Day 5 - Saturday - Day 4 for TG
This day started with me going to be *very* early in the morning. A few days earlier I had managed to find a stand in the ship that actually sold earplugs, and with those I was invincible to all the noise in the hall, so I could basically sleep wherever I wanted to - as long as there was room for my tiny sleeping mat and me I was fine.
So, after walking around in the sleeping-area for a while, not being able to find a spot in any of the 'legal' (no sleeping in front of firedoors or direcly in pathways leading to these) areas, I deciced to drop next to some other people in one of those forbidden pathways in the middle of the spectator seats (thanks haplo). Carefully, as always (even though I was more dead than alive after not having slept nearly enough since saturday or so), I unrolled the contents of my 'sleeping-bag' (sleeping-mat, bedsheet, pillow and blanket), put my glasses in its hardcover and put it along with my clothes in the plasticbag I used to store the sleeping-arrangement in, set my cellphone (good old trusty nokia 3210) to silent and put it under the side of my pillow - the side pointing away from the edge of the place I set myself up in.
A full good nights sleep (which amounts to approximately 40 minutes according to crew) later, I got woken up by security and asked to move to another spot (naturally). So I slowly woke up (read: sat up, blinked my eyes at the sharp 15-minutes-over-6-in-the-morning-light in the ship), checked the situation in the ship (the best I could with no glasses on - fortunately I am not even close to being blind without my glasses), looked at the people next to me that also had been woken up, got out my phone (from where I put the 'night' before') and checked the time. Drat - 40 minutes of sleep. Can't think must find another spot and get back to sleep as soon as possible. Got up, didnt bother to put on my shorts - just carefully wrapped all my 'stuff' up in the slepping-mat (did I remember the phone? think I put it in the bag after I checked the time. Sure? Yes. Ok), scruffled in to the hallway behind the spectator-seats (where the really good spots already were occupied.
Hmm. No spots - but when you're in dire need, you take what you can get, so I located a spot in on of the passages that seemed rather small, but with enough room for my mat. I had to sleep with my head dangerously close to where people would tumble along in the passageway. Anyway - unrolled my stuff, plugged in my earplugs (ah - a godsent - no more noise), looked after my cellphone - hmm - where is it? in the bag? no - shit .. in my trousers? no, I had no memory of putting it anywhere else than back on the concrete where I slept the first 40 minutes. Hmm. Realized that I might have heard a sound of something sliding or falling on concrete when I wrapped my stuff and turned to walk away, but I gave it no notice at that time (see, my brain did at least work a little that morning - datacollection was ok, but 'processing' was still sound asleep - until I realized something was wrong, that is).
So, with a slight creeping panic, I walked back to the spot I just left, hoping to find the phone on the concrete, just waiting for me to fetch it - but no. There was no phone. There was nothing but an empty spot here i had slept nothing more than 10 minutes ago. Ok - so the sound I heard could have been sort of a sliding sound - the kinda sound the plastic cover on an almost 4 years old Nokia could have made if it is pushed over the concrete under the spectators seats and down behind the next level of seats. Aha - it must have slided over the edge there and down on the floor there. Checked, but oh no - someone was sleeping there and I could not see it.. looked closely along the seats from the O and to the R-stair - no, it had to be in the excact spot where someone was sleeping.
Long story short (have I said this before?). I did not wake up anyone. I just checked the path from where I slept first and to the new spot a few times, went to sleep and woke up an (at that time unknown) amount of hours later - got dressed and did a quick check of the spectators seats and the hallway behind it (still nothing), grabbed my things walked to our seats in the ship, tossed my stuff on the floor, did a quick just-to-be-sure check of my backpack and the table around the laptop (no nothing there either), then mumbled a short 'morning' to my buddy (who 'already' was up as well) and walked to the info-desk to report it missing and to hear if anyone, by chance had found it and dropped it at Info. No nothing there, but my information was written on a PostIt-note and put in the box with lost and founds.
FastForward
It was saturay night, soundwars had come and gone, the european championships in DDR had taken place earlier that evening and late at night the entries for the Wild-comp was to be shown on the stage (bigscreen).
People were going wild (hah) as this was the last night at TG. The music was pounding (before the Wild-demoes were to be shown, that is), matsi and friends were carrying the radio through the final hours and AK and I were teasing each other - a sneak photo here and a tap on the shoulder there.
With a towel around my legs (to keep myself just a little warm in the ice-wind that swept over that exact part of the ship), biscuits, tea, coke and lots of laughs with AK were accompanied by the showing of demoes on the stage, someone typing in Notepad, impatiently waiting for someone else to finish the preparations for showing the next set of demoes (1, no, 2 effects are enough!), kiddies being wrapped in gaffa, people walking around with glowing bunnyears (wtf?), glowing wheels on endless amounts of those little non-motorized scooters every little kiddie had brought .. and saturday turned to sunday, cokes were given away, tea drunk and a new radio-host took over..
no sleep for the wicked .. eitherContinued
here
