took us to a place where they sell lots of Bratwurst.  I had the meal which contained 10 sausages!  It's worth pointing out that these were small sausages, not the giant one I know I was expecting!  Went for Belgian waffles in the so called "Australian" chocolate shop which was playing American music (and being in Germany, was totally confused about it's nationality).  The waffles were freshly cooked while we waited and then smothered with chocolate and an ice cream of our choosing.  I went for the belgian chocolate, and I have to say it was delicious!  While we were waiting, we had a bit of a natter with the girl who worked there, who was an english student, so was pretty good with the language.  She thought we were there for the games convention which was apparantly in town, however we had to put her straight on that one and explain we were there for the furry con.  She had no idea what that was so we had fun explaining.  Anyway, after filling up on sugary delights, we made our way back to the hostel in order to catch the unclekage vs 2_gryphon show.

Now, I had seen Uncle Kage perform before doing his story hour at AC2002, and so I knew what to expect, being an amusing series of annecdotes, told with great enthusiasm and comic timing (which in this instance, Kage's show was again very entertaining, including a story about the demise of AC's old hotel).  However, I had only heard of 2 before, but had never found myself bothered enough to seek out any of his work.  I was very pleasantly suprised that 2's show was also very funny.  He obviously knew his audience as he made fun of things like religion, america and furries.  In fact, once 2's show was over and they both went head to head on stage, they both openly mocked America as best they could (almost like they weren't allowed to while in America and had to get it off their chests), amongst other subjects.  As the night drew on, both of them were out of material, but the audience still wanted more.  So they ended up just drawing things which best described a word someone called out.  It was obviously late as someone called out "anthropromorphic waffle" and also "George Bush", to which Kage did the obvious thing and drew an asshole.  After things just got silly, they called it a night and everyone went to bed after a thoroughly entertaining evening.

I had tried to get to sleep early Tuesday evening in preparation for the extremely early time I had to wake up, but I only managed to get to sleep around 10.30pm.  I woke up in a semi zombie-like state at 2.15am and jumped in the shower.  Left around 2.45am and we picked up arakinuk at 3.30am before continuing on to Stansted, getting to the car park just after 5pm.

Shortly after getting to the terminal building, and joining the queue for check in, utlah74 called to say he was just arriving himself, fursuit in hand.  I turned around to notice Utlah and waved him over.  The fursuit was in a box just a tad too big to put directly into my luggage (as I would have hoped) so I had to take it out of it's box and put all the fursuit bits in my luggage, all in plain view of the queue for check in :P.  Anyway, checking in was simple enough, but the queue for passport control was absolutely huge, stretching across the width of the airport almost.  It seemed to go fairly fast so wasn't too much of a problem, despite the Disneyesque deceptive queue length (once through the door, there was more windy queue to wait in).  Once on the other side, I only really had time to grab a sandwich before getting the tram thing to the gate.

Was quite cool getting on the plane with so many other furs.  There must have been around 20-30 furs on the plane.  The flight itself was pretty pain free despite the delayed boarding for some unknown reason.  It was a cheap airline but by no means as bad as SleazyJet.  You got complimentary sandwiches and soft drinks but obviously nothing too special, as it was only a short flight anyway.  On arriving, it was all very swift, the passport control people badely even bothering to glance at my passport before walking throught o baggage claim and collecting my easily identifiable bright yellow case :).

Couldn't be bothered with the whole public transport thing so 4 of us got a taxi to the hostel.  Was quite cheap when split 4 ways, like around 3 euros each.  The hostel itself was on top of a steep hill.  I hadn't really looked at EF11 photos so didn't really know what to expect but it was all pretty impressive.  Inside were random people, most who I had never met before, apparantly queuing for something but we were told registration was closed.  Arakin dashed off to treat me to some Mezzo Mix (A Coke branded drink which is a mix of Coke and Fanta Orange) while we waited for registration to open.  Lots of other UK furs were arriving while we were waiting, such as agrajag_fur, stu_ath and rapidofrog.

Apparantly once registration was open, it went very smoothly compared with previous years.  Inside my pack was a con book, registration badge complete with food card and also a fursuit badge which I had requested online previously.  Also exchanged 20 euros for my room keys and then made my way to the room.  As I had made a request for room on the fursuiter's floor, we ended up on the 3rd floor, in room 316, literally right next to the fursuiter's headless lounge which was sandwiched between our room and the main stage.  The room itself was reasonably small but it had 2 double bunk beds, a wardrobe and a sink which was all we could need really.  I claimed a bottom bunk remembering Glis' nightmare tales of a hostel in Amsterdam (I'm not going to repeat the story here).

After getting settled in, we ventured back out and hooked up with skunki for some food at a kebab place.  Continuing the rule that seems to be kebabs are nice anywhere apart from the UK, it was very nice.  I tried out some random drink there which turned out to be a 7up clone, while Arakin had a can of "Schwip Schwap" which was Pepsi's (inferior) version of Mezzo Mix.  Wondered back to the hostel, after dropping by an art supply shop and a "Norma" supermarket.

Pretty much socialised in the main dining room while waiting for the "Grand Opening" where the murder mystery began.  The murder mistery being a nice extra twist on the con.  Basically, "Madame DaReal" supposedly died during the opening and there's clues left around the con and in the con book as to the motive and reason behind it, etc.  Following the ceremony, there was a barbeque put on where they had freshly grilled meat.  Was also a good oppertunity to start chatting with random people who you ended up sharing the tables with.

I was feeling pretty damn tired by this time, and I wasn't sure if I could be bothered suiting up.  Lots of others got suited aroun 8pm so I just grabbed photos and videos of their antics.  However, some time later on in the evening I decided to suit up after being encouraged by durandal2uk.  I had been wearing my contact lenses, and as my eyes had got sore from being tired, I was wearing the fursuit without really being able to see that far.  I went down to the lobby and mingled a little letting people take photos, etc.  Was fun, if a little scary as I couldnt see very far due to eyesight and mesh in front of my eyes, but the suit was well received, especially amongst those I already knew.  One thing I did learn from the experience is that I need to learn poses!

After that, I think I just went back to my room and went to bed... day 2, hopefully coming soon.  In the meantime, here's another photo I found of my fursuit, taken on the Friday during the parade: