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
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!
Saturday, November 8, 2008:
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
lilsusie and Midian showed up. We couldn't really watch the player's screens very well. I think WCG still needs to find a better way to help spectators view the gamer matches. At least feature one at every round.
mnm and lilsusie
lilsusie and I headed over to the Guitar Hero band area and grabbed snowbird and Harry along the way. We rocked out with me on guitar, lilsusie on vocals, Harry on drums and snowbird on bass. Some guy at the area liked how lilsusie sang so he got her to sing on stage later that day to showcase a new singing game. She ended up announcing the WarCraft III game later on too since the announcer wasn't around.
lilsusie
Main Stage Match: Jaedong vs Stork
We headed over to the main stage to watch Jaedong vs Stork. They weren't supposed to go against each other so early on but Legend left the game before Stork could have a chance to throw the game so Stork ended up taking first in his group round and had to face Jaedong in the bracket round.
Jaedong vs Stork
Tasteless and Daniel Lee were commentating for English speakers but unfortunately, as much as I tried to talk to several people about this, there were rules and other obstacles in place that prevented any English from getting through to the main stage audience. All we heard was German commentary.
Tasteless and Daniel Lee
We tried to do the fighting cheer for the koreans but some tl guy interrupted lilsusie, who was gonna lead the cheer, so she could write some korean on their poster. The cheer failed but we were gonna try again later on.
Energies, ret, baal, PuertoRican, ?, Nony, zatic, snowbird, Harry
StarCraft: Broodwar Area
We were hoping to get an interview with the Koreans but we didn't have a camera ready.
lilsusie, Jaedong, mnm
lilsusie ended up translating for MYM on the condition that she was introduced as lilsusie from TL and we could post the video on the teamliquid site.
Crow, Luxury, lilsusie (thx to Ghardo for taking these pictures)
The crowd was getting huge around the StarCraft:Broodwar Area as people tried to see as much of the action as they could. zatic did a great job of updating the teamliquid threads with live battle reports.
It was down to the match for third place and someone had the great idea of setting up the idle big screen monitor at the corner of the SC area as an obs station for Tasteless so people can watch from the bean bag area. WCG wasn't happy with this later on but oh well what can they do now.
Tasteless, Draco, Nony, Ghardo, ret, ?, zuqbu waiting for TL to gather before heading out to Karibik Cocktailbar
Tasteless was really antsy and ready to go an hour before our scheduled departure time. I walked around the entire venue looking for TL people to gather them up so they could walk together towards the venue. We decided to go in two groups. Tasteless, Naruto and company headed out first at around 6:45pm while I hung around until the referees were ready to go just in case there were stragglers. We probably got there at around 8:45pm, fashionably late =P.
Deutzer Brücke
Karibik is somewhere in this picture
I didn't know a few people in this picture, please let me know if you can fill in the question marks.
Actual Liquid players showed up to a TL event. The heart and brains behind the website. Much thanks to Nazgul and Meat for being the driving force behind teamliquid.net!
Meat, Nazgul, Zephyr, ?
I believe this first guy in the picture below was the guy who interrupted our cheer earlier on =P. Still no clue who he is although I talked to him for a bit.
The great thing about the event was that we had our dinner and drinks, and people had the freedom to get up, go around and mingle. For the first time, I looked at this event from the inside rather than just from the outside in. For the most part I hide behind my camera but as I felt more included in the event, I also included myself in my own pictures feeling like I wanted to preserve memories and make the statement that I was there too. I met some great people and it was awesome getting to know each and every one of them.
It was great hanging out with Nick as I know he has my back and vice versa. It was also a little piece of home hearing the American accent as I was surrounded by Europeans for the entire week.
Nick and mnm
Ilvy was very kind and hospitable to me. Thank you so much for taking care of me!
mnm and Ilvy
baal was my press buddy and guide for a good part of the time. It took me a while to get used to the French accent, but it was pretty fun chatting in Mandarin ^^.
baal and mnm
I was able to practice the little bit of Chinese I knew with the China players as well. Talking to emucxg and Phoenix motivated me to learn as much Chinese as I can within a year's time. I definitely want to go to WCG Grand Finals in China next year!
mnm and Phoenix
It was great that JohnRambo, my fellow South East Asian, showed up as well. I interviewed him last year (I still have yet to post that o.O) and he's a good fellow to get to know.
mnm and JohnRambo
zatic was a hard worker at the event. He was the epitome of Teamliquid Staff. I wish I could have contributed more but I was glad he was around to keep that connection to teamliquid.net alive. I feel bad that someone sat on his laptop and screwed up his monitor =/. Hopefully he could get that replaced without much of a problem.
zatic and mnm
There was a big change with Energies from the time I saw him last year. Great job with that! And thanks for letting me borrow the adaptor. Sorry that your phone died and you had to charge it the next day =x.
mnm and Energies
I don't think I got to talk to ret while sober very much so I only know his drunken self. I squirmed out of his way for the most part but that interview was great. ret, let me know if you want to show anyone =P.
ret and mnm
Draco, I talked to a little bit. I hear he has a hot gf. Pics pls.
Draco and mnm
Ghardo looks soooooo different from his gallery picture. I never would have guessed it was him. He isn't as scary as I thought he was gonna be. He's actually a pretty cool guy. Later that night at the hotel after Ilvy, Nick, Energies and I headed home, Energies knocked on our door saying that there is a guy sleeping standing up in his room. When I headed over there (I couldn't find my camera), I saw Ghardo about to piss on Dknight. lol 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
It is great to have the support of the Teamliquid staff at these events. They are what drives the site. They are also the people who led the cheer during the finals round later on ^^. Rage helped me remember everyones names by constantly quizzing me =P. Xeofreestyler sang a beautiful Con Te Partiro that night.
mnm, Rage, Xeofreestyler, zatic
The girls of TL. (wtf who is that in the middle of me and Ilvy?)
Stork, mnm, Luxury
Jaedong, mnm
Stork, Luxury, mnm, lilsusie, Jaedong (lilsusie popped into this picture while I was trying to get a pic with the Korean progamers =p)
Later that night I saw the announcer lady who was on stage with lilsusie earlier. She looked really familiar and I asked if she was Athena or Athena twin. I knew Athena from the Fragdolls and I knew the PMS Clan through her and Brookelyn having tried out for the first round of Fragdolls and having gotten a job as an Associate Web Producer for Ubisoft. Turned out she was Athena twin and she spoke a little about her Ubisoft and MTV contacts after I told her how I knew Athena.
mnm and PMS Athena twin
Later on though she went through her marketing speech on how great the PMS Clan is, being a sponsored female clan that encourages gamers from casual to pro as well as how they advocate females playing among males. She asked if I was interested in joining as a StarCraft player but I honestly don't see what I could gain from this considering I can and have already played WCG Qualifiers among guys and it costs nothing to play locally. There isn't anything else really beyond WCG. It was nice to get invited though but I felt a little trapped in the marketing speech and Tasteless helped by breaking the stream a little bit.
Tasteless, Ilvy, Armin and I were among the last few to leave the place. We walked back on a high. Well, at least I did. Tasteless felt lost since he didn't know how to get back to his hotel. Ilvy was drunk I think, or very tired or sleepy. Armin was disappointed because we got him to leave right in the middle of him talking up some females at the bar. I was just happy that it was a successful night =).
I walked away from the hostel kinda sad that I was leaving the place. My time there was short but quite fun.
We arrived via taxi at around 11:30am, ready to watch the finals match between Luxury and Stork. Teamliquid sat right at the front row, ready to cheer.
I hope Stork and Luxury weren't too affected by the night before!
I, of course, cheered for the zerg, Luxury. People said they were disappointed with the games because Stork was messing up or something. I guess the games weren't quite as epic as people hoped. Nonetheless, we have a new champ this year.. Luxury!
He is sticking his tongue out at us.
Team Liquid!
Towards the end, we scrambled with interviews. Xeofreestyler and Rage helped me collect some questions from Teamliquid to ask the progamers and I wrote it out. We had trouble keeping track of the Koreans but Jaedong showed up after Harry interviewed me for fomos so I ran out to get lilsusie and Meat since Meat had the camcorder and lilsusie got the koreanness.
I held the camera while lilsusie interviewed Jaedong with the questions from Teamliquid. Jaedong's coach interrupted in the middle of the interview and it was cool to find out that his brother is from Manila, Philippines so I spoke to him through lilsusie about that a bit afterwards.
lilsusie and I had to head out after that so hopefully zatic, snowbird and Meat were able to get some interviews of the other two progamers later on.
Nyovne, Naruto and Harry took me to the airport so I could catch my flight from Germany to London and London to New York. I was sad to leave but happy to get back home. It's always great to go to these events. The teamliquid community proves time and time again that they are full of awesomeness. This energy, this passion, this camaraderie is what keeps me coming back for more.
It was great fun guys! Let's do this again next year =).
Dknight was a total asshole and slapped my face moments after I took this picture, completely unprovoked. He said "In Europe, men can hit women." What the fuck. I wanted to seriously injure him at this point. My fist flew to his face but my personality and Christian self prevented me from having my fist plow through his skull. Plus, I didn't want to cause any trouble and get kicked out of the bar or something. I decided to be nice and punch him in the arm. That didn't feel like enough revenge so I tried to choke him with my arm around his neck and I really wanted to at least make him pass out but that didn't work. Seriously, Dknight, learn some respect, Motherfucker.
Hm, wtf? ed: I mean wtf at the original slap, not wtf at the being pissed about it. [hopefully that's obvious, just wanted to make sure I wasn't misunderstood]
She slapped Tasteless in the face I think for interrupting and Tasteless didn't appreciate it one bit. Friendly or not, joking or not, drunk or not, mad or not, slapping is unacceptable.
Another wtf.
Nice read, was worthwhile going through it all! (5/5 obviously)
Last edit: 2008-11-11 07:35:36
CDRdude United States. November 11 2008 07:21. Posts 4435
Awesome blog Michelle. I actually regret now not having a conversation with you at the meet, you are an awesome person. Our first meeting was kinda awkward at the Starcraft area haha =]
Btw was DKnight actually serious? Or was it jokingly? What the fuck.
Last edit: 2008-11-11 07:30:21
Retsukage United States. November 11 2008 07:28. Posts 938
"This reminds me of when someone posted that they decided to man up and ask a girl out and it worked. I was so happy. Then it was fucking tdot. Fuck my life." - Chill
umm PuertoRican update added.. just for clarification..
dont know if dknight was serious or not or drunk or not.. but whatever i dont like him. he was insulting everyone left and right as well so he's not really fun to hang out with anyway.
G.s)NarutO Germany. November 11 2008 07:15. Posts 9211
iD.NicKy France. November 11 2008 07:17. Posts 728
funkie Venezuela. November 11 2008 07:17. Posts 7489
CDRdude United States. November 11 2008 07:21. Posts 4435
CTStalker Canada. November 11 2008 07:28. Posts 7005
Retsukage United States. November 11 2008 07:28. Posts 938
IPS.ZeRo Germany. November 11 2008 07:46. Posts 982
Zoler Sweden. November 11 2008 07:47. Posts 5207![[image loading]](http://www.esports.is/uploads/1202746057/gallery_77_16_13007.jpg)
emucxg Finland. November 11 2008 07:47. Posts 2427
Yizuo Germany. November 11 2008 07:50. Posts 1345
prOxi.swAMi Australia. November 11 2008 07:53. Posts 2522![[image loading]](http://calbearmnm.smugmug.com/photos/414182051_ojENV-M-1.jpg)
Liquid`Ret Netherlands. November 11 2008 08:05. Posts 3744