Teamliquid Blog Post: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=82039

*11/7, Friday – I landed in Cologne, Germany at 5:30pm. After walking around a bit and making a few phone calls through the pay phone, I found that Naruto and company were not able to pick me up as planned so I needed to get myself to WCG on my own. I found that the Köln Bonn Airport wasn’t very foreigner friendly as I got lost trying to find currency exchange and the way to the S-train. There was no customer service to ask for help and the ticket machine was confusing as ever. However, a friendly German helped me get a train ticket and even bought it for me since I had no coins. He escorted me to my stop and told me which way to go. I had a map but I still got lost since I couldn’t find any street signs. I walked around and asked for help from some Germans but I found that a lot of them couldn’t speak English very well so I ended up getting a taxi to drive me a mile or so towards the event for 5 euro.

I finally got there and zatic spotted me! I’m so glad since I had no clue what to do if I didn’t find anybody I knew there. The TL group was about to head out for dinner and Ilvy was among them. Nyovne was kind enough to drive us to the Hostel to drop off my bag. Tasteless led the way, gathering people and finding a place to eat, drink and be merry. The first place we went to couldn’t fit all of us but Ilvy led the way across the street to eat so we finally could have dinner.

Friday Night Dinner

Dinner with the group was great. It was my way of getting to know people from TL for the first time in a smaller group setting.

Meat, PuertoRican, Nyovne, Ilvy, Nazgul, Zephyr, ret, Draco, Naruto

Ghardo, Harry, Ilvy, Nazgul, Zephyr, ret, Draco, Naruto, Nyovne, Meat, Tasteless, PuertoRican, snowbird

Draco made fun of the food server’s accent when she was serving them coke so it became a running joke that Draco and ret ordered cock and weiner (Wiener Schnitzel).

Wiener Schnitzel

ret was also crazy drunk to the point that he couldn’t stay sitting up straight.

ret

Friday Night Hotel

We continued the night back at the Hostel.

Draco, baal, Energies, Ilvy

Ghardo, Meat, ErkenBrand, ret

We headed to bed around 2-3am since he referees had to get up early the next day. Ilvy was kind enough to let me sleep on her bed. Thanks so much Ilvy!

*11/08, Saturday -

StarCraft: Broodwar Area

I headed over to the event area at around 10am with Ilvy, baal, and the other referees. Nothing was going on yet so baal and I had cookies for breakfast at the press area. Later, more people showed up and I spotted JohnRambo and Lamer and talked to them for a bit. Strelok stopped by momentarily and I told them all about the TL Meetup Dinner later that night.

JohnRambo, Lamer, Strelok

Energies guided him to the bathroom.

mnm and Ghardo

This guy, Tot)Left, started talking to me as I was walking somewhere. He ended up having several parallels to my life which was so coincidental it was hard to believe. He lived in the Philippines for a bit so he talked a lot about the places he went and the culture he experienced. He also was in New York for work and talked about where he worked and such.

Tot)Left, mnm, ?

G.s)NarutO was a great help with finding this location for the meetup and making the reservation. All I did was create the massive post with as much detail as I could about it. He’s a very friendly guy who was willing to help out when he could. He housed Nyovne, snowbird and Harry as well. Props to him for a great turn out for the event!

Naruto and mnm (Nyovne put that candle there o.O -_-)

Much thanks to Nyovne for taking me to the airport. It sucked so much just trying to get to the event from the airport that I greatly appreciate the ride! It was great hanging out with you guys as well.

Nyovne and mnm

Naruto and Nyovne

Nony, I watched you make your way to the top through the WCGs. I wish you the best of luck in Korea!

Nony and mnm

Harry hooked me up with a photo with the progamers all together later on. As I said earlier, he is a fun and entertaining guy. I hope he had a great time hanging out with TL and I hope to see more of him in future events. Hopefully he’ll be around if I go to Korea some day. I seriously need to learn more Korean.

Harry and mnm