Leiden Ben Meet: Report

Newsgroups: alt.fan.pratchett
From: Patrick Dersjant <patrick@lspace.org>
Subject: [F] Leiden Ben Meet report
Date: 03 Mar 2003 18:54:09 GMT
Message-ID: <3e63a4d1$0$49108$e4fe514c@news.xs4all.nl>


Leiden Ben Meet report

Attendee list:
Ben, Patrick, Rachel, Leo, Jeroen B, Jos, Kimberley, Martin, Eelco, 
Arwen, Jeroen M,Gerbrand, Rolf, Uwe

Saturday morning I described the public transport to Delft to Ben and 
set off to bring my motorbike to Delft for new tyres. This proved to be 
quite a quick business, and so I went to meet Ben at the train station. 
Together, we went Chez Leo to eat his muffins, which Rachel had brought 
with her from the UK.Breakfast, or rather, Brunch done, we took the bus 
into Delft and had a look around. First stop was the library of the 
Delft Technical University, a weird building with grass on the roof and 
a big wizzard hat. (See 
http://bofhcamgallery.fotopic.net/photo.php?id=333084 ).This was 
followed by a walk around Delft. We had some icecream and poffertjes, 
then decided to visit the Old Church and the New Church. Both of them 
were interesting, what with all the graves of dutch admirals who kicked 
english butt. Went up the New Church tower, despite me being afraid of 
heights. Incredibly tight stairways with two way traffic, but at least 
the direction of spin changed halfway through. The views from the top 
weren too good due to it being a bit hazy, but at least we were as far 
away from the carnival as possible (vertically, that is).After those 
touristy bits we made our way to Leiden and towards the meet proper. Met 
Jeroen B on the way from the station to the pub. It appears he's been on 
the same train, without us noticing him.At the North End, Jos, Kimberley 
and Martin were already waiting for us. Soon the group was completed and 
geeking started. Leo took out his sugar letters, with predictable 
results. Martin surprised the meet by being able to get a complete set 
and eating it!As the evening progressed, food arrived - some fish dish, 
and a rather weird Chicken Curry Stew. Yes, apparently a cross between a 
Chicken Curry and a Stew. Rather good, though.I cannot remember all the 
topics we discussed, but amongst them were politics, movies (leaning 
heavily on Top Gun), pda's, Labrats bonus, motorbiking, climbing, more 
politics, graduation dates and ceremonies, and many more (including the 
probability of the world ending within five years).Just before midnight, 
the meet broke up, but not without agreeing to reconvene on the Sunday. 
Rolf, Uwe, Eelco, Ben and me went home, and to bed after only a short 
discussion. The next morning I did have some trouble getting out of bed, 
but after a hot shower and making some coffee it appeared other people 
had even more problems. Eventually though, everybody got up, and Rachel 
and Leo arrived shortly afterwards. Brunch was had, followed by a couple 
of fragments of the Convention DVD accompanied of course by diuerse 
comments. As it turned out Rachel hadn't seen Scratch The Movie[0] yet, 
that also was brought onto the screen.As both Rachel and Ben had to 
catch their respective flights and wanted to have some food beforehand, 
we went into Leiden and had some pancakes at a new subsidiary of our 
local pancake farm. As we had some more time left we wandered around a 
bit, visited a local windmill (a different one from last years' 
Sinterklaas meet) and took it to Cuba.Disintegration started with Rachel 
and Leo leaving southwards. The remaining four had some hot chocolate, 
before Ben also left, northwards, and the Mildes, east- and shortly 
afterwards.

Patrick

[0] See http://www.erraticelephant.com/

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