Fanfest!!

Gatwick AM

So, as a warning to you all, this will be LONG. Like, long post is long kind of long. I have just returned from a week in Iceland with my Papa and S’adler (a friend and fellow geek) and I plan on posting about my entire week in one. If you do not wish to read the whole thing here is a summary: It is cold in Iceland, there was snow on the ground and that was lots of fun. I met a great many interesting and unusual people, had a very good time and have missed rather a lot of sleep in the process. It was the best trip of my life.

Now for the extended version.



Tuesday.
Our flight was set to leave London Gatwick at 10am. So to make sure we got there on time and everything was smooth we got up at 5am and were out of the house by 6. This left me rather sleepy, but hey, I was going to Iceland so it was worth it. I also had getting on the plane to worry about. The flight was supposed to be at 10 so with check in and security and all that crap I shouldn’t have had much time to worry about the flight. Shouldn’t being the word here. The flight was delayed for nearly two hours, which means two hours of sitting in a terminal on an uncomfortable lounge chair waiting for the flight. I distracted myself by buying Absinthe for my friend John; you can’t buy the stuff in Iceland. That was about 15 minutes of not thinking about a flight, it didn’t really help. By the time we were walking down to the plane itself I was a terrible shade of grey and shaking just a little bit. Did I mention that I don’t like flying?



This bed was epic



The flight itself was not terrible. I was not comfortable with takeoff and landing but the bit in the air was alright. Three hours later we arrive in Iceland. It’s now 3.40 pm, it’s cold, it’s snowing and I’m hungry. Straight after check in we discover that our cards don’t work, so getting any more money out was impossible, thank goodness we all had ISK (Icelandic currency) already. Cards were swipe-able but you couldn’t draw money out. We managed, but it would have been easier if we could have gotten more money out through the week. Anyway, first stop after meeting some people (I say some, at this point it was only Jukio) at the hotel was getting food, there are seemingly hundreds of little cafés and restaurants all tucked away around Iceland but we went to one that was closest. Off to the Red Chilli! Best Ribs In The World Ever! They were seriously delicious and I could have eaten them all day. The Mojito was pretty good too. We then went to the pub, what else is there to do in a country full of snow. We met some more people through the evening at two different pubs, people had a drink and lots of laughter then eventually we started the walk back up to the hotel. This walk should have taken about half an hour but it was dark, snowing and we got a tad lost. 3am we finally stumble up the stairs to our hotel rooms and crash out, having been awake for 22 hours. That was the first day.

Wednesday.
The day started at 8am with a shower. Nobody prepared me for this. Water in Iceland is somehow heated via geothermal energy, and somehow that makes all hot water in Iceland smell and taste like sulphur. You might think this isn’t too bad, trust me it is; imagine if you will having a shower in liquid egg fart and you will be close to knowing how it smells. Thankfully the smell does not transfer to the person. After the week I had almost gotten used to it, but I don’t think it will ever seem normal to me. Breakfast was provided with the rooms so every morning we started the day the same way. Awake, shower then breakfast. We ended up getting quite friendly with some Norwegian Fanfest goers which made mornings marginally more interesting, they were fun people. Fanfest didn’t start till Thursday so we had some time on our hands to walk around Reykjavik town, it’s beautiful. 

Look, someone in Iceland smaller than me!



There are mountains and there was snow on the ground, lots of interesting artworks and buildings everywhere. I don’t think there is anywhere else in the world like it. After a day of walking about A LOT we went out for drinks, this is a common occurrence during Fanfest week. The Celtic Cross pub that night was REALLY busy, it’s not a big place and it was just packed full of people, it started out being really quite scary but ended up being a lot of fun and I finally got to meet Lac for the first time. Hooray! We eventually decided to taxi back to the hotel which got us there for 1.10am. Another long but very fun day.

Epic EvE banner



Deep Snow!!



Thursday.
Fanfest start day! We were up, showered, dressed and downstairs by 8am. I was even wearing makeup to mark the occasion. Once we got to the convention centre it was just a mass of meeting people and seeing things and socialising and watching lectures. So much happened in such a short space of time it was nearly impossible to keep up. The art lectures were my favourite; during Thursdays we watched one of the artists create a ship from audience ideas. It ended up looking pretty funky but I doubt it will ever make it into the game. Still, it was a lot of fun to be a part of. I then decided for some reason to go to a CSM discussion group, which was a mistake, I still don’t really know what the CSM is or does, and the whole thing was rather confusing. I will know to avoid that next time. It was then lunch time, so lunch was chocolate cake. I know I know it’s not healthy, but it was freaking delicious. There were more lectures and things going on with lots of socialising and much the same as Wednesday in terms of the evening, food and then out to drinks. About 2am I decided to go and dance around in the snow for a while with John, which was a lot of fun for me...John lives in Iceland so he’s used to snow. I eventually made it to bed about 3am, this was a mistake when I had to get up early the next morning but I don’t see snow very often and it took away my logic for a while. Day three was a success.

Friday.
Much the same as the other days in terms of breakfast and lectures and stuff, though I did meet two more people, Eli and Tommy, who proved to be brilliantly funny additions to the group. So, skipping that and onto the PvP tournament. As you are not all EvE players I will briefly explain, PvP is people in internet spaceships shooting other people in internet spaceships because it’s fun. Just deal with it. the tournament works on teams all shooting at each other till last team standing, these teams then all shoot each other again to see who will eventually get to being the last two teams alive. They then fight to the death. The winners get awesome prizes and everyone else still has fun, it’s just a really good laugh. Our team unfortunately suffered from an overview bug which led to Papa killing Jukio (also in our team) which is not exactly what you’re supposed to do. Needless to say we did not win, it was a laugh though. Then there was the chess-boxing. If you don’t know what chess boxing is you are in the same boat as I was, so watch the video -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaBWBmYfqVQ Chess boxing was both hilarious and slightly disappointing but it was all for the sake of charity which made it more entertaining somehow. Once again we ended up in a bar, it really is the best thing to do in Iceland of an evening, even if I don’t drink all that much. We went to an Irish bar which was very awesome, there was a guy singing with a guitar in the corner. He sang all songs that everyone knew so most of the pub drunkenly joined it. It was a laugh. Yet another 1:30am bed time, but another great day.



This man is very tall. I am very small.



Saturday.
Last Fanfest day...boooo! We spent the morning socialising, and I was interviewed for EvE TV. Yes, me, on TV, it’s a scary thought. The CCP team were interviewing people, specifically women, about why they started playing EvE and why it’s good for women as well as men. Being a woman I decided to join in and encourage other women to play, it is a brilliant game. After that it was time for food and then the Party at the Top of the World.

Vodka shot babes!

 This is the name for the final party where all the EvE geeks have a huge bash and get all drinking and lunacy out of their systems before they have to return to the mundane world of normality. It was a brilliant night full of dancing and music and laughter, watching some of the geeks dance was ever so funny. Yes Jack if you’re reading this, I’m talking about you. Roxor the EvE band played as well as ever, those guys seriously know how to make music. 4 hours of dancing later and I’m done for the night, far too sleepy to carry down to the pubs with everyone else. Papa and I take ourselves back to the hotel and to bed. 2:30 am, what a day.

Sunday.
Calm down day. We’re all knackered and unable to do anything productive. Some people were so hung over they couldn’t get out of bed before mid day. We spent the day just relaxing, sitting about, not doing much of anything but chatting. It was nice to just chill out, and it’s a good job we did because today (Monday) has been a killer of a day.

Monday.
Awake at 4am because we have to get a bus to the airport for a flight at 7. 4am to me is otherwise known as ungodly o’clock and needless to say I was not the most social person being woken up at that time of day. We had packed everything up Sunday night so all I had to do was get dressed and go, it was far too early for breakfast. We get to the airport and learn that our flight has once again been delayed by two hours, this means time sat awake when I could have still been in bed. When at just after 5am you are given this news, this is the face you will pull.  It’s not pretty is it? This is why I don’t do mornings. We had also used up all our ISK on Sunday so that we didn’t have to worry about taking it home, together we had enough left for three coffee’s and a bag of Haribo. That makes for a delicious but not very filling breakfast and it doesn’t keep you going all day.

At the point of getting on the plane I look like this. I was too sleepy to worry about the flight; in fact I think I spent nearly all of it asleep. I was awake for long enough to take some pictures from out of the window but that really was it. I slept most of the car ride home too. It’s now 11:12pm and I’m editing a blog rather than catching up on the week’s worth of sleep that I have missed, I have no idea why I do this to myself sometimes.

Over Iceland

In Clouds!

So that was my trip away. I hope you enjoy reading everything that I did during this week. If you didn’t...why are you still here? I’m going to crash out in bed now. Happy reading everyone.

Landing