The end of a 5 year cycle of 10 events and some specials and barnights. If I remember correctly I did all 10 events, one special and one barnight. I'm not really into specials or barnights in any setting. Halda managed to survive all these 10 events. She didn't even get close to dying, though she did get close to leaving. If it hadn't been for her pack that wanted to stay put in Runewall for protecting the villagers, she would've left. Running away from her problems was her usual solution, but she couldn't once they were stuck in Runewall.

I'm not emotional about Symbols ending. After 10 events it is good that it could end in such a good way. Much better than just blowing up the whole setting or just stopping in the middle of a story. Of course more could be done in the setting, but the main story is over and continuing would have become a drag soon. Also I'm not grieving about not having to paint myself Kryolan 501 grey anymore. ;-)

This event was fairly relaxed for me. We arrived at about 14:00 to put up the camp, which was finished at 16:30. Much better than the normal last-minute-fixes-in-the-dark. I was even the first to get gray, while the event before this one I tried to put that off as long as possible and didn't want to go in character. Also, on Sunday my mood was 10 times better than usual. Even when I didn't get much sleep; 06:00 on Friday, 04:00 on Saturday and getting up at around 11:00.

Breaking up the camp was largely done in character, making it less work after time out. And yay, we could finally get rid of all the tree decorations instead of taking them home again. We made Simon a gift of the Nocona banner and Hans took home our chant-banner (the moon is my heart etc.)

Still, it was 17:00 when we finally left the site because we'd taken our sweet time in breaking up the camp. However, it's only a one hour drive for us so we were home quite on time and even unpacked the whole car and managed to get to bed early, having done one part of the laundry already.

Now there's only Vortex and Dummnoni left, though the latter is getting less and less fun because of the dwindling number of participants. Sometimes I get the feeling that I should stop larping altogether. More and more often I get the feeling that Matthijs and I are more serious about getting things to look right than others, resulting in struggles every now and then and frustration. Also, I often get the feeling that people take if for granted that we bring so much stuff for the camp every time (tent, cooking stuff, food stuff and baskets, etc.) Next to that we both enjoy camp life more than most plot, so perhaps we should gradually get into reenactment....

Anyway... this Friday we'll be having dinner (kaas fondue) with some (ex-)Musili and two of them will sleep at our place, because they come from far. We'll need to clean the house a bit and of course it's a normal workday.. so I should get to work again.

Last week Matthijs was asked by Frank (of the Gonnagles) to help him with the sound tech at a ball this Saturday in Amsterdam. Since we didn't have anything planned yet for Saturday and Matthijs likes the sound stuff (yay, buttons!) he said yes. I was included in the invitation and sleeping place was arranged at the place of one of the Gonnagles in Amsterdam.

The ball started at about 20:15 with dance initiation, which I don't really need anymore but always is a nice warming up. There were quite a few new and inexperienced dancers. One of them was Maarten and I kind of 'adopted' him for the first half of the evening as student.

There were three bands with the Gonnagles playing as second. They were the best, however it is hard for other bands to compete with the Gonnagles. ;-) I did a lot of dancing, getting blisters on my feet but ignoring them. Since Matthijs was busy doing sound when Frank was playing his trumpet with the Gonnagles I danced a lot with other men. I find it easier to dance with partners of about the same height as I am. However, Matthijs, being my love, deserved a few dances as well when the last band was playing. ;-)

At about 02:00 the ball had come to an end and we went to Henning's house a 15 minute walk away. Fortunately I did have other shoes with me so the blisters didn't bother me. It was a very weird house, a former school, with very high rooms and multiple living groups in it (I spotted 3 kitchens). After some socializing and making the beds we went to sleep at 03:30.

Sunday we slept in as late as possible, meaning 11:15 for Matthijs and me. We had to get to the train at 12:54 to go to Rotterdam Ahoy for the Walking with Dinosaurs show. We calculated some extra time for putting saldo on my OV chipcard. I didn't really trust it to work at once since I had lots of trouble (and not even a success at the end) with getting saldo on my card via the ov chipcard site. The machine worked ok though, as long as you were able to use PIN and no cash.

Our seats at WwD were crappy. The chairs themselves were hard and Matthijs' seat was even broken. We were at the front row of the highest gallery but for safety there were fences there that blocked our view. Fortunately resting my arms on the railing improved the view and I'm still young enough not to get stuck with a back ache.

The show itself was impressive. No thanks to the actor playing the paleontologist (I found him a bit over acting at times, too forced) but because of the great dinosaur-machines. When you ignored the bases below them (colored like the floor they were on) that helped them move, they were really life like. There were even some smaller dinosaurs 'worn' by humans, you could see the human legs. The legs and feet moved life like, the eyes blinked, the bulk of stomach and fleshy folds at joints looked like real flesh and some dino's could even eat plants or other baby dino's. ;-)

I have long passed the age in which I could have believed the dinosaurs were real and there were some small kids sitting nearby exclaiming that they could see the human legs or asking what the thing was underneath the bigger dinosaurs. However, part of the fun I have at such a show is looking at how stuff was made. Matthijs spent some time gawking at the tech department and I was pleasantly surprised by how the growing plants were done; balloons blown up so the plants seemed to grow gradually. Hearing the machinery inside the dino's work made it all the more impressive for me.

At 21:30 we were home again after a weekend well spend and not long after we went to bed.

Next weekend is the last Symbols event, but somehow that hasn't really sunk in yet. I'm not yet larp oriented at the moment.

End of the summer vacation, start of a new training season of taekwondo and start of my lessons at the Theaterobers.

I visited the open day of Prismare, a multi functional center in Roombeek, the part of Enschede that was blown away by the firework disaster some years ago. It's still being rebuild. At this open day there were market stands with all kinds of artwork from jewelry and felt to paintings and sculptures. There were dance and sports demonstrations and workshops, foods to taste and things to see. I went there on my own but I had a good time.

I went to the workshop of the Theaterobers, which was my main reason for going to the open day, but I also walked in for the workshop belly dance. Yes, belly dance. And guess what? I liked it and now I'm taking belly dance lessons each Monday. Though I do not have much in the hip area, I seem to have the muscles and (dare I say it?) grace because in the two lessons that I've had all I heard was "you're doing well" and no other comments. The 'shimmies' are hard though.

On Monday I used to go to Musilon but now I go to taekwondo from 18 till 20 and then belly dance from 20:30 to 21:30. After that I speed back on my bike to the campus to view the last 10 minutes of the Musilon rehearsal and after that chill with my friends there. They make me feel very welcome, asking me if I'll be there again next week.

I'm not quite sure if I'll continue with taekwondo. On Monday it's fighting (sparring) and on Wednesday it's style forms. I like the style forms much better than the sparring, but on Wednesday is Theaterobers. So I go on Monday. Last two weeks I've tried to figure out if I'd like the Monday lessons but the first lesson was a style lesson because of a few new participants and this week the regular trainer wasn't there and the lesson was lead by one of the black belts. I find the regular trainer quite chaotic in his ways, which makes it less fun to listen to him. However, this black belt guy seems to prepare the lessons and he's much more clear in what he wants us to do. So I still have no idea if a regular Monday lesson is fun enough for me to participate.

Aside from that I'd think that a mixed sparring and style lesson would be more useful, since now I wouldn't be able to learn new taeguks (style forms). However, the lessons are only 1 hour (I do beginners and advanced lessons both) and that's too short to mix both things. At kempo in Ermelo we trained for 1,5 hour and just half an hour can make the difference. Still, there was more individual training there anyway.

Anyway, I do need the exercise. Just belly dancing is good for the muscles, but not so much for the endurance.