EPT
I booked a twin bed hotel room at the Hyatt resort in Cologne with Kalle (my colleague from my pokerwebsite). It was a pretty awesome 5 star hotel with valet parking and they had some fountains in the lobby etc. so it was pretty baller.
Friday
I got to Cologne on Friday at like 9PM and I got to the hotel to find out there were like 8 guys in my hotel room plundering the minibar who had been invited by Kalle so that was a bit overwhelming haha. I found out that they were mostly guys from the german version of the poker website and some other people. I quickly punched down a vodka/redbull from the minibar before all was gone.
After that I wanted to meet the people from ToT. Mondi thought I was gonna eat dinner with them so he sms-ed me at like 8:15PM in the car that they were waiting for me so I called them to go ahead and I'd meet them after dinner. When I met them at their hostel it was fun meeting Midian and some British friends of his, Mondi and Ele were there and Lilsusie so it was fun to meet them all. I was already kind of tipsy there and I kinda urged the other guys to come with us to go drinking but Mondi had to play the following day so he didn't want to come and Midian had some stupid excuse that he was tired (wtf?) :D. So we just went drinking with the five of us only to find out that Cologne has a pretty shitty nightlife. We ended up in some club that had terrible music but we were too drunk to care anyway.
Saturday
Because we got at around 5 AM the day before we slept until like 1PM and watched the video on the stream while getting some breakfast via room service. After that we went to the venue and I met a lot of people over there. I got to meet Mnm there and Baal from WGT and the Liquid guys (Nazgul, Meat, Pooruser). I also met Ret, my fellow countryman. The last time I saw him was at some lan tournament like 4 years ago or whatever but he hadn't changed one bit hah :D.
Was fun to be at the venue and watch some Starcraft and hang out a bit. Kalle/me went back to the hotel around 7PM and I got ready for the Teamliquid meetup. I went there by myself with a cab from the hotel but couldn't really find the place at first because the taxi couldn't go there. Eventually I harassed Jamie a few times by phone but they couldn't find it either. I started asking random people on the street until I found a 'velo-cab' who could take me there. It was basically just a bike with a bench in the back so together with the guy we found it. I found out there were already like 50 people there. At first I was waiting for like a half hour to finally get a beer (too lazy to go to the bar to get it) and after like 1 hour 15 minutes I finally got a steak as well. Ah well whatever, I just talked to some Teamliquid lurkers as they called themselves, but I recognized their screennames anyway (Maenander and Konni I believe but I'm not 100% sure, sorry guys :D). After that I just went mingling with some people and talked to a bunch of people there. I didn't really talk to the Koreans because to be completely honest I don't care about Korean progaming anyway so I didn't really care about talking to them either
.Suddenly when on my way to the toilet I heard some guy shouting some Dutch like 'Now I recognize you!' or something and found out that was Nyovne, otherwise known as Forsaken~[TUW] (his bw nick) and it was a relief to be able to talk some Dutch hah. After that I spoke to the Teamliquid guys such as Pooruser, Nazgul and Meat and later on Puertorican was there too and I found out that he challenged Nazgul to a PvP betgame for like 10$ and they asked me if I wanted in on the bet. I wasn't sure if I heard this correctly. Puertorican wants to challenge the awesome protoss that is Nazgul for even odds? I was quite astonished but once I found out what was going on I obviously snapcalled.
Also met Nony and Tasteless and talked to them very briefly and gave them both my boost of confidence or whatever with their doings in Korea.
Also there were my colleagues from the website but they stayed away from the meet pretty much because they didn't know anyone from them anyway so I went and hung out with them a fair bit as well.
I kind of regret not meeting more people now. I was having fun as it is but now I regret it! I think we should've taken a picture with the entire Teamliquid Staff actually that was present. I actually dodged like most of the pictures even though I was there from 9:00PM until around 3:30AM so that was kind of weird haha. Ah well no worries, I'm just good at picture dodging.
Sunday
Got back at the hotel with a taxi and went to bed at around 4:30 I think. We had to wake up at around 11:00AM to get to the starcraft venue. So we took a cab and got there just as the game was starting. I saw Jamie there and we just got some seats in the back. If I knew you Teamliquid guys were all on the front I'd definitely go there. Oh man so many missed chances (not meeting enough people at the meet and not getting to cheer with the Teamliquid people goddammit). The final was really bad though and I enjoyed the Warcraft3 final waayy more. Also because I had Grubby to cheer on who I actually knew a bit from meeting him a few times at WCG 2004 and ECG 2005 and because the games were totally awesome/exciting/close. Warcraft 3 is definitely awesome to watch when it's top players playing.
So before the weekend I wanted to stay until dinner or something but I was really tired so we just went back to the hotel, checked out and I went home. I got home at around 8:00PM pretty smashed with a lot of good memories but not enough pictures. I actually didn't take any pictures except a few pictures with the website guys that are not really interesting to post here. I should be in some pictures that Eleonore made though but she hasn't uploaded the pictures anywhere yet.
A lot of thanks to mnm and Naruto for organizing the TL meet. You both organized the meetup in extraordinary fashion so you both have my thanks!
Not including pictures because I didn't make any and I'm not gonna take credit for pictures made by others =].
Oh edit: I actually will upload one picture so the guys that didn't meet me but wondered who I was know who I am for the next time (hope you don't mind that I hijack your picture Mnm :D).
![[image loading]](http://calbearmnm.smugmug.com/photos/414181198_ckAvK-S-1.jpg)
Taken by Mnm
I'm the guy in the light colored jeans and the black/white striped shirt in the middle foreground of the picture (don't think it can get more clearer than that).
Maybe I'll blog some more in the future but I'm definitely going to attend more of these events (blizzcon or WWI or whatever) because they are really awesome. I might even play some Starcraft again to keep up my interest =].
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I am always envious of gatherings like this.. we are lucky to have a community made up of so many great people.
