It’s very much worth checking out. As in its monstrous, huge, ginormous—five halls of stuff, as opposed to the single hall most American cons seem to take place in. Fun place to get lost in. And, fun crowd to try to navigate to your panel / interview / whatever, when you’re a “leave forty-five seconds before it starts”-guy like I sort of definitely am. But? I made them all, just barely.
Anyway, was my first time in Germany. Was supposed to have been there in 2021, I think it was, but turned up with COVID the night before (at a StokerCon party at a friend’s place in Denver). Glad to have been there now, for/with Buchheim Verlag. Olaf and his team are great, and had the most killer booth:
And, yeah, that BHH is gorgeous. Times two.
And, right off the plane/trane, I got to do an interview with Gerritt Wustmann, who translated BHH for this edition. Dude’s very smart, knows his stuff. On the way out, he got this snap of me, randomly:
Interview should be available before too long. We shot some video too, short stuff that felt like for . . . IG? I don’t know. It’s probably out there somewhere. I was forty hours without sleep at the time, and, for the three nights leading up to that waking marathon, I think I’d slept three hours a night, tops? Then, the whole time in Germany, “three hours” would have been amazing. Was more like “two.” I never adjusted to this different clock, no. So it goes. Speaking of “So it goes”: on the way to our fairy tale hotel, kept seeing these signs:
Oh, too, talking Great Stuff in Germany:
Too, we got a behind-the-scenes/secret-doors/curator-led tour of the Völkerschlachtdenkmal. Which is a super cool thing/place/monument, and at a scale this snapshot doesn’t really capture:
And? I guess a publicist or someone there got me—well, Oliver Kern and me—to be on TikTok. I never saw it. We were supposed to, like, ‘do acting’ or something. I just stood there. I got no acting in/to me. Not sad. This keyboard’s where I belong. Not in front of a camera. Anyway, every spare moment of the con, I was doing this. Such long lines, but I believe I got them all signed up:
Too, should say: my favorite thing of Germany? It’s a Pepsi place. Everywhere I went, it was Pepsi Pepsi Pepsi. This is one that made it back to the room:
But, alas, at this restaurant below, they had only coke products. Makes sense, as the Devil hangs out there—and was working the crowd that night, doing his cackly stuff.
It’s a restaurant that I guess has been going since 1545 or somesuch? Goethe set a scene in Faust in there. Maybe this is what someone in that play said (it was across from me where I was seated):
Making it sound like I never read Faust. I did, but, man, it’s been three decades. Still, I wonder if Dostoyevsky’s “Grand Conversation” chapter or whatever it is has some relationship?
Anyway, also got to do a cool event at a CASTLE the last night there:
Event was with a jazz trio and Oliver Kern:
Oh, too, ran into Thomas Olde Heuvelt there. Hadn’t seen him since . . . guess it was 2017, here in Colorado?
Also, at a stall in a market in Leipzig that had horse meat, I found this:
And then, traveling back, the airport workers strike in Berlin was over, but that didn’t mean there weren’t all kinds of random, seemingly malicious delays—Nancy and were awake for some, I don’t know, twenty-four hours? Just made being home that much better, though. Thanks, Germany. Was a blast. Thanks, Olaf and Buchheim (that means ‘book home,’ which is pretty fitting). I’m back in Colorado now, about to blast off for Seattle, then a few weeks in Georgia (the American one), but, for now, I’ve got my new mug, and things are great:
Mug rocks. Horse meat…please no. I should have had you stash a BHH for me, avoid those shipping fees bet they’re heavy, though!
yeah, everyone was wanting me to bring some back. but we were going six days with only carryons . . .
That’s what we’re doing to Maui. Fortunately, it’s not like we need winter clothes!