Furs On Fire
To celebrate the new year Haku and I attended Furs On Fire - a mini-furcon in the south of the Netherlands. There were about 60 people attending, the majority of which were Dutch of course.
The con took place in a hostel, with 12 furs in a bedroom with bunk-beds. We got the bottom of a double-bunkbed together (after some shuffling, because I accidentally left Cuddly Zebra on the upper bunk and so people thought I'd reserved it). Our roommates were two Germans, one American, 8 Brits (including myself), leaving Haku the only Dutch fur in the room. We didn't talk to our roommates so much because they tended to go to bed later than us and we got up earlier, however I can say for sure that they snored like wild beasts. They were considerate enough to give Haku some earplugs, but even then they were of limited use.
Haku in our shared room
We met up with Chibi, who had traveled down from Finland to be at the con with his Dutch boyfriend Fireshell. It was really good to see Chibi again - I missed the last EF because Haku couldn't make it, so it had been a while since seeing Chibi. It was nice to meet Fireshell, and I found out that they got together at Eurofurence at the same time as myself and Haku.
The first activity we took part in was "Impossible Fursuit Charades" - a version of charades where the person miming is in fursuit, and the phrase they have to mime is impossible to do. The phrase I got was for some kind of World of Warcraft expansion pack I'd never heard of. Needless to say, it wasn't guessed. It was still fun though, although I was a bit nervous about getting up in front of everybody.
We joined in the fursuit games - this was done in teams of two fursuiters, so of course I went with Haku. The first game was a free-for-all last man standing balloon pop game where was given a balloon and had to pop the other balloons. I was taken out somewhere in the middle of that.
The second game involved a number of body parts being called out, and as a team we had to touch the floor with those and only those parts, for example "two feet and one elbow" would be named, and between us those were all we could touch the floor with. We scored 8 in the two minutes available, with some people scoring up to 10. I think we could have done better, but the announcer was being slow, and he sped up as the game progressed.
The next game was blanket folding: in our teams of two, we both stood on a blanket and then had to fold it up as small as possible without stepping off it. I think we did ok, but we lost that round.
Following that was the mummy game, where I had to stand still and Haku had to wrap me in toilet roll. We won this round! The game was in two parts as there wasn't enough space for all teams to play at once. In the second part the teams decided to wrap the announcer instead, and so every team was declared a winner - this ended up costing us the overall victory.
After that came the musical chairs. This was probably the most brutal event, but I came out as the winner after a few close calls. At one point the chair fell over and I just sat on it while it was on its side.
Finally came the limbo competition, which again I won!
The points were tallied and our team came second by a single point, that was a bit disappointing as we were so close and we'd just won three of the six games in a row.
The fun came to a sudden halt as I found out that Haku had hurt her back in the limbo competition - she'd fallen over and was in a lot of pain and barely able to move. I walked her very very slowly to our room and carefully peeled off her fursuit so she could cool down, then lay her down on the bed. Chibi is training to be a nurse and so I asked him to take a look - he did some poking and prodding and said she should rest for 30 minutes or so and then call a doctor if it wasn't any better. She fell asleep for about 40 minutes and woke up feeling very much better, to the relief of a lot of concerned people, not least myself. She didn't do any more fursuiting after that, and I kept a close eye on her to make sure she didn't over-exert herself.
By that time it was almost midnight and so we saw in the new year. I did some more fursuiting, but the fursuit turnout was very disappointing - for most of the time I was the only one.
All in all it was ok, but not great. Eurofurence has such a mix of people that most of the conversation is in English because that's usually a shared common language, but here it was mostly Dutch furs and so almost all the conversation was in Dutch, which meant I couldn't join in. The fursuiting was disappointing too - over 50% of the attendees were registered as fursuiters but there were hardly ever any around. I had hoped to take some good photos at the dance but in the end there was only myself there!
FinnFox
We went to bed around 2am and slept well, this time too tired to be woken by the snoring of our roommates that had kept us awake the previous night. In the morning we packed up our things and said our goodbyes, although we were one of the last to leave and so I did a bit more fursuiting to try to cheer the scene as people departed.
WhiteShadowFox graciously gave us a ride home, and after a brief detour through Belgium we were back in Breda. We didn't stay for long, having to be on the move again for Haku's CT scan today. The scan is over now, and although the results won't be available for a while yet, the scan itself went smoothly.
Faolan & Horse
Funniest moment? The new year arrived and we eventually all went to bed at around 2-3am, all 12 of us in the room. As we lay there trying to get to sleep someone farted really loudly - there was a moment of stunned silence before everyone burst out laughing.
The con took place in a hostel, with 12 furs in a bedroom with bunk-beds. We got the bottom of a double-bunkbed together (after some shuffling, because I accidentally left Cuddly Zebra on the upper bunk and so people thought I'd reserved it). Our roommates were two Germans, one American, 8 Brits (including myself), leaving Haku the only Dutch fur in the room. We didn't talk to our roommates so much because they tended to go to bed later than us and we got up earlier, however I can say for sure that they snored like wild beasts. They were considerate enough to give Haku some earplugs, but even then they were of limited use.
Haku in our shared room
We met up with Chibi, who had traveled down from Finland to be at the con with his Dutch boyfriend Fireshell. It was really good to see Chibi again - I missed the last EF because Haku couldn't make it, so it had been a while since seeing Chibi. It was nice to meet Fireshell, and I found out that they got together at Eurofurence at the same time as myself and Haku.
The first activity we took part in was "Impossible Fursuit Charades" - a version of charades where the person miming is in fursuit, and the phrase they have to mime is impossible to do. The phrase I got was for some kind of World of Warcraft expansion pack I'd never heard of. Needless to say, it wasn't guessed. It was still fun though, although I was a bit nervous about getting up in front of everybody.
We joined in the fursuit games - this was done in teams of two fursuiters, so of course I went with Haku. The first game was a free-for-all last man standing balloon pop game where was given a balloon and had to pop the other balloons. I was taken out somewhere in the middle of that.
The second game involved a number of body parts being called out, and as a team we had to touch the floor with those and only those parts, for example "two feet and one elbow" would be named, and between us those were all we could touch the floor with. We scored 8 in the two minutes available, with some people scoring up to 10. I think we could have done better, but the announcer was being slow, and he sped up as the game progressed.
The next game was blanket folding: in our teams of two, we both stood on a blanket and then had to fold it up as small as possible without stepping off it. I think we did ok, but we lost that round.
Following that was the mummy game, where I had to stand still and Haku had to wrap me in toilet roll. We won this round! The game was in two parts as there wasn't enough space for all teams to play at once. In the second part the teams decided to wrap the announcer instead, and so every team was declared a winner - this ended up costing us the overall victory.
After that came the musical chairs. This was probably the most brutal event, but I came out as the winner after a few close calls. At one point the chair fell over and I just sat on it while it was on its side.
Finally came the limbo competition, which again I won!
The points were tallied and our team came second by a single point, that was a bit disappointing as we were so close and we'd just won three of the six games in a row.
The fun came to a sudden halt as I found out that Haku had hurt her back in the limbo competition - she'd fallen over and was in a lot of pain and barely able to move. I walked her very very slowly to our room and carefully peeled off her fursuit so she could cool down, then lay her down on the bed. Chibi is training to be a nurse and so I asked him to take a look - he did some poking and prodding and said she should rest for 30 minutes or so and then call a doctor if it wasn't any better. She fell asleep for about 40 minutes and woke up feeling very much better, to the relief of a lot of concerned people, not least myself. She didn't do any more fursuiting after that, and I kept a close eye on her to make sure she didn't over-exert herself.
By that time it was almost midnight and so we saw in the new year. I did some more fursuiting, but the fursuit turnout was very disappointing - for most of the time I was the only one.
All in all it was ok, but not great. Eurofurence has such a mix of people that most of the conversation is in English because that's usually a shared common language, but here it was mostly Dutch furs and so almost all the conversation was in Dutch, which meant I couldn't join in. The fursuiting was disappointing too - over 50% of the attendees were registered as fursuiters but there were hardly ever any around. I had hoped to take some good photos at the dance but in the end there was only myself there!
FinnFox
We went to bed around 2am and slept well, this time too tired to be woken by the snoring of our roommates that had kept us awake the previous night. In the morning we packed up our things and said our goodbyes, although we were one of the last to leave and so I did a bit more fursuiting to try to cheer the scene as people departed.
WhiteShadowFox graciously gave us a ride home, and after a brief detour through Belgium we were back in Breda. We didn't stay for long, having to be on the move again for Haku's CT scan today. The scan is over now, and although the results won't be available for a while yet, the scan itself went smoothly.
Faolan & Horse
Funniest moment? The new year arrived and we eventually all went to bed at around 2-3am, all 12 of us in the room. As we lay there trying to get to sleep someone farted really loudly - there was a moment of stunned silence before everyone burst out laughing.