Leiden: The Meet That Wasn't Announced

Attending:
Ailbhe, Arwen, Barry, Boris, Daniel, Jeroen B, Jos, Kimberley, Labrat, Leo, Martin, Michel, Olaf, Patrick, Rob, Rolf, Sindy, Uwe.

Uwe & Rolf's view of the meet, including their pictures.

Saturday

The meet was supposed to start at around 16:30, so to be on the safe side I left home half an hour early to go to Leiden. Very good that I did this too, as the trains between Amsterdam Zuid WTC and Leiden where not running, due to work on the tracks. Instead I got on at Amsterdam Sloterdijk and arrived about 10 minutes early in Leiden.

After a five minute walk struggling to balance my backback, carrier bag and discman I arrived at the pub, to find Kimberley and Jeroen B. had already arrived, Kimberley staring in rapt attention to the tv screen, where some unimportant football game was being played.

Unfortunately for her, after some more people had arrived Jos led us with gentle force to the other side of the bar, far from the tv and the crowds watching it.

We settled down there, drinks were ordered, candy was gotten out of bags and "enjoyed" and Eelco, whose birthday it just had been got a gift from Arwen: a turtle watergun... Jos had to pop out a couple of times to go look for Rob and Ailbhe, who were coming directly from London by train. After they had arrived and some more banter and wibble, with everybody but Leo now present, we went on to the restaurant.

In the restaurant, we were spread out around alarge, l-shaped table, leading Michel to make the foolish remark that we're now in L-space; which earned him the dubious honour of taking The Book home with him. Leo arrived more or less halfway through the meal, directly from the airport, which baffled several people as they had assumed that naturally his plane would be delayed. As usual, a lot of wibbling was done and there were also nefarious goings on in a quiet corner... What exactly was going on, well, we'll see soon enough.

Highlight of the evening was the unveiling of the dreaded Brown Envelopes sent over by Karen, containing the usual highly useles^Wappreciated gifts for various people. First up was Karen's birthday gift to Eelco, a sushi cookbook and an assortiment of candy sushi, largely inedible. Not to be outdone, Uwe and Rolf got a nice topical gift: a blow football game, so they could play Holland-Germany for themselves. Which was promptly done of course. Last but not least was a gift for Leo, which Kimberley had managed to conceal from him: another grow it yourself date. Apparantely he lost the last one at a previous meet...

After dinner, the meet split up, with the people crashing splitting themsleves into three groups: Leo took Ailbhe and Rob back home with him, Kimberley left with some people and the rest went along with Patrick to Leiderdorp, where we sat around for a while before deciding to go to bed.

Saturday Photos

	Ooh, flickering images!		looking at pictures from the previous meet
	Is that a turtle in your hand or are you just glad to see me? Well, the turtle is glad to see you...		Kimberley, Barry and Arwen
	Something funny seems to happen...		oh no, the meet got spammed!
	Dustpuppy enjoying itself		Random onlookers: Jeroen B. Barry, Arwen, Patrick and Uwe[1]
	On the way to the restaurant		Patrick preparing to soak an unsuspecting Arwen.[2]

In the restaurant

	Another victim (Ailbhe) being introduced to The Book.		"I've got a brand new combine harverster..." Farmer Jos.
	Leo arrives, straight from the airport		the muppet
	A topical gift for the dollies: a football game.		Which had to be played of course...

Sunday

Woke up at around 10 AM, to find Michel already gone. We had hoped to have some nice weather so we could juggle in the nearby park, but unfortunately this didn't happen... While we were still in the process of waking up, Patrick got a call on his mobile from Leo, who was still standing at Delft station with Rob and Ailbhe, since thanks to a fire in a control station no trains were running between there and Leiden.

Patrick decided to pick them up and I tagged along, as "navigator". Getting to Delft was easy, but once in the city itself, it became difficult finding a way to the station through the maze of narrow streets, alleys and one way traffic lanes that is Delft. We made it of course and picked up the three lost souls, two of which were worried about how to get back to the UK if the trains wouldn't run all day...

Back at Patrick's place, we found the rest of the group had arrived as well and breakfast was starting to happen. Apart from the obligatory crumpets there was also a bag of "Manna" left over from the night before, which is some sort of sickly sweet highly artificial corn candy.

Despite the bad weather some juggling did happen, but now held inside and with the added attraction of avoiding a meteor shower on Patrick's Unseen University model... After a couple of hours he had enough of this and threw us out, driving Leo and company, togehter with me to the station where I took the train to Amsterdam while Leo, Rob and Ailbhe waited for the train to Den Haag, where they would catch the train back to the UK.

Sunday photos

	Leo caught in the act of singing along to Respectable		Some juggling did happen. Note the unseen university next to Olaf
	Patrick demonstrating that he can juggle too. Too bad about his stereo...		Breakfast finished, so why don't they leave already?
	"I didn't bring this unicycle along for nothing!"		The next moment Boris crashed into your humble photographer

[1] Or is that Rolf?
[2] I've omited the resulting carnage; if you want pictures you'll have to mail me.