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The Meepledrone Diaries - Essen or Bust 2022

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Meepledrone:
Prologue
October 4th 2022
Dear Meeple Diary,

As you well know, it all started in August. After a few tries, I couldn't put together a party of valiant Iberian Carcassonne fans to attend together the Essen Spiel fair. I was on vacation, so I was just relying on pure luck to be able to succeed in September.

All of a sudden, I got this message from Tom to join a Carcassonne Central party to Essen along with Dan and Willem... Holy Meeples! I was reading the messages as I was wandering the streets of Mallorca admiring the peculiar signs written on cans. All of a sudden, I found myself staring at this traffic sign... Was this any type of heaven-sent sign?

It took me 5 milliseconds to say yes.

XOXOXO
Meepledrone

Linkback: https://www.carcassonnecentral.com/community/index.php?topic=6128.0

Meepledrone:
Catching the flight
October 5th 2022
Dear Meeple Diary,

Today is the day. So nervous... Will they allow me check in my large suitcase? I've been gathering stuff for Willem since early May. My largest suitcase is full of Carcassonne stuff weighing almost 20 Kg now... Piling up box by box, and also lots of maps... Stuff from Devir and also from Swan Panasia, which I received luckily yesterday. It will be great to meet Willem in person and see his face when I hand him over all this stuff. One thing is imagining what you'll get and another seeing it with your very own eyes....

...

OK. I'm heading to the airport. Finally I decided to move 3 boxes to my carry-on suitcase and a couple to my backpack. I don't want anything in the suitcase to get squashed. I'd also like to avoid any issues during check-in due to overweight limits. Going early, just in case anything happens.

...

This is what my suitcases looked like. So innocent-looking on the outside. Wish me luck!


- Are we there yet?
- Nope!
- What about now?
- Nope!
- ...

...

No issues with the check-in so we are ready to fly... The in-flight service was out of this world. I was sitting in row 27. When the reached me, they were out of sandwiches, so I had a soup just in case I could have nothing to eat in Essen. Who knows? I was landing at 22:20. Not a bad time to have dinner for a Spaniard... Forget about that in Germany... or in the rest of the world.



See you later!

XOXOXO
Meepledrone

Meepledrone:
Meeting the guys
October 5th 2022
Dear Meeple Diary,

We finally landed. My red suitcase took ages to come out... As it was quite late I decided to take a cab to the hotel and spare me from the burden of dragging around two suitcases and a backpack... All in all, I wanted to maximize the time with the guys as I was the last one to arrive.

The hotel was almost in shadows, not a single soul in the streets. The cab driver wasn't even sure we had arrived to the right place. Was the address wrong? Was this a ghost hotel? I paid and entered the hotel which seemed so quite and dark...

To my surprise I heard some voices coming from an dimly lit area in the lobby which turned out to be the bar. High celings, open spaces, a few guests, flickering candles on the tables...  And finally I saw them there: Dan, Tom and Willem drinking tall glass of beer each. Left my stuff there, greeted them and joined them with another beer.

After chatting a bit I proceeded to open my large red suitcase and show them its contents. They were surprised that it was larger than expected from the pictures I shared earlier.



We also exchanged some gifts and enjoyed watching Willem assemble his brand new customized tile tower reading Carcassonne Musem on one side and Willem on the other. Dan and Tom checked the process from a prudent distance. Eventually they will have to do the same with theirs. ;)


We enjoyed the light of the flickering candles on the tower and played our first game together using the tower dispenser. Willem played yellow and one. Had he rigged the his tile dispenser to draw the best tiles? We'll never know ;)



It was exciting to finally share some hours with these guys I've been exchanging messages with for maybe four years. Even if we had frequent exchanges, I hadn't met them in real life yet. Just saw a few pictures of them from some UK meetups. I came with no preconceived ideas of how the following days will unfold. So let's enjoy the ride.



...

Time to go up to the room! I't s been a long day and we have to get up early in the morning. What will happen tomorrow? Time will tell.

XOXOXO
Meepledrone

Decar:
I'm gutted to hear that they ran out of sandwiches on the plane!

Meepledrone:
I'm still devastated two weeks later... :o

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