A short EIL2 report

by Felice / Maggie Team & Alive!

Well, EIL2 has come and gone ..... and what a fantastic party it was, too :)

The journey across from the UK was straightforward, travelling via the ferry service running between the ports of Harwich (UK) and the Hook of Holland (NL). Driving to Havoc/FUN's place in Enschede (yes, the Dutch town which you probably heard about last year due to the firework factory explosion and disaster).

Resting a day in Enschede itself with Havoc, Good Friday dawned and we started the drive across Germany, down to Dresden. This again ran quite well, with the addition in our car of (besides myself and CiH), Nut/FUN and CreatureXL.

Entering Dresden for the first time in over 2 years we hit the Communist-style roads in the outskirts of the city itself. These proved to be a similar bone-rattling experience to the prospect of driving over cobblestones in any north-eastern village or town in the UK. After getting over these, we find the centre of Dresden, go under the railway station bridge - and we saw the location of EIL itself, a club called GAG 18, hidden underneath the student living quarters.

We got parked up and went in from the back, meeting up with several Atari sceners and close friends, including Grey/Mystic Bytes, Sqward/MSB (from Poland) along with other close friends from England and Germany.

Getting our stuff in from the car was straightforward, many people deciding to help us carry it all in. Compared to packing the car for the journey out from Cambridge this went like a dream!

The Friday evening was spent in a bit of a haze of ... um ... yes, sharing a drink of Polish vodka and lots of Atari-ing, talking with the scene guys, most of whom were there already and catching up with some of the older scene-guys who I in particular had not seen or heard from for absolutely ages. As well as CiH and myself, other Brits there included John Hayward (yes, the man who likes to rummage around for computer parts at your local tip), along with Mr Pink, MSG and sh3 of the Reservoir Gods. The Gods were busy working on several new titles, the details of which I am not allowed to divulge here (we signed a virtual NDA with them!) - but you should see the results in the very near future, if all goes well.

Saturday morning started with a general wake-up call, followed by a wander into Dresden city centre with Mystic Bytes. The walk itself was quite hazy at times and got very amusing, particularly when the snow started to fall with a vengeance. We managed to avoid the worst of this and got back to the party safe and sound.

Sunday passed over quite well, it came to the evening and it was time for the main competitions to be held. There were some fabulous entries in the compos, you can find the releases at Dead Hackers Society's site at www.dhs.nu.

Monday came and it was time to drive back to Enschede with Nut. One or two minor problems occurred at this time, which was a pain in the butt when we found out what these were. Moondog had his car broken into during the party, so we were saddened for him, as he is a good friend who, despite his demeanour at times, managed to remain cheerful. We left Dresden at just around lunchtime and drove back up the autobahn, stopping off at some services for something to eat and a change of driver. Apart from a hold-up A14/M25 style due to a nasty multi-vehicle crash, we got back to Enschede during mid-evening.

The Tuesday saw CiH and myself taking a wander across on the train to Amsterdam, visiting some of the places we had been to before. Yes, this included the Red Light District (who has been to Amsterdam and not gone there ?) where we saw some nice ladies displaying themselves at the famous windows.

Wednesday came and it was time to drive to the Hook of Holland and catch the ferry back home. It got back into Harwich in good time and within an hour and a half later or so we got back to Cambridge, said our goodbyes and CiH made his way back home to Rushden.

We had a good time at EIL 2, it was probably even better than the first one, in my opinion. Hopefully there will be another Easter party either in the Netherlands or in Finland, keep an eye on the Dead Hackers bulletin board to see what is happening.

Felice/Maggie Team & Alive!
 

MyAtari magazine - Feature #5, June 2001