Alexiel’s Heaven

Exciting, very different, exhausting… this is how I would describe the past week.

On Saturday morning (August 2), I left for Kaiserslautern and my sister’s home. We met at the well-known base in the area and then tried in vain to consume two gigantic pizzas American style – delicious but infernally hot. The left-overs were enough to feed us the whole weekend…

Afterwards, we went “home” and searched and packed our stuff, sewed some clothes and sang some songs. In between, we picked up a trailer and bought a Wii for yours truly (read more about that soon) and had fun trying it out, we went to Koblenz to our equipment storage room and bought the last necessities for the con (that’s “convention”, i.e. the LARP event “Conquest of Mythodea“).

On Tuesday, the time had come to leave: at 7 o’clock in the morning we left for Koblenz and our storage room once more, where we loaded some last bags and charcoal into the trailer and left right on schedule at 9 o’clock towards our goal: the small town and manor of Brokeloh near Hanover. The following seven hours were spent with entertaining the baby, feeding the baby, desperately trying to find new toys for the baby, changing the baby’s diapers, trying to calm the baby by singing (of course, after seven hours in the car it will get boring some time; if I weren’t so well-behaved, I would have started screaming and crying as well) and lots of stops to take care of the baby in general. “The baby”, by the way, is my cuddly cute – but very loud – 16-month-old nephew. At 4:30 p.m. we arrived at our destination and were able to check in, unload and set up without any delay. It was quite exhausting but also nice to move around after so much time spent in the car. At 10 p.m. we were finally finished and able to sleep in our newly erected 8-meter-diameter tent.

We spent almost no time at all at the event itself – one of three big LARP events in Germany and according to the organizer the biggest in Europe. I myself am no LARP player, but was accompanying my sister to babysit her son so she could play a little herself, so I was almost grateful for this fact. However, my nephew had other ideas and in the end we spent our time entirely next to our tent taking care of him. At least we had a place at the edge of the camp so were able to watch the battles on the meadow directly in front of us – almost like watching TV.

Here are some snapshot memories that impressed me the most.

A group of warriors wanted to help a besieged stronghold. They charged the vastly superior enemy lines, only to spin on their heel and take flight. After that, their leader called out to the stronghold, “This was your diversion – now it’s your turn!”

During one of the night-time battles (through which our little one thankfully slept undisturbed but because of which I was tossing and turning in my bed, trying without success to sleep) I heard the leader of one of the enemy’s armies invading a neighbouring camp on his own. For several minutes, the camp’s guard screamed “Alaaarm! Intruder! To arms!” and so on, while the enemy leader vented his displeasure in front of the camp (there’s a rule about no fighting within the camps themselves) and demanded he be given back his banner, which had obviously been seized. He had a really fitting voice for his role, kind of rough, deep and a little mean, and easily understandable on top of that, I was really impressed. He kept on shouting “Where’s my banner? If you value your lives, get me my banner! Tell your pathetic leader I want my banner!” After some minutes, his patience snapped and after several more “Alaaarm!” calls he yelled back “Alarm, alarm, who cares – I want my banner!!!”
Hilarious. =)

One of the most beautiful experiences for me happened ironically when I was visiting the latrines at night. They were located on the other side of our huge meadow, approx. a 5-minute walk away (the camps had been set up in the corners of the meadow, the center had been kept empty for the battles). It was late at night, probably 3 or 4 a.m. A few solitary fires were burning in the camps. Laughter and singing could be heard in a camp farther away, and our meadow was devoid of people, very dark and cold. I had brought my flashlight but did not want to use it, for fear of offending the other players with an outtime object (i.e. an object not fitting into the fantasy setting).
And then I looked up to sky. The impact was such that I’d have liked nothing better but to lie down in the wet, cold grass and never look away again. There were no clouds at all, and I have never in my life seen a more beautiful night sky. For the first time at all, I could really SEE the milky way – usually even in a village near Nuremberg, there is so much residual light that it is more of a “Well, over there the sky is a little bit lighter, so maybe that’s it” – but here, you could not miss it, it was that obvious. And on top of that there were so many more stars it was difficult to find the well-known constellations in between, more than I’ve ever seen. It was breathtakingly, almost painfully beautiful.

And then of course there was our little baby (who is not my baby at all, but the son of my sister, but I just don’t want to write “my nephew” every time, it sounds stiff after so many repetitions ^^). He had so much fun this past week… His afternoon nap, wrapped in blankets and furs instead of sleeping in a bed… so many people taking care of him, and also many strangers laughing and waving and coming over to talk to him… the “Aru” (whatever that was ) cuddling him and leaving him probably even more perplexed than us… his aunt (that would be me ) making him laugh every now and then by doing Aikido rolls =)) – so I guess I still look quite funny.

On the last day, Sunday, we were woken up at 4 a.m. by my nephew standing in his bed, giggling and cooing because in his opinion it was time to get up. We insisted on sleeping another two hours, however. Then we started dismantling the tent, packing and loading everything into the trailer again; at 6 p.m. we arrived at the storage room near Koblenz and put away the equipment. Then I left the others and drove the last 3 hours to Fürth, where I arrived at 11 p.m. and was able to collapse on my bed some time around 1 a.m. – only to get up at 6 a.m. to go to work. Oh well, who needs sleep anyway. =)

So, even if we did not often leave our tent and did not participate in the play at all, it definitely was a great experience for me as a non-player of LARP, and despite the exhausting circumstances it was nice to spend so much time with my sister and her family.