Part 1:
T.A.R.T, the Fellowship of The Holy Shield and the 2013 KO2WC in general.
In all honesty, this must have been my best World Cup weekend ever. The joy of it started very early, as I talked to Mark about how to get to Voitsberg, and after a quick peek at the cost of plane-tickets, we found that we should fly to Vienna, and from there drive a rental-car. T.A.R.T. (The Austrian Road Trip) was born.
So, firstly, me and Mark hired a smaller car, would be suitable for 4 people, carrying hand-luggage. Of course, we ended up with 5 tarts, so we had to change for a bigger car, but decided to stay with hand-luggage. More to come on this…
We had our chat-group on Facebook, us tarts. Mark, Alkis, Andy, Rodolfo and me. Oh, the joy!!! of getting to chit-chat ourselves up to the event, with our own little trip on the side, an added bonus to the WC-weekend. I recommend it!!!
Anyway, finally it’s WC-friday. I head off home early, with my hand-luggage. IN my handluggage I had clothes enough, toilet-stuff enough, I had the Holy Shield (I was the Shieldbearer (™) ffs!), I had my tablet, I even had my gps-navigator ffs, but I managed to room it in my hand-luggage. More to come on this… Oh, I even had 2 cell-phones, and no less than 3 sim-cards, as my phone-company had given in, and I was transferred to a new phone-company, with transfer-date being WC-friday, AND due to some cheeky circumstances they had sent me 2 sim-cards, I had only recieved 1 of them, and I was quite sure the one I had recieved was not the right one. Therefore I brought my norwegian phone, just for extra.
Arriving in Vienna, I’m greated by Alkis, and I notice his agreed-upon “hand-luggage” is accompanied by a suitcase… Great. I hope we get a station-car… A bit later Mark turns up, carrying a small backpack. Nice! This is looking good. Then Rodolfo turns up, carrying a “hand-luggage” about the same size as Alkis’ suitcase. Damned, we’re doomed… Finally Andy turns up, with proper hand-luggage - and Camber. Nicely enough, Camber sets out to be our saviour, taking in Andy in his car, meaning we’ve got room (no, we didn’t get a stationcar, we got a compact Golf). After a brief alcohol-shopping-spree, we get in the car, set the gps for the KOA-hotel in Voitsberg, and we’re OFF! Nice with 130 km/h speed-limit, but what’s with the uneven roads? Austria should have that fixed. Very jumpy.
We arrive at the hotel, check in, and get ready for the Buschenschank. What a great place, and what a great experience, to be sitting there, with people you love, and more of them come walking in throughout the evening.
My funniest memory of the night, was the look on the female waiters face when I asked her where the Buschenschanks toilet was; whe said I should go outside, and to the right. Oh, I replied, so the Buschentoilet is actually a bush? I go out, go right, and find a buschentoilet I can “go” in?
She just got all white, and started stuttering, her friend/collegue beside her started laughing, and I went out to the mens room.
After the Buschenschank, Andy, Mark and I headed to the bar behind the hotel, where we, as more or less, the only guests had a great time for a few hours; drinking black Captain Jack rum, with ginger ale and lime. Oh… the sweetness… Mark, of course, had to have his whiskey, but we didn’t mind.
The waitresses was really nice, one of them was hot, the other was really friendly, so as a total it was perfect.
So perfect, that we totally forgot to think about the day of tomorrow… Finally, the barmaid told us to leave, so we did.
Next morning came a little too early, but hey, what don’t you do, to get to sit on a wet couch to eat breakfast… While eating, I noticed my ass was wet, and for some reason, the couch I was sitting on showed to be soaked. I had to sit on 2 pillows, to make sure the water didn’t soak through. Anyway, the breakfast was good, the company was perfect, and day 1 was about to start.
We went over to the gameroom, and even though we arrived early, the cafe/restaurant/bar at the town hall, was allready nicely visited by local old geezers, having their early morning wine and beer. Cool
After a while, the tournament started, and as I never manage to remember all games I played, I’ll stroll through the ones that stood out.
Me vs Michael Ma: 2-3. Now, I know Michael is a better player than me, so I didn’t expect much, but as the game went on, we were really close, and I had a great chance at making a draw, but he scored one in the dying seconds. Bastard.
Me vs Mark: 3-4. I really got off to a good start, Mark didn’t. Half time, I was up 3-0, and that scared the shit out of me. And when we started 2 half, it didn’t take long before we were at 3-2, and I knew it was fucked. It felt like shit loosing that game, but at the same time, this is KO2, and a 3 goal lead isn’t safe until you’re down to 10 seconds left of game-play. I guess I should be pleased with my first half performance.
Helmut vs Me: 4-1. I remember playing Helmut in Birmingham, and felt that I should have a good advantage on him. Well… I had about 70 % posession, probably 100 shots, and I lost 4-1. Very good defensive game by Helmut, incredibly good attacking game by Helmut, runty by me. Easy, fair and square.
Me vs Jürg: 4-0. I’m always un-easy before a match vs Jürg, as we are so close. I think we’ve got a pretty even spread in who wins, but basicly, it’s always exiting games, with lots of fun. This time I got the win by 4-0, but really, it could’ve been the other way around. The score doesn’t reflect how even our game was. Before starting the match, we had a jägermeister, and maybe that was what calmed my nerves. I don’t know, but I was happy to win it, and it’s always a pleasure to meet Jürg and Peter. I just hope Wolf and Andreas will show up next year.
Michele vs Me: 5-4. Damn. I hate playing Michele. He ALWAYS scores 5 on me, so in order to win, I have to score at least 6. Crap.
Me vs Oliver: 2-10: Oliver is the Bastard son of the KOA. ‘nuff said. Amazing though, how Oliver goes into the zone, when playing. Very interesting.
Me vs Christopher: 6-5. Probably me very best performance of the entire weekend. I was actually happy I had managed to hold Christopher off to my last match of the day, because he was showing so much skill, but eventually I had to face him. And wtf? I beat him! I was really playing frantic, and all my headers in defence really worked out. That was 3 points I really didn’t expect, and to be able to put 6 behind his Fisher put a big smile on my face.
After the games on saturday, we had pizza, and I love it when we can eat at these places with just enough room for our group. Mark, the twat, totally ruined the night for me, and many others, when he managed to bring with him an opened bottle of The Legendary Duff Beer. For those of you who didn’t notice, be happy. It was a really ugly situation. I’m glad Moosyrakis got it sorted.
Gianni ate the worlds biggest pizza, on his own. Kudos mate, all hail the King! Then Mark proceeded to make even a bigger fool out of himselves, by ordering a HAWAII??? WTM??? Sitting with italians, he chooses pizza Hawaii… Way to go mate, ruining the night. Ffs.
But as it seemed the darkest, and that this night was ruined, in came The Germans for the rescue! Panni and Peter was going to an alternative rock bar, and off we went. Yeah!
…
Will Mark ruin it all? Will any others do? Or will it all come back together? More to come.
