| Then I Collapsed |
| Videogames - Geek Adventure | |||
| Written by Pixelsmith | |||
Tuesday April 29 2008We had quite a welcoming committee prepared in Belgrade. Besides swallowing licorice and weeping, we had kept ourselves alive on the journey to the city by texting the people we were set to meet. It was the biggest Bruce contingent of any of our stops by a long shot, with Serbia probably the third best represented country in the guild after England and Sweden. We were going to meet pretty much all of them. Greeting us at the station would be Peyota and Tronetti, Bog and Krool and Dudemeister. Bog and Krool harked back to the earliest days of the guild, two friends who had been around, on and off, for as long as Maddok and Morani. Krool, while relatively quiet in-game, was also well liked and well known for being the kind of death-happy mental who would gladly charge into a huge group of people and hit them all in the face with a big stick. In-game, of course. Bog, meanwhile was a wistful and intelligent chap, something of a free thinker with a gift for words and a penchant for booze. Dudemeister had joined from Brodos' old guild - before that guild itself joined ours - and had long been one of its best loved people. He's a bipedal ball of charisma, the kind of person who could, and did, march off to Las Vegas and score a job as a croupier. Peyota and Tronetti had been around for less time, but we would be seeing the most of them. I confess I had known relatively little of these two real-life friends from talking online, having spoken to neither of them a great deal. I knew I liked them, at least. Which was handy, considering we'd be staying in Peyota's house. We emerged from the train and found them waiting for us on the platform. Greetings were exchanged, hands were shaken, and we were ushered out of the station onto the streets of Belgrade, the first time Brodos or I had set foot on Balkan soil. It was bustling, a shock to the system for a pair of famished idiots who had spent the last half day cooped up together in a train carriage. Pausing for a couple of pictures, we said au revoir to three of our international pals and stepped into Tronetti's car. As we took off for Peyota's house at a blistering speeds of almost 25mph, he pointed out that he his friend drove like an old lady.  We arrived - via a bakery - to an even bigger welcoming committee. All of Belgrade's Ahn'Qiraj contingent (Ahn'Qiraj being our WoW server) seemed to be there, stuffed into Peyota's room in his parents' apartment. We said hello, swiftly forgot everybody's name and tucked into the baked goods we hadn't already ravaged in the car. Somebody handed me a beer and, parched and exhausted and not a little shell-shocked, I devoured the contents like I hadn't had a drink in weeks. Then out came the Rakija, a potent homebrew which is the national drink of this and many nearby countries. Peyota's grandfather had made this bottle 30 years ago, so it was a good vintage. A joint was passed in my direction, and I gladly added it to the cocktail of food and booze which was joyfully eroding the annoyances of the last 36 hours. We handed out the chocolate and schnapps, our diplomatic payload from their WoW family in the north of Europe. And then I collapsed."Just gonna lie down a minute," I said as I tumbled behind the sofa. My poor ravaged body, denied of proper rest and sustenance for a day and a half, had had quite enough. I was helped up and assisted to the room I would be staying in, where I fell, largely lifeless, onto the bed and was instantly asleep. Next week: War.Read from the start:
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Brodos makes this comment
Sat 26 Sep 2009 00:07:21 CDT
Varothar makes this comment
Fri 16 Oct 2009 01:35:02 CDT