I met a fellow BDer!!

[the phantom]

*waits for impending explosion*

[Nogrod]

Well...

You might be flooded with pics from the FinlandMoot, but nevertheless I'm sending you this preview of just some of us (we had 17 Downers here + a Downer child & a stalker of the Downs).

From left to right: Legate of Amon Lanc, Oddwen, Pitchwife, Volo, Rikae, Lommy, Kath, Greenie, Mac (& Annika), Hookbill and Aganzir

[Nogrod]

Heh, couldn't resist sending another one, this one from my place...

From left to right, again... Squatter, Lommy, Skip, Greenie (Annika), Aganzir, Shasta, Kath, Oddwen, Legate, Hookbill, Volo (back only), Rikae (hair only), Macalaure.

(Outside the pic: Rune, Estelyn, Pitchwife, myself)

[Estelyn Telcontar]

We really should have a picture album somewhere - I have similar shots. However, this one is, I think unique:

Cannonicity: The Musical!



(from left: Shasta, Aganzir, Hookbill, Greenie, Volo, Mac, Wereduckling, Kath, Lommy, Legate, Pitchwife, Rikae and Oddwen)

[Galadriel55]

WOW.

*awaits a bigger explosion*

[Estelyn Telcontar]

A picture may equal a thousand words, and some characteristics of people show in their faces, but I'm going to start a report about individual Downers, as I always enjoy reading what others have to say about the people they've met.

I must begin with a confession - I fell in love with one of the participants. The person is hilariously witty, absolutely charming, lovably cuddly - and two years old. I so enjoyed the WereDuckling! She will forget our encounter, I'm sure, but I'll always remember her adorable smile, and playing "oopsie spider" and "Hoppe Reiter" with her.

Oh yes, her parents were also present - I'd met Rikae and Mac before, but only briefly, so I enjoyed getting to know them better this time. They are fun to have around and a good-looking couple to boot.

I've met Squatter on numerous occasions and always enjoy hearing him talk about so many Tolkien matters with so much knowledge and erudition. He is as crazy as ever, especially in combination with Hookbill. Their conversations were often hilariously wacky. The esteemed editor of the Downer was so kind as to draw a special Phantom and Alien comic strip on the event page of my Tolkien scrapbook, which I shall photograph and show in the near future.

Fortunately for the reputation of the nation, there was one normal Brit attending - Kath! She is a delightful person! I met her briefly at Oxonmoot one year and enjoyed getting to know her better now.

Rune is another Downer I'd already met at other events, so his definitely strange sense of humour wasn't new to me. Conversation is never boring (and rarely family-friendly!) when he's around.

The rest of the participants were new to me, though familiar by nick from their forum posts, so I was very curious to meet them! I knew that Pitchwife lives in Germany, so leaving the country to meet him was a rather amusing detour. He's a very likeable and interesting person, and comes across as equally smart and witty, just like his posts.

Skip is another fascinating person to talk to, and musical as well. His guitar playing at the bonfire really added to the atmosphere - and he dances too! (Yes, he does have some resemblance to a Blues Brother when he wears sunglasses and a hat...)

Oddwen seems reserved at first, but when she says something, it's very, very funny! She has a wicked sense of humour and a way with words that make her interesting to be around.

Since Shasta posts mostly on threads that aren't as familiar to me, I wasn't sure what to expect. However, he was very easy to get to know, a great conversationalist with a real talent for performance and a charming smile.

I've often read Legate's thoughtful and well-written posts, so I looked forward to meeting him in person. He is just as intelligent as I expected him to be, and one of the people who actually thinks when talking! I also appreciated his friendliness as a guide when he accompanied me to an activity on one day which I would otherwise have had to do alone.

Like several of the other participants, Volo posts mostly on werewolf threads, which I don't often read, but his nick was familiar to me as the person who didn't let the Downs photo gallery die. He really does walk barefoot a lot, but if he's a Hobbit, then he's drunk too much Entdraught, because he's so tall and has such long hair! His personality is just as charming as his looks.

Last but most certainly not least come our wonderful hosts! All four of them encountered us with a great deal of warmth and they went all out to make us feel at home. They planned activities, cooked food, and were our tourist guides. Nogrod was the chief organizer, always willing to look up information for us and to figure out how to coordinate everything. He is also a wicked werewolf (player) who had lil' ol' inexperienced me completely fooled! I was one of the participants who stayed at his place, and his collection of books is mind-blowing. He is also very funny, and he plays guitar really well! He and Skip jammed together and we all enjoyed that.

Lommy is a sweetheart! She is such a friendly person, always making us feel comfortable and willing to show us around and explain the history involved in various sites to us non-Finns. And of course she's one half of a very cute couple!

What words can I use to describe Greenie that I haven't already used for others?! When she smiles, you feel like the sun rises. She is a very talented musician whose singing and kantele playing charmed and moved us.

Aganzir is both charming and wicked, and she has a talent for bringing out similar qualities in others. Her teasing conversation is always amusing but never mean. Besides that, she bakes very good bread!

Did I already mention that all four of them are great cooks?!

Anyway, staying with this whole group for so many days really made each of them special to me. It was hard to say farewell to them on the last evening and to leave in the morning. I'm glad I was able to be there with them all and had a wonderful time!

[Pitchwife]

A CHRONICLE OF
FINLANDMOOT
AND
THE RETURN OF JON SNOW
(as seen by your humble servant, being the memoirs of Pitchwife from Germany, to be supplemented by an account of the participants and photographic evidence following as soon as I manage).

I arrived on Monday 1st and was picked up by Nogrod at the airport. After dumping my baggage at his place, we joined the rest of the Finns (including Legate as a Finn honoris causa) + Estelyn, Oddwen, Squatter & Hookbill, who had arrived before, on one of the lovely islands near Helsinki for a delightful seaside picnic. In the evening, we had dinner at Nog's, where Aganzir and Legate had a highly entertaining staring contest and Apples to Apples was played for the first time but not the last.

On Tuesday 2nd, some of us went to the Ateneum art museum where we saw a fascinating exhibition on the Magic of Lapland; sharing our impressions of the paintings and objects there was both fun and enlightening. For the evening, Lommy and Agan had secured the clubroom at their students' home for us, where we abused the pool table for playing table football and lots of other fun was had. By then, Rikae, Mac and the Wereduckling had arrived as well, as had a somewhat jetlagged Shasta (who had had bad luck with his plane connection and been stuck in Paris the night before).

On Wednesday 3rd, the whole of us (now including Kath, skip spence and BD lurker Annina) moved to Nog's family's log cabin in the middle of Finnish forests, between a lake and a swamp. After feasting on a yummy veggie chili cooked by Esty on the campfire, we much enjoyed the sauna (++beer for the pouring!) and a swim in the lake.

On Thursday 4th, skip led a fishing expedition which didn't catch anything but at least avoided getting Squatter drownded. Also, there had already been omens presaging that Rune (that "sad predictable piece of Danish meat", © Lommy) wouldn't be able to stay away from the moot; his arrival in the late afternoon was celebrated with a repast of crêpes, ice cream and freshly gathered berries. Later that night, the elderly fraction (Esty, Nog & myself) watched the rest of us playing the legendary Guardian game (which revolves around hiding in the forest and sneaking back to the campfire without being caught); lots of suspense there and very entertaining, I'd love to play that the next time.

From Friday 5th, the most memorable event has to be the RL Werewolf game of triumphant wolf victory, which has already been reported on on the TIG thread. Also, yours truly introduced the others to Obatzter (Bavarian beer cheese).

On Saturday 6th, we headed back to Helsinki (Annina, who was driving one of the other cars, leading me a merry chase on the way). After rejoicing in the blessings of civilization (the first hot shower in four days!) and having dinner together at a restaurant near Nog's place, we conducted a logistic experiment to determine how many Downers fit into Nog's living-room (answer: 17 + 1 Wereduckling) and indulged in surrealistic storywriting creativity fuelled by Rune's Quality Danish Mead. In the small hours of the night, the Gradual Crumbling of the Fellowship began with the Departure of Squatter (this being the Seventh Age, he was buried in an airplane instead of a boat).

On Sunday 7th we went to the island fortress of Suomenlinna, the Gibraltar of the North, where rehearsals for Cannonicity the Musical took place and Esty, Agan, Shasta and yours truly had an erotic cherry-eating contest. In the evening, we played paper telephone at Nog's and said goodbye to Rikae, Mac and the Wereduckling.

On Monday 8th we took a ferry across the pond to Tallinn (enduring gruesome dance music and even more gruesome karaoke on board), explored the lovely old town centre and had a delicious medieval lunch in highly immersive atmosphere at the Olde Hanse; also, skip unsuccessfully tried to teach me the tango on the ship (I'm still negotiating with Legate on the price for not posting the video he made of this event on YouTube). Back in Helsinki, the Crumbling continued with the much lamented departure of Rune.

On Tuesday 9th, some of us went to see the beautiful Temppeliaukio rock church and admire a stunning view of Helsinki from the Torni tower café twelve stories over the city. In the evening, we gathered once more at Agan's and Lommy's club room and had a farewell party for Esty and skip, who were to leave the following day. We played an outrageously funny name guessing game (unforgettable question from Kath: "Am I some kind of food ?"), Greenie played the kantele for us, and Esty read some pertinent passages from LotR; by the time she came to Sam's Famous Last Words, I think most of us had moist eyes - the occasion made us feel how much we had indeed grown together into a Fellowship during the past week, and breaking apart was hard; but as Gandalf said, "not all tears are an evil".

After that, it felt kind of strange to still be there the next day, and I rather dreaded going through more leave-taking, but we made light of it by going to listen to some interestingly weird live rock music in the evening and saying goodbye quickly between changing busses on the way home. In the early morning hours I caught the plane back to Frankfurt, and coming home felt - to borrow Frodo's words at the end of Homeward Bound - "like falling asleep again".
__________________________________________________ ________________

So far the memoirs of this chronist; but I hear there are more stories to be told which others will have to recount - most notably the forming of an ad hoc Downer band with potential to go far; watch out for Die Kunst der Wurst!

(Appendices to follow)