OK, I made it to Essen, after a couple of nervous moments. The United flight was late getting into Amsterdam and the KLM agent at the transfer desk told me that it was too late for me to get my bag and get it checked onto my flight to Amsterdam. However, she spoke to another agent in the baggage area, who promised to retrieve my bag, take it through customs and get it onto my flight. Now, I'm pretty sure that taking my bag through customs was a no no, but at that point I was prepared to take any help that was offered. Although I didn't have high hopes of my bag actually arriving in Essen, lo and behold, it appeared on the baggage carousel.

I then proceded to take the train to Duesseldorf, and then Essen. You know all that stuff  they say about German trains? Well, it's all true. On time, quiet, smooth, just perfect. The fare has gone up to 8€, and the U-Bahn was a further 2€. I was so glad to get to the hotel to be able to wash all the grime and sweat off from the journey.

I went for a wander around the local streets, found the Messe, Istra, Hotel Jung and a few other interesting looking eating places. While at the Messe I bumped into Julie, Jacob and Matthew Brooks. We chatted about how their vacation had been going, and how nice the weather was (about mid 70s) before I went to do some further exploring.

People slowly trickled in, and we had the usual 'Where do you wanna eat?' 'I dunno, where do you want to eat?' conversations before settling on a place that served German food. We had an excellent meal, and Lorna even managed to get her meal for free because the owner (?) had a game deal going on for Spiel 2005. After the meal each person got to roll a pair of dice, and if you rolled a double 6 you got a free meal, and Lorna was that person. Nice start to the week!

At this point we went across to the Jung to see if we could find a little gaming action. When we got there (for the second time!) the room was still empty, although Maureen Hiron also appeared at the same time we did. We started playing Havoc, and the Jung crowd (and more!) returned from dinner. After Havoc, which KC and I tied, we chatted a while before heading out for bed.

Here you can see Rick Thornquist and some others (unknown, sorry) playing Freya's Folly, a game themed on the ancient Norse legend, Freya, the goddess of fertility. Didn't watch this one much, but it looked like the players were deeply engrossed. This is being released by Sagacity Games, from Australia.

And so ended the first real day of the great Essen adventure. Tomorrow we go to set up the booth and check out the other stalls.