Starting the journey 1:50am GMT

Well it's coming up to 2am here in Oxford, and in 10 minutes i'll be making the short walk down my road to the bus stop to catch the coach to Heathrow. I think I'm all packed, though no matter how many times I travel (and I have traveled a lot), it never gets easier to convince myself I haven't left anything behind. I've got my laptop, my camera, my phone, my wallet, my watch, my keys, all my chargers, my flight details, my passport... and it all gets into such a blurr that I'm almost positive I'll have forgotten the most important thing of all.

Anyway, leaving Goodeh complaining to me on MSN (among other things he is currently lying in the same bed as felix), I've just finished the glass of Famous Grouse I poured myself to pass the time while I waited, and will now be heading off into the dark and cold night, on a journey that could easily last over 12 hours.

At the airport 3:30am GMT

The coach journey was better than expected, lasting only around three quarters of an hour, but... for once in my life, a bus not actually being horrendously late doesn't actually help me. I'm currently sat on the floor in Zone E of Terminal 3 here at heathrow (I'm not sure why I said that, but... perhaps someone else here happens to be browsing cadred and decides to come along and give me a shout?), logged onto a free wifi access point, wondering how long it will be before I can check-in, get rid of this huge suitcase, and get to the decent lounges.

I never understand this at airports. There are only a few places where you are likely to have to wait for a long tim, and one of them is before baggage drop. You'd think that in a terminal full of baggage drop points there would be a few seats... maybe even a few confy seats... but no, I'm sat on the stone floor leant against my suitcase, hoping that my flight's check-in will open some time within the next two hours.

You see, it is currently 3:35am here, and my flight is due to leave for Copenhagen at 6:45... to say I'd arrived a bit too early would be overkill, but that was something I had to do given the coach timetable, so here I am.

Anyway, I think I've just rambled on for three parapraphs about how I'm sat on the floor at an airport, and not much else, so I'm going to stop writing now, otherwise this blog could become more of a tale the length of a novel. Which is a shame, because frankly, writing whatever comes into my head is passing the time rather well.

Still at the airport 06:50am

After nearly two hours of standing in a stationary queue, I finally managed to check-in, get rid of the suitcase, and move through air-port security. Strangely, passport control wasn't interested in our passports, but rather made us put our shoes through a second scanning system. Perhaps they are hoping to change their job title to "Foot Security Officers".

I stopped in at "EAT", to get a bacon buttie, which, while making me question if they understand the concept of food, was still hot and filling, which was quite welcome, having not slept. I've just come from a browse around the duty-free store, checking out what alcohol and cigarettes (the later for my dad) I'll be getting on the way back if I get the chance. Two litre bottles of Smirnoff Blue for £15 does seem a rather good deal...

Anyway, next up is a two hour flight to Copenhagen, followed by a three hour wait for my next flight - so I'll have plenty more time then to type plenty more boring shit.. bye for now!

Copenhagen 9:30am GMT

So far everything has run as scheduled, after a nice nap on the plane I woke up as we touched down here two hours ago, at 9:20 local time. I bought a few DKK, got confused by coins, and then bought what I believe was the most expensive coke ever (can it really by 7euro for a pint of coke, or were they ripping off a tourist?)

Anyway, must dash as I only have 1min 35seconds credit left, hopefully my next appearance will be from the lan venue...

Tampere, Finland 17:43pm local time

Everything went as planned, I caught my (suprisingly small) plane to Tampere airport, where I was met by Sauna, who's taken me for a coffee, shown me around the city, and we're now setup at the eveny watching the event staff work hard to get ready for the lan's start, tomorrow noon.

Tampere seems very quiet, apparently everyone here is just getting totally hammered over the easter weekend - most of the people to be seen on the streets are already wearing hockey shirts ready to support one of the two local teams taking place in the national league's play-offs today/tomorrow (I have tried explaining to kimmo that its a bad sport, but he just ignored me.)

Not much more to say now, except that its pretty cold here, I'm told tonight it will drop a fair bit below -10c, though the countryside does look lovely with snow covering the fields and the pine-trees, so I'm not going to complain.

Evening/Night 09:55am local time (Saturday)

Not much else happened last night really, I met a few more people, some of which I knew from SASM last year, went and watched a bit of kids 7-a-side football on the astroturf pitch here, and had great enjoyment watching a goalkeeper boot the ball back into his net after letting a goal in, then kick the goalpost as hard as he could, only to fall over in pain. The other highlight while watching them play was seeing an old referee (probably 60+, in a referee's uniform, being a complete twat (with no attempt at humour), waiting for a boy to run and get the ball, run the 30 yards back (while the ref was looking at his watch the whole time, with whistle in mouth), let the boy place the ball down, step back for a runup, then blow his whistle. Really made my day, that did.

Anyway, I've got a few photos of the event before it opens which I'll try and get uploaded now, doors open in two hours here, so expect more soon :)

Start of the event 12:34pm, local time

The event doors opened half an hour ago, and already a lot of people have their computerss setup on their desk. As I write this, I hear Boten Anna playing on someone's speakers, certainly not for the last time this event.

Earlier a few more Cadred guys arrived, I'm now sat with sauna, wabbit, ruohiz (EMO!!) and aroppuu, and our banner advertising this site is now up overlooking the BYOC area.

As you probably saw from the news post, CadredTV has gone live for the first time, and by now it should be showing hoards of people walking past loaded with computers and accessories to setup. If you were lucky, and you were watching at the right time, you will have seen wabbit wearing his pink sunhat (which has "<3 wabbit" written many times around the edge) doing a little jig in front of the camera!! If you weren't so lucky, don't worry, I'll try and get him to do it again soon ;)

A woman behind me has just started speaking into the PA system, I can only assume she is saying "everyone go read cadred.org, the best source of gaming news there is", though as I don't speak Finnish I can't confirm that right now.

Back-tracking

I seem to have got way behind on my blogging, as its now late Sunday afternoon, and I haven't even finished Saturday's blog! I can't really think of a huge amount to say about yesterday, the event filled up, lights went out (great atmosphere), I'm sat in a great position and so was able to see every stage game from up here next to the lighting/video guys, hmm, what else happened yesterday? Not much I guess, after the last game (quite late at night) cheets drove four of us (him, me, ruohiz and corey) back to our hotel, where we settled down for the night.

On to Sunday I guess...

Waking Up 17:55pm, local time

Our alarms went off at 8am this morning, which is still 6am to my body, so it took a couple of coffees before I was anywhere near awake. After we had all showered we headed back to the lan, ready for the first game (the best 1.6 match of the event, roccat vs. excello on the stage), which was at 10.

Today has been much the same really, I've drunk more coke, seen more matches, and taken more photos, as well as seeing some of the most depressingly sad (apologies if they are reading this) guitar hero'ists (see this video!!) - I'm going to take a quick jump our of the order of events, for as I was writing this, the air guitar competition started on stage, which is almost as hilariously depressing as the guitar hero event was - I'll be sure to upload that video as soon as I can!

While I'm on the subject of linking to videos, during an "Assembly Loves You" presentation earlier, a demo made by taat.fi was shown, which is so awsome I've added it to the Cadred Video Gallery - Clicky.

Well, I seem to have run out of ideas going through my head for now, I'll try and remember to come back sooner so i don't forget stuff again...

Evening 22:10, local time

Well its just past 10pm local time now, and the CSS grand final should be kicking off any moment. This latest installment to the blog comes thanks to a few guys in #Afterlife who moaned at me to go and write some more!

Not that look ago we saw Four-Kings, the last Finnish team standing in the i33 CSS tournament in the UK, first knocked down to the lower bracket by Salvo, and then knocked right out by MiNT, in two very strong performances by the UK teams. Now if I'm being totally honest, I would have liked nothing better than for 4k to take home the first prize, but I'm not going to pretend I didn't love being able to run in wabbit's face the fact that, despite his lecture yesterday about how much finnish gamers rock compared to UK gamers, it was in fact two UK teams who would take first and second place at the biggest CSS event in history :)

The final has now kicked off, and afterlife are losing two nil, allbeit on the terrorist side of de_nuke. And having taken a minute break from writing to watch the big screen, I would like to make the point that as much as I love r0lle, his spraying skills are appalling ;D

Not much has really happened to talk about, the event has gone on as usual.. its been a great event, the spectator seats are completely full right now as people watch this final match, and many of the people still at their PC places have their eyes fixed on the second big screen in the room, overlooking them all, as wabbit's voice resounds around this huge building. I only have a few hours left at this LAN, I won't be coming back in the morning, and at noon I'll be picked up and taken to Tampere airport for my flight to Copenhagen. Like every lan ive been to in Finland, its been a really enjoyable experience, and I'll certainly be doing my best to get back here for the Summer event.

I'll most likely be back here again in the morning from my hotel room (or perhaps even this evening, if I think of anything interesting), but until then, I'm going to end with a little story I was told a couple of days ago that amused me. Not so long ago a large block of apartments was built here in Tampere, and sold (quite rightly) "with a lake [or was it river?] view" -however, as soon as these apartments were sold, and identical block was build between the first block and the water, completely removing that view - these new apartments were then also sold with the water-view advertising, after which yet another block was build blocking that view.. a classic story of advertising genius!

At the airport 10:43 am, local time

After the final ended last night (a two-map affair), a CS:S deathmatch tournament was announced, which started immediately, and went on until 3am. During that time we took a few final photographs, took down the cadred banner, and packed up most of our stuff. Cheets drove us all back to the hotel again, where we went to sleep fairly soon after. Ruohiz had to leave at 8am, so by the time we were woken by our alarms at 11 there were just three of us. After showers and coffee we had 20 minutes left before we had to be out of the room, and before Kimmo would arrive to pick me up and take me to the airport.

After cheets and corey and driven off from the hotel, I was left standing outside to wait for Kimmo. Whats strange about being here in Finland is the cold. Its been snowing all weekend, and this morning snow was all over the place, and it was still snowing when I was outside. BBC weather tells me that today's maximum temperature for Tampere is -3 degrees, which is alot colder than back home, and yet... it just wasn't a problem. I could tell its cold, but I was happy to be standing there, I wasnt spending every second wishing I could have a hot shower, as I would do in less cold temperatures at home.

Anyway, I'm sat here at the airport café now, having paid 8e for a 24hr wifi pass, and as my plane doesnt leave for another three hours, I'll be here a while longer too (hopefully the shop will open or something, as I havent eaten for ages, and I dont have enough change to use a vending machine).

Back in UK!! 10:05am, Tuesday

Well the shop I hoped would open turned out to do some hot food too, so i ordered a burger and chips, and.. well frankly, I don't think the chef had ever heard of "food", yet alone "food heigene" - I'm immensly suprised that the few bites I had didn't have me either kneeling over or sitting on a toilet for 2 days!

The rest of the journey went fine, although I was puzzled that a tiny airport in Finland (Tampere) had several English newspapers available to pick up on the way to board, and yet a flight from Copenhagen to England only had Danish. Puzzled and annoyed, as I left my FT Weekend on the first flight by mistake.

Anyway, I got off the plane in England - though while waiting to get off I actually saw an old school-friend of mine who I haven't seen since I was 12 way up at the front of the plane, but I guess he got on a bus to Oxford (if he still lives here) before I got to the stop. On the way through the last discount airport shop I picked up a couple of bottles of Smirnoff and another couple of Teacher's, then headed along the "walkalators" towards the central bus station.

On the bus back I plugged my laptop in and started watching Spiderman 3 (didn't have anything else to do), got home, and immediately got dragged into a shitload of discussions on MSN, which I finally managed to shake off at around 3am, when I went to bed.

This wasn't my first event in Finland, and it certainly won't be my last - as long as they don't clash with other major LANs again, I certainly hope to be back twice a year for the forseeable future :)

It was a really enjoyable weekend, great to see the guys I met at last summer's event again, and great o meet more craaaaazy fins!!

the end.