Convention Report: Essen 2006: October 15 / 16, 2006 (Travel Day)

By Rick Thornquist
October 16, 2006

It time for another trip and yet another convention report!  This time I’m off to Essen, the mother of all game conventions, which takes place from October 19 - 22, 2006 (Thursday to Sunday) in Essen, Germany.  I usually try to travel to Germany a couple of days in advance of the show to get acclimatized before the show starts and this year was no exception.  On Sunday, October 15th, I gathered up a couple of big empty suitcases, packed them with the minimum amount of clothing possible (you must save the maximum room for games to bring back) and headed to the airport.

This year my flight took off on Sunday afternoon around 4:00pm and flew me directly to Frankfurt.  I arrived at Vancouver airport two hours ahead of the flight time thinking this would be plenty of time to get a good window seat.  Not even close.  I was told by the ticket agent that if I wanted a good seat I should have been there four hours ahead of the flight.  Uh, I don’t think so.  Anyway, the seat wasn’t too uncomfortable and I spent most of the flight reading (Wil Wheaton’s Just a Geek - good book) or sleeping.

Ten hours later I arrived at Frankfurt airport.  As is seemingly my luck these days with airports, I had to walk miles and miles to get to my connecting flight.  Strangely, I also had to go through security again.  When I went through the metal detector in Vancouver I got through fine but when I did the same thing in Frankfurt - with exactly the same clothes on - it buzzed like a microwave gone haywire.  I’ve had this experience before at airports, it all seems so incredibly inconsistent.  Ah, well, what can you do?  I got the pat-down and went on my way.

I then grabbed a flight for the quick hop to Dusseldorf.  A windows seat was no problem this time - the plane was practically empty.

On arriving in Dusseldorf, I grabbed my luggage, hailed a cab, and headed for Essen. By this time it was Monday at around 2:00pm.  The weather in Germany was beautiful - a nice sunny day with a little bit of a breeze.  One can only hope this weather holds up, but I’m told it’s supposed to rain for the rest of the week.  No worries, though, I’ll be inside all day playing games!

I got to my hotel and checked in with no problem.  This was as opposed to last year when I got to the hotel only to be told that they didn’t have a reservation for me!  That was a concern, to say the least.  Fortunately I was able to get that resolved with only a little bit of pain.  I didn’t want a repeat performance this year so I made sure to re-confirm before I left.  This year everything went swimmingly.

Normally I would have taken the opportunity to walk around Essen on such a beautiful day, but I was bagged and needed some sleep.  I ended up sleeping for a while and then getting up, doing some work, and then heading back to sleep around midnight to try to get myself synced up. 

All in all, a pretty dull and quiet travel day, but it was good to rest up in anticipation of the hectic days ahead. 

Tomorrow is Tuesday and I’ll be heading to the Messe - the convention center - to watch the convention being set up.  I’m sure I’ll also meet up with a few people as most seem to arrive here on Tuesday.  I already have a dinner planned with some folks and I’m sure some games will be played afterwards (some of the Essen games have already been released here in Germany).  Tomorrow I’ll report on my adventures and hopefully have some pictures of the convention being set up as well as a report on a game or two.

See you then!

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