Theme: Atlantis - the lost paradise
Location: Utsikten Meetings
My journey started with getting up at 4:45 (ugh) and my dad bringing me to the airport.
I flew to Amsterdam where I met up with Henrieke. Since we had quite some time, we went to look for the latest Eppo issue which contained drawings by Henrieke, sadly no shop had it. At the gate we already met about 6 other furries since this was the most logical flight to take to NFC for dutch people. We had a smooth flight during which I worked on my laptop, finishing up the scans of a Brer Rabbit comic Henrieke drew. At Stockholm-Arlanda, we met Slycat and a few other furries who were all going to take the FuzzBus (a bus directly going from the airport to the convention hotel, a 2-hour ride). Since there was plenty of time, we had a quick lunch at Max Burger at the airport. The ride to the hotel was convenient and nicely organized, and I worked a bit more on the comic pages. At the hotel we met many friends, including Yotie and Ekorren, but the night was rather uneventful as both of us were extremely tired, with me having had 4 hours of sleep the night before and Henrieke exactly 0 hours. We bought some snacks in the hotel for dinner and went to bed pretty early to recharge our batteries for the con.
Henrieke and I had breakfast with Jill, Louve, Shannon and Clawed. The breakfast buffet was yummy just like last year, offering a nice continental/Swedish selection. At the breakfast table, Henrieke and I finished the last things on the comic pages and mailed it off to the Dutch Disney publishers, meaning that Henrieke was done with work. We went to the room for a bit, then to Willy's (a local supermarket) where we met Amtrack and Ekorren.
We were back in time for the opening ceremony, which was opened with a very confusing and catchy "Cheese Party" music video, composed specifically for NFC. Silverfox was introduced as Guest of Honor and Mausie was being cute as usual. We went out early to prepare our little section of the International snack exchange, an event where attendees bring snacks from their home country for tasting. Ekorren organized it and it was a big success, with many tables being filled with tasty and weird snacks from all over the world.
I brought Coconuts, Schokobananen, Drageé-Keksi and Almdudler. As usual, the spanish people went overboard and provided the classiest combination of bread, cheese and ham. Tabbie tricked me into trying extremely hot crisps which wrecked my sense of taste for a while. If you read this Tabbie, keep in mind that you'll pay for this. After snack exchange, we went to the art-show to put up a little squirrel picture Henrieke made for the charity auction. After going to the room and getting our clothes, we went tagged along with the Americans in order to be early and get good seats for the Zootopia premiere! We probably took a very inefficient route but eventually made it. Henrieke and me sat with Titash, Ekorren and Tabbie in the little town cinema/theater. I probably don't have to mention that Zootopia was excellent!
On the way back, Henrieke, Titash, Ekorren and I stopped by a pizza place that was just about to close and managed to get some really tasty Pizza which we ate in one of the plentiful little lounges in the hotel. We went back to the room to rest a bit, then back and watched some Star Trek re-cut videos. After that we spent the rest of the evening in the Artist Lounge and went to bed at 2.
We had breakfast at 10:30 with Sithy, Okill and a few others, sadly I had a headache that would not go away. Henrieke and me went to the Dealers Den, but since my headache was very annoying I went to the room at 12 to rest for a while. An hour later, I went down to the lobby and met Birone, who brought along his dad and sister, who both very much enjoyed the con. We went to the art show to check the bids and to the Dealers Den where Henrieke got the new art book by Silverfox.
After that we relaxed a bit in the downstairs bar with Amtrack, Yotie and Titash while Ekorren prepared a little surprise party for Yotie. We all went upstairs, the Americans and Procyon joined too and we enjoyed a tasty typical Swedish "Princess Cake".
Since it was almost 18:30, I went to the room to get Baseball down to register for the Fursuit Sharades, my favorite event at NFC. The event was delayed by about 30 minutes in the end, sadly Henrieke and Ekorren missed it but Baseball had a fun time! Baseball was on a team with Gwyndolium and Skittles and two others whose name I can't recall. At 21:30, I was done and hungry, luckily Henrieke brought some noodles from Nynäshamn Sushi. I ate another painkiller in the room and Henrieke and I went to a big remote lounge where Sithy's birthday party took place.
I brought some Postmust along and we chatted a bit while next to us, lots of balloons were inflated for an unrelated balloon party/photoshoot.
We went down to hang out with the Americans in the bar, I ran into Okill who was nice enough to lend me his Sigma 50mm f1.4 lens, which was amazing to use in the low-light environment of the hotel bar. I went around a bit and took lots of photos with amazing bokeh, also spent some time in the arcade with Flacko and Tabbie. At one point I ran into Kenai, who gave me a Final Cartridge for my C64 collection. Back in the bar, Tabbie, Keenora, I and some friends of Tabbie decided to go dance, and we had a blast. It brought back memories of the first CFD we went to!
Until 2:00, Henrieke and I sat together with the Americans and Kenai in the hotel bar, drawing and chatting.
I woke up without headache and appreciated how nice that felt. We had breakfast at 10:40 with Titash, Procyon, Ekorren and Jill, then went to the Dealers Den. I hung out at Tabbie's table for a while and tried to persuade him into accepting a commission.
I also managed to commission Louve. After having a little chat with Shorty, who ran the con store, Henrieke got Baseball down, who sat at the entrance of the Dealers Den and did about 15 drawings for charity at 100 SEK each.
After the Dealers Den closed, Baseball collected some more money in the lobby, then we went to the room and Henrieke took a shower. In the meanwhile, I went to see "Strut yout Style" with Yotie, Amtrack and Eko, with Jill and Shannon being part of the judges. It sure was something to remember, cringe levels were through the roof at certain points. After that, we had the BBQ buffet for dinner with the Americans and Tabbie. Food was very tasty, especially the freshly baked bread! We sat in the Artist Lounge for a while, doing trades and then went to the bar and the arcade, having fun with a lens Okill lent me.
I got Baseball to come down to the lobby, where a big TV was set up with a video link set up to Vancoufur, which took place at the same time. Baseball had some fun interacting with other people on the other side of the planet and was happy to see Thumper coming by!
Baseball then went on to dance a bit, then went to the Arcade and played/failed at Metal Slug with Jake on the Japanese Ardace cabinet that was set up there.
Back on the dance-floor, Baseball had a dance with Jill, Shannon, Louve and Clawed, then went back to the room. I spent the remainder of the night in the bar, getting to bed at 3:30.
I went to have breakfast shortly before the buffet closed with Ekorren, Kenai, Louve, Clawed, Jill and Shannon while Henrieke preferred to stay in bed. I got down Henrieke later and we spent a long time sitting in the corner next to the registration office, doing a little art-jam. Trax asked me to draw a very quick commission to give to NewEinstein since this was his last year as chairman, so Henrieke and I collaborated and finished just in time before we went to the closing ceremonies. In the closing ceremony, a 28000 SEK preliminary charity amound was announced as well as a new location, the Scandic hotel very near to the Arlanda airport with the theme being Japan.
Back in the drawing corner we did trades and had a good time until dinner. I paid the dinner buffet, which was "Scandinavian Specialties", sadly it was very disappointing, especially the salmon that was completely drenched in lemon juice. Ekorren and Shannon got some Pizza, we joined them after dinner in the lounge above the lobby. I went to the room to pack a bit already, then down to the Dead Dog party.
We spent most of the time in the same corner as usual, until I ran into Tabbie and we decided to do some suiting. I got Baseball down, danced a bit and worshiped our new Mausie overlord in the main stage. Baseball didn't last long, and I went down again to meet Henrieke at the DJ booth where they played hits like Cheese Party and Moskau for us. (Also the strangest dance remix of I don't like Mondays). There were only few people left by the time we went to the room at around 1:30, on the way I said bye to Tabbie and Slycat as they had to leave way earlier than us.
We got up at 9:00, had a quick breakfast with Sithy and Okill and went back to the room to pack the rest of our stuff. After some confusion, all of us managed to get on the FuzzBus that went to the central station. The Americans went to their hostel in Gamla Stan. Henrieke, Titash, Ekorren and I went to "Best Western Kom" around 20 Minutes walking from the station. We got a really nice little room! We all met at Max at 14:00 for some burgers, then walked around in Gamla Stan. We found 2 nice comic stores and Henrieke even managed to find 2 IDW magazines with her drawings in it. I ended up buying a Bamse issue thanks to Vargen, the adorable black wolf. While waiting for meeting up with the Americans again, we sat down for a coffee in a cute little coffeehouse and talked mostly about comics for a while.
After that we aimlessly walked to the south of the city, encountering lots of coffee shops. Swedes sure love their coffee shops! Eventually we turned around and walked towards the Tiki Bar, taking a short break at the Old Town hostel. Jill, Titash, Ekorren, Henrieke and I had dinner at Vapiano while the others went for Sushi. We met up later at the Tiki Bar and spent the rest of the evening there. We were almost the only people there, so they didn't mind us occupying the table for hours.
Around midnight we took the subway to the hotel and parted ways with Jill, Shannon, Louve and Clawed who would take a plane to Iceland the next day.
We got up at 9:00, got some quick breakfast and relaxed a bit on our room until we had to check out at 12:00. The hotel was nice enough to let us store our luggage there, so we went to explore the surrounding area a bit. I looked up a nice store that sold used comics, LPs and CDs, a very nice combination! We spent probably over an hour there and I had the chance to stock up on Bamse. Next door was an American import shop which was a bit overpriced but had a nice selection of US candy.
We walked around a bit more, went up to the observatory, then back to the hotel where we got some spring rolls for lunch at a Vietnamese restaurant around the corner. The taxi we ordered came to pick us up at 15:00, so it was time to say bye to Titash, who stayed in Stockholm 2 more days. On the way we caught a glimpse of the Scandic hotel where NFC will be held next year, hopefully we'll be able to attend! After the flight, we had a quick dinner of Belgian fries at Schiphol and arrived at Henrieke's home sometime around 22:00.
End.