The format is:
Date Day
Location (where we ended the day)
Enjoy!
10/12 Wednesday
Essen!
Our last night in Castle Liebenstein – hurray! It wasn’t quite as cold last night, although still pretty chilly. We packed up, and met S for the usual breakfast, and then we headed out. S wanted to buy some nice red wine for her friend, so we stopped in that store in town (where I bought wine earlier). The clerk was willing to exchange my wine, but she told me it was still sweet – just not real sweet, so I held on to the bottle. We drove through Koblenz, and on to Köln.
Köln is a pretty good-sized city. The main thing we wanted to see was the Chocolate Museum, which has a miniature chocolate plant there (it’s all associated with Germany’s #2 chocolate company). We had a helluva time getting there, though! The museum is on a little peninsula on the Rhein that only has pedestrian access. A bigger problem, though, was the road construction going on everywhere. M was getting very frustrated, and we ended up driving in a big circle a few times. Unfortunately, the circle included a bridge trip over the Rhein, a little jog, and another bridge trip back over the Rhein. S was ready to throw in the towel and leave. But we persevered, found a parking house, and made it to the museum. Actually, it was pretty good: lots of information (e.g., chocolate was initially a hot [spicy] drink; I got the recipe to try later); a miniature factory where you could see the machinery working; and you got to sample a teeny tiny bit of their chocolate on some wafers. There was a little food stand in front of the museum, and I finally got to try curry wurst as we left the museum: a pretty tasty mix of German and Indian
.From there we headed to Hard Rock Café. We’d found out (looked online) that the Heidelberg Hard Rock was fake – it looked it, too. But this was real, and M wanted to get her pin. We also stopped there for her lunch, while S and I had desert. I ordered the brownie sundae, and I was wondering why the heck they were charging 7€ for it. Well, it was because the thing was freaking HUGE! Big brownie, at least 2 large scoops of ice cream, and tons of whip cream with chocolate sauce. It was very good, but I came no where near finishing it off! S’s sundae was more human-sized. M had a nice Cobb salad (usual order) and a “Pickled Tink” – a coconut flavored drink. M got her pin, and also a free glass.
Afterward, we just wandered around a bit. The Dom (Cathedral) is very impressive, and is a must-see site for the region. Unfortunately, we got to it on the last touring day and I had zero interest in it. S wasn’t into it much either, and it was already getting kind of late. So we just wandered through the central market area and I again took a quick look through Galeria Kaufhof for games (but didn’t find any this time). We left town and headed for Essen, which was only about 60km away. We were leaving around 5pm, and the navigation system alerted us (and redirected us around) about two traffic jams – love that thing! Still, traffic was heavy and it took about an hour to get to the city.
The Scandic Essen Hotel was pretty easy to find. Regula (our Swiss friend who is joining us for the Fair, and sharing a room with S) had already checked in, but was out on a walk. She was just getting back when we called her. Sarina told us she wasn’t hanging around for Essen, and that she was going to go home early to spend the last week of her holiday relaxing. Not too surprising, really – it hasn’t been relaxing so far, and she is pretty clearly not a gamer! The four of us headed out for dinner – used the navigation system to find an Italian place close by. We didn’t find that place, actually; but there was another close by. My fish soup was way too salty (is it me?), but everyone else’s dish (I shared some of M’s mushroom noodles) was quite good.
We went back home to drop R and S off at the hotel. M and I picked up our laundry and went searching for a laundromat. Apparently, Germans don’t do their own laundry when traveling?! The hotel would do it, of course, but we have a lot of laundry and the prices are just a bit ridiculous! The hotel clerk had told us about one close by, but we couldn’t find it. A taxi driver who’d been behind us (and who was annoying M with his beeping) figured out we were looking for something. He pulled up next to us to talk, and told us about a place open until 11pm – nice guy! So we headed out there (thanks to the NaviComputer) and spent the next few hours doing laundry. We had to figure out the equipment, of course – it’s pretty fancy. Also, the bill-feed wasn’t working, so we had to scrounge for change; ended up losing a euro ‘cause it wouldn’t give any change back. The place was on a timer, and the lights shut down promptly at 11pm. Fortunately, our clothes were mostly dry. Some security guys arrived while we were folding laundry so we hurried up, jammed some damp clothes in the back pack and headed back to the Scandic so they could lock up. Back in the room, we hung up the damp stuff and finally got to sleep around midnight.
10/13 Thursday
Essen
The fair starts at 10am, but I guess I’m excited – woke up at 6:30am and couldn’t get back to sleep. M is getting sick, so I got dressed and left her there to hopefully get some more rest. Headed down to the lobby to use the free internet computer to search for an AMEX office. It was very difficult to find … hopefully, it’s still there!
We met R for breakfast at 8:30. This is a larger hotel so they had a better selection. We still had the usual meats, cheeses and bread, but we also had fried or scrambled eggs, pancakes (good ones, almost crepe-flavored), etc. We had a pretty big breakfast before heading out for the Messe. There’s a bus stop right across the street from the hotel, but they told us the Messe was only an 800m walk away, so we walked it. I think it’s a bit further! Still, it makes for a nice morning walk. We got there just before 10am and had to wait a few minutes (east entrance) for them to open the ticket booths. Then, it was a semi-organized mob movement forward until we got in.
Wow! There are several large halls full of game stores! We started off just walking through all the halls to get an idea of who/what was there. Then, we didn’t play anything! Instead, we pretty much spent all day buying games. Galeria Kaufhof had a big booth and they were selling good stuff cheap! I also picked up the stuff I’d reserved – Shear Panic, Age of Steam Moon/Reunion (2er) expansions. We ran into Tom McCorry, Scott Fisher and Dave Fair (who had snagged a press pass, and were parking right next to the Messe!) sometime in the early afternoon, and they told us where the used game shops were – we’d not found them on our earlier tour! So off we went, to buy more stuff. No one had what we really wanted (Carabande exp, Princes of the Renaissance) but we still ended up buying stuff. The press folks, who got in yesterday, had first choice on all the used stuff
! The day is all a blur now – hopefully I’ll be able to put a list together later. I’d planned ahead and brought a rolling bag (collapsible) – we filled that as well as a few other shopping bags. The walk back to the hotel was long, tiring, and a bit painful – those shopping bags dug into my fingers and the last 2 (ulnar nerve) were tingly for more than a day later!Tom et al had also let us know about the BGG dinner at the Istra this evening. We spent a few minutes trying to collapse the games into each other (for luggage packing), then went to the 7:00 dinner. We were late for dinner, but it turns out it was actually at 8 so it was fine. We ended up sitting between Face 2 Face guys (Larry, Dave, and Paul AKA “Prof”, their artist) and Tom’s crew. Seven others were there (15 total – all I can remember now is statonv) but they were sitting far from us and we didn’t get to talk. Dinner was a slow, European experience – it took several (4+) hours to get through it all because of the extremely slow service. Still, we all had a good time. I had some beer – Radler – which wasn’t half bad. M and I split a soup and an entrée (beef and ham dish, I think) both of which were very good. With so many people present, we ended up just dividing the check equally = 25€/person; I hate it when that happens! But anyway, a fun night was had by all. Afterwards, we went home and quickly fell asleep.
10/14 Friday
Essen
We were both really tired, and woke up just a few minutes before we were supposed to meet R for breakfast – M got ready first and went to meet her, and I eventually wandered down around 9. Had the usual huge greasy tasty breakfast, then headed out.
I’m writing this several days later, and don’t remember many details. I think it went something like this:
We tried to get in on a game of Mesopatmia again, but it was unavailable. The Packeis am Pol table was free, so we learned the rules and played a game. It’s apparently a reprint of an older game (thanks for the info Scott – we ran into the Tom McC Crew some time): tactical positioning, trying to trap other’s penguins on small pieces of barren ice and save large areas full of fish for yourself. Fun game, but I can see it might be a problem if played too deliberately (ie slowly).
I’d heard of these games, and wanted to show them to M so we headed over to the What’s Your Game? booth. We first played Fairy Tale: an interesting game, but we both had trouble matching the fancy artwork on the cards with the miniature versions at the bottom of the cards. Next, we learned Reef Encounter – and it was Richard Breese who taught us! We played a 3er game, and Mr. Breese came in dead last (I won): was he just trying to get us to buy the game? No worries, Richard, we’ll get it in the US from Z-man! I haven’t seen the original artwork, but I can live with the new version even though it does look too photoshopped.
M went off to do something or other, and I wandered on my own for a while. I tried Gemblo – the game Tom Vasel has raved about. It’s a 6-er version of Blokus. I can see that it’s a good game, but it’s not for me. M would like it but it’s just too big to carry home – the company will probably eventually sell to the US, I suppose. I also saw the E&T card game: everyone I talked with about it said that it plays just like the board game. I can see that that may be true. On the other hand, it’s just not as visually pleasing as the board and tiles. It is more portable, though.
I also went to see Jenseits von Theben. That game looks too much like Around the World in 80 Days for me. There’s definitely more going on, but I won’t be too upset without the game. All Essen copies are spoken for, although it is possible some will not get picked up – I’m supposed to come back tomorrow at 11 to get my hands on one of those copies. I did get on the email list to be notified of availability of other copies they have in stock.
Fairplay (magazine?) has a booth at the con. They survey people and post the top 10 list of games by ranking (needing some minimum # of votes). Antike has been getting good reviews and is on the list, so I went to check it out. I got the rules explanation: seems to be a 2-hour civ game, although I’m not sure how the “civ” part compares with the war/territory control part. Plus, the box is big and heavy (lots of wood), so I didn’t get it.
M and I eventually met again, and went to the Sagacity Games booth. We met Don Bone there, and he taught us Freya’s Folly. It’s a set-collection, tactical positioning, pick-up-and-deliver game where you’re moving dwarves through a maze of mines collecting gems and bringing them back home, then using the gems in different combinations to build jewels. Pretty good game, actually (I won
). We then got Don to show us Sunda to Sahul – I knew something about it and predicted I wouldn’t like it and that M would. I was right. We bought both for 60€. Even though I don’t generally like puzzle games, and I likely won’t ever play this game (if nothing else, M will play it as a puzzle with her fiend) the pieces really are extraordinarily well made.We’d planned to meet the Face 2 Face guys for some play-testing tonight, so we headed back to the hotel for dinner. We all had the Scandic burger and fries – large portions, and all very tasty. By the end, M was pretty tired and decided to skip the testing. R and I headed over to the Hotel Jung. We were late, but the F2F folks weren’t there. The only people present were 2 guys setting up a new 18xx game – I later found out one was Charlie someone, and the other was John Bohrer. Anyway, the DIGGERS group was having their big Istra dinner tonight. F2F had been invited but had planned to skip in order to play test. We went over their to see if they’d changed their mind. They hadn’t: still MIA. They graciously invited us to join, but we thought we should try to meet the F2Fers so we went back to the Jung.
More people showed up, but still no F2F: we joined 2 people to play Caylus. None of us had played, although one person had read the rules. He taught us, then we played the game. It was pretty good: buildings for VP like Puerto Rico, but can use each other’s buildings; role selection (buildings), turn order manipulation. But it went on too long (~2.5hrs). Near the end, we found out we’d been advancing the game timer counter (Provost?) too slowly which made the game drag on. The F2F guys showed up when we were halfway through our game: they’d decided to get a “quick” bite at a restaurant, and only realized that you can’t do that at most German (European?) restaurants after they’d already ordered and waited a while. R and I wanted to leave no later than midnight, so we decided to try again tomorrow.
The service at Istra had been even slower today than yesterday, so the ubergamer DIGGER et al crew showed up around 11:30p, near the end of our game. After finishing Caylus (all 4 of us thought it was pretty good, but not as good as the general Essen buzz seems to indicate), I chatted with Valerie for a bit. I also met Martin Wallace as we were about to leave, and talked for just a few minutes. We left maybe 12:05am, just a bit past our planned departure time. Back at the Scandic, I used the free internet computer in the lobby for a while before heading back to the room and bed.
10/15 Saturday
Essen
Woke up around 8:00 after a decent night’s sleep. We met R for breakfast at 9am, then headed over to the Messe. We took the route through the woods this time – nicer and shorter than otherwise. It was getting pretty chilly, though, in my BSW t-shirt! M and R wanted to look at some shops (M bought 2 more Ligretto sets), so I went off to the Warfrog booth and got a run-through of Byzantium: looks very intricate but should be fun. I hooked up with the ladies then, and we went looking for games. I hung around for quite a while in the Queen booth waiting for a table to open up, but it never did; we gave up and went to grab some food.
After lunch, we went to the Phalanx booth and I played a quick game of Packeis am Pol with the demo person while M and R took a walk (I even won). We all headed over to the Abacus booth next and I (finally) got that free China expansion noaceyet had told me about. M got a few 2€ card games and then we snagged a nice table and chairs. I’d grabbed a Sushi Express and we managed to get a rules explainer fairly soon so we played a game: it’s a pretty light and quick, set-collection game. It uses a d6 for movement but there is still room for some tactical play. It’s not for me, though.
We were going to grab another game, but they told us they needed our table for a tournament! Michael Schact was going to be playing Coloretto Amazonas with people, recording their final scores (prize at 6p). So we decided to participate (free): M went first, but didn’t score very highly at least partially because she was missing part of the scoring rules. I played next, then R (both of us having seen the first game and having learned the full rules). I won, with 66 points. R won also, with 60pts. That put me in the lead, with good prospects for winning.
We left that booth and returned to Queen. Again, no free areas. People seem to come in early, grab a table, and stay there as long as possible. I tried to get M and R to do this, but it never seems to work out: M and I are usually late for breakfast, we all take too long, and by the time we walk over to the Messe there are already a bunch of people playing. Maybe tomorrow…
We grabbed some floor space, borrowed Timbuktu, and read through the rules. It’s the new Dirk Henn game and I was expecting more than I got: it seems to be mostly a deduction game, with some tactical play in positioning your camels. You’re moving camels carrying loads across several boards. Each board has 10 bad positions where camels may lose loads. That information is on 5 sets of cards, and each player eventually sees 3 sets. At the end, you get points based on which loads you’ve successfully transported. One cool thing was that cargo is valued by the total amount of that type that were lost (shorter supply = greater value). M won with a good lead, and R was a distant 3rd place. It’s an OK game, but I much prefer other deduction games.
We wandered around a bit more, looking at games and/or shopping. We got a quick rules explanation of Aqua Romana, another Queen game: it’s another puzzle game, where you’re trying to build pipes by moving builders/workers optimally … not for me. Il Principe, an Italian game, has been getting good reviews (is on the Fairplay top 10 list), so I went and got a rules explanation while M and R were on their own. IP has auctions, set-collection and area control elements. It seems like it could be fun, but it didn’t seem particularly exciting. Z-man should be publishing in the US, so I don’t mind not having it right now.
At 6p, we made it back to the Abacusspiele booth. The contest was over, and I had won! The prize was a copy of China, which I already have. They offered Paris Paris and Hansa instead but we already have those, too. I was a bit surprised they didn’t give out Amazonas! Anyway, I saw Canyon in the booth and MSchacht said it was a good game, so I took that instead. After, we went to the Rio booth and I showed M Caylus. Going through the rules, the game seemed better than I had thought after my initial play. We also found another error in the rules explanation I’d received, so I’d really like to try the game again with the correct rules. We will almost certainly get this in the US.
Some time during the day we’d met with the F2F guys and planned to meet them at the Jung for some play-testing. We went back to the hotel and had dinner at the restaurant there before heading out. R had M had a club sandwich, which she thought was very good: they put some of that curry sauce on it which adds a nice taste. I had a salad with ham and cheese. I’d asked for “American dressing” – neither we nor the waitress knew what was actually in it – but she mistakenly brought me the Italian vinaigrette. And a good thing, too … the stuff she brought was delicious!
After dinner, we drove over to the Jung. We were a bit late, and they’d gotten there on time today! They were still going over the rules for one game, and graciously let me in on that (with Dave and 2 others) while Larry played another game with M and R. I played the rat game: there were several rules questions, maybe due to translation issues, but we managed to work things out (hopefully correctly). It started slowly, but picked up nicely. Dave hammered my rats repeatedly, and I ended up coming in dead last (Dave won). My failure was partly bad luck, partly poor play, and partly evilness from the other Rat Kings (esp Dave)! It was an OK game for me (6/10) but I think people who prefer lighter games than I might rate it higher. M and R thought their game was pretty good, but not great. I do hope that F2F play-tests these games with other people, though!
Several people had drifted in by now, and we had a group of 7 free people. We played a quick game of Diamant, after which I left to wander and get some fresh air (it’s a small room, and the 18xx crew played next to the only window and included a heavy smoker … it can get pretty disgusting in there). M played in my place. When I came back, 7 of us played a few rounds of Ligretto. According to R, it’s a very popular game in Europe. Our group was mostly Americans, and no one knew the rules. So we got to a slow start, didn’t keep score, and quite after just a few rounds. It was getting late, so we went back the hotel and called it a night.
10/16 Sunday
Essen
Another morning when it was hard to wake up! We were pretty much on time to breakfast today, though. I think we all ate a bit less than usual, then headed to the Messe. M went to look for the parts store – she couldn’t find it yesterday and still wanted a pink and purple set of tokens for Settlers (she ended up spending ~15€ for the bits … as much as R spent for the basic game!). R and I went looking for a game to play.
There were fewer people around today, so we actually saw a free table from time to time (esp later in the day). Palatinus was open, and it looked sort of interesting so we had a demoer go through the rules with us. I don’t even really remember the details, ‘cause we didn’t play: neither of us were particularly interested. We went back to Prinz Spiele to look at the wizard game R was interested in, but the cards were full of German text and no one else was around so we couldn’t do it. We also saw that Jenseits von Theben was sold out, and we’d forgotten to check for game availability yesterday like we were supposed to! Oh well, too many games! We were meeting M at the Queen booth, but Rio was right next door so we stopped there. A couple of Germans had just started Drachenreiter but offered to restart, so we joined them. I ended up winning, although we had played with imperfect rules understanding. It’s an OK racing game, but not really very good.
We had a bit more time and the Clementoni booth nearby had a bunch of free tables. We grabbed one and played a game of King Solomon’s Mines (König Solomon blahblah). It’s a set-collection game where spatial relationships are key: you play cards indicating a pattern of tiles to pick up, but all the tiles have to be the same vertical level (for a cost you can push tiles around to equal/lower levels). R liked it – she made some really good moves. I think it’s a pretty good game, but not my first choice (although M would probably like it). We all met again and decided to go for lunch. On the way there, we passed by the Big Kini booth (a game that’s gotten many votes at the Fairplay booth). Two tables were free, but I was hungry – unfortunately, when we came back later the tables were full so we missed out on seeing what the big deal is about the game. But we had a good lunch: finally got to try one of those typical German sausage sandwiches, where they stick a huge (at least 12”) sausage in a little bread roll so that there’s more meat hanging out than actually in the bread. It was very tasty!
After lunch, we found an empty spot on the floor in some booth (no tables free) to show R Ubongo. She was very fast and collected a bunch of gems. M was horrible today, and didn’t get going until near the end! I was OK – not nearly as fast as R – but I ended up winning by having 4/2/2/2 gems vs. R’s 3/3/3/2 (I think). We wandered a bit, and I got to see another Essen Top 10 (Fairplay) game: Ca$h’n Gun$. It seems like a good light, fun bluffing game. I don’t think we’d end up playing it very much, and we are tight on luggage space so I didn’t get it. We eventually ended up finding a table and played Verflixxt! M won, and R hated the game. We borrowed Australia, but the rules were all German and we didn’t really want to go through it. So I got Sudoku instead, and we gave that a try. It’s a good math puzzle game that’s very popular now in Germany. There were several versions of the game being sold around the Con, but we didn’t buy one (M won). We also tried Castle Merchants at the Z-man booth: an OK game where you’re traveling to places to sell goods and travel is limited by card play and logistics of the board position. Not one I need to have! We tried Aruba Schatz, too (somewhere). It’s a card game where you try to collect 4 “friends” (cards of your color) by matching sum of #s on cards out to card you play. Should be fun for Megan, M’s niece, so we picked up a gift copy.
At some point late in the day we were wandering around and ran into Rick Thornquist and Valerie, who told us about some of their purchases. M and I decided to go get some of them. R decided she was done with shopping (she’d bought some more games today, as well as 3 large puzzles) and headed back to the hotel. We ended up getting several games: mostly card games (which will be easier to pack) but also Antike (which sounds like a 2-hour civilization game, and has gotten good buzz here).
It was the end of the day – show ends at 6pm on Sunday. We walked by looking at all the deals and trying to see what we’d missed from the Fairplay top 10. We didn’t end up buying anything else because of a lack of luggage space (why didn’t M bring an empty bag or two?!). We did, however, play Zatre (scrabble with numbers 1-6, where you’re trying to create “words” that add to 10, 11 or 12 … pretty good game but not enough to buy given our space issues). Then, one last walk back to the hotel. We had dinner with R again in the hotel restaurant. M finally tried the Caesar salad she’d been looking at, I had shrimp scampi with little jalapeño bits and onions served over noodles, and R had the burger again – everything was very good. The shrimp was VERY garlicky (M reminded me about that several times over the next 24 hrs or so). We were all very tired and decided to skip game playing for the evening. M (and I, a bit) spent some time compressing the games into each other before going to sleep.
10/17 Monday
Essen
Last full day! When we planned the trip, we left today to go see more of Essen, or maybe Dusseldorf. Instead, we relaxed. We had a slightly lighter breakfast with R, then went up to start packing. After R finished, we got together to play Formula Dé Mini (FDM). We had to read through the rules and she needed to check out, so we just played one lap. I ended up winning, although that was probably because car damage was no issue. FDM seems to be a pretty cool game. We said goodbye to R, then went back to our room to finish packing.
After packing (damn! I had a bit more room, so we could have bought more games! If M had brought another bag, we could have bought even more!), we decided to play some of the little card games we bought (the bigger games were mostly packed, with parts scattered here and there!). We’d bought Rotunda on Rick Thornquist’s recommendation, and gave that a try first. It’s a set-collection bidding game, and I crushed M
. A lot of luck, of course; I think this will be better with more players. Then we played Ocean twice: it’s a hand-optimization (sort of) game where you’re playing either fish or animals, trying to time your plays to maximize points earned. We each won once, although M destroyed me in the second game. Probably better with more players, but not a bad little card game! We were both hungry by then, and went down to the restaurant and split a burger and fries: it was good, and just the right size. They also gave us little portions of tzaziki sauce and bread. The sauce was good, but I had to ask for butter again. When we got tired of waiting to pay, we went to the bar, paid the check and went back to the room for more gaming.First up was Turbo, a math puzzle game where you’re racing to sequence a bunch of + and - cards to get through a racecourse following the speed limit rules. Then we gave Ligretto a try, but it just wasn’t much fun with only 2 – we quickly put that away and tried another new game: Shit! Each player is trying to get rid of numbered cards in hand. First, flip over a card from deck. Then each player chooses and reveals a card from their hand simultaneously – card closest to center card wins, and scores the difference in value. It’s actually a good game, but the calculations get tiresome.
I wanted to play a heavier game, but they are all packed away! FDM is part of our carry-on bag, so we decided to play it again. This time, the 2-lane track with 2 cars each. I did great the first lap, then failed to roll well. The opposite for M. Also, I didn’t take quite good enough care of my cars – M rolled at least 2 20s (and I rolled 1) that resulted in me taking engine damage … the last time killed one of my cars. The other car limped past the finish line in last place, with 1 life point left! Fun game, but will surely be better with more players and luckier dice!
I decided to dig out some games, and found the rules to Antike (also on my carry-on). But we decided to go for dinner instead, back to the hotel restaurant. Again, they gave us the tzaziki sauce with bread (and again I needed to ask for butter). We had all new foods this time: French Onion soup – not a very good version, with funny-tasting parmesan (tasted like gruyere?); burgundy beef rolls (with ham? and some veggie rolled inside) with potatoes and vegetables; and penna cotta with raspberry sauce for desert. We split the meal between us, and even that may have been a bit too much. Then, back to the room.
We watched TV a bit. I’d dug out some bigger games before dinner, and thought we might play them (Antike or Indonesia). But it was getting late so we decided to just work on our journals and turn in.
10/18 Tuesday
Germany-US
Last day! We had our usual breakfast, then finished packing everything up. We drove directly to the airport (stopping for gas, of course) in Düsseldorf. It’s a very nice, modern airport ( http://wlan.dus-int.de/d/06_konferenz/index.php) that is surprisingly mostly smoke-free. Of course there were still some smokers in the non-smoking areas, but not many. The British Airways ticket was empty when we arrived ~10am. Our 2:05p flight was their first, so they didn’t open till 11:30-noon. So we grabbed an iced mocha and played Up & Down. It’s another math puzzle game, and M kicked my butt! We started to play Titanic – Le Mythe, but when we needed to start over it was already noon so we went to check in. A very nice guy checked us in. It turns out our luggage is only about 22kg each. If we ever come back, will definitely have to bring bigger bags.
Our gate was pretty close so we walked over and had lunch just outside the second security check-in (British Airways has 2, apparently). We had a very nice tortelloni dish, and a decent spanokopita with a good salad. We managed to spend our last euros, and also charge a bit. M went to the duty-free store and bought some chocolate for us and for presents. The flight was a bit late, but when it did arrive we boarded very quickly. They didn’t bother with boarding in sections – it was the usual mob-scene and we got in according to how pushy we were. Everyone boarded quickly, we got the usual preflight info, and we were off amazingly quickly. An hour later, and we were in London Heathrow. We had to sit on the runway for about 15min waiting for them to fix some mechanical problem in the gate. Then we had the combination long walk and bus ride before we got to the American check-in desk. We waited about 30min before walking to our gate for the flight to NY and waiting some more.
The flight to NY was nice. The AA person gave us 2 aisle seats on either end of the center 5-seat section so that we had the entire row to ourselves. We watched Bewitched, the remake movie with Nicole Kidman and Will Ferrell: some pretty funny parts, but really a pretty lame movie. Didn’t want to see the other movies, so I watched extras from the copy of Miracle on my laptop. My battery died just before the end, but this time I was prepared: had bought a backup battery before leaving the US just for this reason! Next up: Daddy Day Care, the Eddie Murphy movie about him losing his job and starting a day care company – cute.
I fell asleep at the very end of the flight, maybe the last 10 or 15 minutes, and missed the landing! I must have been a bit disoriented when I awoke ‘cause I ended up forgetting my noise-reduction headphones and headphone-splitter on the seat next to me! I didn’t figure out until we were out of the plane and through customs and on our long-ass walk to Terminal 9, gate 39. Spilled some of our baggage along the way, and the rolling bag I used at Essen finally gave up the ghost: the little bit of plastic that keeps one of the wheels in place broke off. Well, I think the headphones were free and the bag was only about $10, so no big loss (and the splitter should be easy to replace, although I won’t necessarily get an exact Apple-branded replacement).
We got to the gate at 8p, and had a 1hr layover. At least we were finally done going through security checks! We passed some food shops and M went off to get a NY hotdog. She came back with a reuben instead … “I couldn’t resist”. Well, it was pretty good. So one more (2-hr) flight home. I read a bit of the Antike rules on the flight, we both fell asleep for at least an hour. Got to baggage, picked up our bags, and waited outside for a while hoping our friend hadn’t forgotten to pick us up (it happened once before … very VERY annoying!). He hadn’t, and arrived soon after. He’d house-sat for us, too: the house and dogs looked great. Did a bit of unpacking, checked email, posted this (I am insane) and will hopefully be getting to bed soon!
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LESSONS FOR ESSEN
1. Travel
a. If you’re touring Germany, make Essen the last stop – you’ll have a lot of luggage at the end of the Fair.
b. If cigarette smoke bothers you, don’t bother traveling in Germany. Just come to Essen, attend the Fair, and head out.
c. If smoke REALLY bothers you, don’t go to Essen.
2. Shopping
a. If possible, get a Press pass. You’ll be able to park (if you get a car) closer, and most importantly you’ll be able to get into the fair a day early. You should be able to get good stuff at the used game dealers.
b. Bring a large-capacity bag to the Fair. The rolling bags are annoying for others, but pretty convenient for you since the purchases can get pretty heavy.
c. Head for the used games early for better selection; near the very end of the fair for good deals (you may be able to negotiate).
3. Gaming
a. It’s a big place: MAKE A PLAN. Look at the games list in advance, figure out which games you want to play and where they are.
b. Table space is hard to come by: GO TO THE FAIR EARLY EACH DAY. Try to get in right at opening time. Then, go to a booth with many games you’re interested in and grab a table. Stay at the table and play every game you wanted to look at before moving on to another area.
c. There are too many new games: CHECK THE FAIRPLAY BOOTH. People fill out surveys there rating games played. They post the top-rated games, so you may find something to check out that was not on your initial list.
d. It’s a big city: CHECK OUT HOTELS JUNG AND AROSA. A bunch of English-speakers stay there, and you will almost certainly be able to find gamers to play your new games with after the Messe closes each day.
Last edited on 2007-05-20 17:14:04 CST (Total Number of Edits: 3)
Posted Wed Oct 19, 2005 6:12 am
