A short, weird SOLO trip...

So, I did a thing.

I'm a board game geek, I've always enjoyed playing them and since moving here there's a weekly board game gathering at the consulate housing complex (I can explain more about that if anyone's interested) - we don't live there, but the majority of the folks stationed here do. There's a community area where we meet most Thursdays to play board games - people bring random games from their personal collections and share them with the group.

The first time I went to the group, I sliced up some cheese that we'd brought back from the Netherlands and took that along with some crackers... and inadvertently started a pattern. Now, I'm the cheese guy. If we don't have "extra" cheese from the Netherlands, I have a couple of stores here in town where I go to stock up for game nights.

Every year, there's an international board game trade show (called Spiel, the German translation for the word "Play") in a (relatively) nearby city, Essen each October. I've heard others in the group talking about it ("Essen Spiel this" or "Essen Spiel that"), but this was the first year that I made a special effort... I bought my ticket and reserved a hotel room months ago... 

Looking at the attendance numbers, 220,000 people attended this years convention, spread across 4 days. I only bought tickets for Thursday and Friday, and I'm glad I picked just those two days - but more about that shortly.

The boss has had some schedule challenges lately, so we weren't sure if she'd be able to come along or not. I decided to just not worry about it - if she came along, she could drop me off (and pick me up) at the expo center, if not I'd find parking somewhere.

She didn't end up coming. Probably best - she's not much of a board game geek, so I didn't get her a ticket in the first place, and she would have just had to explore Essen while I was at the trade show.

I drove up on Wednesday evening and found my hotel pretty easily. The hotel was in Bochum - we've only been there once, and it was for a quick overnight trip while we were on our way somewhere else. I had no expectations for the city or hotel - the hotel I ended up staying at was a "Four Points by Sheraton," which I'd never stayed at.

Hotel was... just a hotel. Clean enough, but definitely on the lower end. No fridge in my room. For some reason, they had previously decided that their breakfasts were worth €18. The first night, I got settled, then walked down the main street to the nearest restaurant, it happened to be a doner shop. If you're not familiar with doner, here's a couple of quick paragraphs in a different color to catch you up. If you're familiar with doner, go ahead and skip the next paragraph.

You may have heard of doner by another name: gyro. They stack thinly sliced meat on a vertical skewer, and it spins in front of a vertical heater. The heater browns the outside of the skewer of meat, and they slice the outer layer off when someone orders a sandwich. Here's what the skewer of meat looks like:

They pile that meat into a pita that's usually (but not always) sliced open, and fill the rest of the pocket with lettuce, onions, cabbage, tomatoes, and a cucumber flavored yogurt-ish sauce called tzatziki. Here's what the sandwich generally looks like:

Decent sandwich. 

My walk to the restaurant, though... I think I've already used the absolutely perfect verbage to describe the area (while texting with the boss), so I'll just show y'all what I told her (via text):

I made it back to my hotel with no (real) issues (I'm not counting constantly looking over my shoulder  because I was convinced I heard someone behind me).

Next morning, I got up bright and early (well, 8:30) for the 10 mile drive over to Essen. I'd set up directions to a parking garage near the convention center, and actually got within 400 feet of the parking garage before I just gave up on parking there. The last half mile or so was pretty much gridlock, and it took me close to an hour waiting in traffic to get as close as I finally did. In my spare time (when I wasn't moving), I found another parking lot a couple of blocks further away, when I had an opportunity I jumped out of line and headed over there. Parking was €3 more expensive (for a full day), but well worth it just to not have to wait in that line any longer.

I walked toward the convention center, and stopped at a gas station/convenience store for a quick bite to eat. 

An interesting (to me) aside. Over the past couple of years, I've come to terms with Germans generally keeping to themselves. You know, how when you're walking down the street and you pass someone, a lot of times you'll nod to strangers as you pass? That simply doesn't happen here. A German might stare at you, but they will rarely react to you, or acknowledge you. Having said that, the weirdest thing happened in that convenience store. This store was laid out like most convenience stores over here, with a single standing height (6 top) table for people to have a quick snack (or cup of coffee) at. Two pairs of people were already at the table, but I had some time before the convention opened, so I sidled up to the vacant end of the table to have my breakfast. The two pairs of people were interacting with each other, but not with the other pair. 

When the first pair finished, they gathered up their cups and wrappers, and said goodbye to the other group, said goodbye to me, and said goodbye to the two workers behind the counter. When the second pair finished, they said goodbye to me and the workers behind the counter. 

Honestly, not too weird an encounter, right? Unless it happens in Germany! Perhaps there's some weird social piece that I'm missing of sharing a community space. I'll keep an eye on this kind of behavior, and will report back if I'm able to glean any further information.

I got over to the convention center, and... while I knew it was going to be crowded, I guess I wasn't prepared for just how crowded it was going to be. There were 8 different halls in the convention center, but Hall 8 wasn't being used for the conference. It was just a big empty room with 2 garage door sized doors leading to Hall 7. I made it into Hall 8 at about 9:40, while the doors were scheduled to open at 10:00.

Here's a pic I took from my spot in the throng of eager attendees:

I was at about the halfway point in Hall 8, and there were just as many people behind me as there were in front of me. It was at this point that I started questioning all of the poor decisions that I'd made that had brought me to this point.

I'm not going to try to describe my movements day by day... I'll just give you the Cliff Notes:

For the first half of Thursday, I was by myself... well, as "by myself" as I could be, surrounded by ~50,000 people. After lunch, I connected with two of the members of the board game group, and we palled around for the rest of the day. 

In the different halls, there were slight differences in the setups. For instance, one hall was generally devoted to miniatures, dice, and supplies. One hall was devoted to game manufacturers (where game designers could go talk to representatives from manufacturing companies). In the halls that weren't as specialized, the majority of the space was taken up with large display areas for games, and tables with the games all set up on them where you could go by and try out the games.

During my time by myself, I hadn't played any games. Being an introvert does indeed have a bit of a down side sometimes. I had watched quite a few people playing games, and the games that I was interested in, I sidled up to the tables and watched, and occasionally looked through the rules to see how interesting the games looked.

After meeting up with the other two members (after lunch), we wandered through the halls and played a few games. There were a couple that I really liked the looks of, but didn't want to buy them until I'd at least played them once. I ended up getting a handful of smaller games the first day. Here's a picture of my haul:

Fair Enough was the official game that was released this year for Spiel, I got it with my entrance fee.

After we left the first day of Spiel, we all went our own ways.

The second morning, I found yet another parking garage to leave the car in and eventually met up with the same two from the previous day. We explored the halls some more, and after lunch met up with another two people from the group. We wandered through the halls and tried a few more games - here's what I got the second day:

When we were all done for the day, we all headed over toward the main street (close to where I was parked, incidentally), looking for food. The first place that we stopped had a long line out the door, but we were able to get into a pizza restaurant nearby (but had to sit outside in the cold). We sat and talked for quite a while, then I gave two of them a ride to their hotel - the other two decided to take the metro instead (and beat us there). 

All in all, a "fun" experience - probably would have been more fun for someone more extroverted than I. There were points where there were just too many people around for me, but if I have the opportunity to go back, I probably will!

I'll close with some random pics from Spiel:

A random selfie with two others from the group

All five of us, plus the mascot for the show

Action shot!

Group selfie while playing a game

I seem to have a thing for games about cats

Another game about cats

I ended up getting a copy of this game, and the designer signed my box for me

Pokemon and Magic cards galore

A couple of game designers

I simply HAD to take a pic of this game

There were a few large scale demos of games, thought they looked neat

Another large scale version - I have the normal size of this one

I've been collecting tourist pictures of random places that we've visited, and saw these on display. I threatened the boss that I was going to get one from Hogwarts, but she shot down that idea pretty quickly.

A creepy looking mascot that I simply HAD to take a pic of