Weekend Update - Birka
Friday night I was on time to pick up Jennifer at the train station (and not just because her train was running late, I was legit on time to pick her up). We had dinner at the 99 restaurant. Then made a quick dash through Hannaford’s to pick up a couple of groceries. When we got home I threw a lemon pound cake in the oven for the Guild meeting Saturday, and we sat and talked while it baked. I made the effort to get to bed before midnight (unfortunately, with the cake timing that meant 11:30, but hey, earlier than the last time we visited).
Saturday we got up, got dressed, hit Dunkies, and headed north to Manch Vegas to attend Market Day at Birka. We zipped right through Troll (the lines have been significantly shorter since they started opening Troll on Friday night). The tokens this year were just silver beads. Usually they have something specially cast. I tied mine on my hat (since that’s where German wear their bling).
We took a bit of a wander around the dealer’s room. We ran into fionaniconnor almost right off. Then we found allgudallthetim, and guy_todd and got to meet his new lady friend. There were a LOT of Germans in the crowd this year. I spotted a couple of folks that I know I’ve seen before, and quite a few outfits that were new to me (and possibly new to the people wearing them). Mostly there were German women though. And what the Guild really needs is more Speiβtragers. Later in the day a couple of my Guild peeps showed up, but I think only five of us ended up attending.
The dealer’s room seemed thinner this year. There were a couple of empty tables, and a lot of the familiar vendors were missing. It seemed like there were a lot less of the “professional” vendors (you know, the type that actually have business cards and web sites) and more of the “crafter” level vendors (people who have a limited amount of stock and might not even be ON the internet).
I had a nice long chat with Resa Nelson, a writer that I met probably a decade ago at the Higgins when she was taking a sword class for research. We’d bumped into each other last weekend at Arisia too. She used to be a technical writer before she made the switch to writing fiction full time. We chatted for a good long time, and I finally broke down and bought one of her books. It feels awkward to have known her so long and never sampled her goods.
We wandered a bit more and around lunchtime tried to gather the gang for lunchies. We had lunch with Angela, Barbara, Mike and Karen at the same Italian place that we’ve eaten the past couple of years. When we were crossing the street a quartet of middle aged ladies were obviously staring at is through the plate glass window. So, cheeky buggers that we are, we all waved cheerfully at them. They waved back. =D
After lunch we headed for the Armory to check out the fighters. Unfortunately, the fighting was already over, so all we got was a snootful of sweaty-fighter stink. Ah, that smell always takes me right back to high school when I played ice hockey. The locker rooms always smelled like sweaty dude. So we headed back to wander the dealer’s room again.
The shopping was a bit thin this year. My two favorite book vendors were missing. Last year Small Churl Books was holding their going out of business sale as the owner was retiring from vending (too old to want to haul heavy books around anymore). This year Poison Pen Press was missing. She has Birka on her schedule on the web site, so no idea if Devra was snowed in or sick or what. But without book vendors to pilfer my wallet, I made it home without spending big bucks. There was an antique Singer sewing machine at one table, but I did the walk around first and by the time I got back later, it had already sold. I brought home four things: a book by Resa Nelson, a grooming tool, another pewter saint’s badge, and when I discovered that the fan in my bag had broken I bought another one to replace it (Julie + wool indoors often = overheating).
The crowds started to pick up after lunch (no idea where people were hiding before then) and I started bumping into more and more people that I know. Unfortunately I had to leave early because we were having a Guild meeting at 4:00. And those of us going to ReeanctorFest were supposed to meet at 3:00. *le sigh* Of course, once we got to Birka I realized that the cake I’d baked for the potluck? We’d left sitting next to the door back home. So just when things were starting to get interesting at Birka and the crowds were starting to show up, we headed back to Frogholm. We quickly changed, grabbed the cake, and headed back out. I don’t know if it was bad traffic or what, but two trips that should have taken about an hour total took an hour and forty-five minutes. Here I thought I was going to not be late for once. Argh.
When we got to the Hauptmann’s house, there were a couple of new recruits (*glee*). Even though it had taken much longer than I should have for us to get there, we still weren’t the last ones to arrive. There were a few presents exchanged since some of us haven’t seen each other since before the holidays. We went around and introduced ourselves to the new recruits. Planned events and workshops for the coming year. Talked about how much money we’ve got in the bank account and what we’d like to spend it on. Talked about what was good about the past season and what we want to work on during the coming year. Voted on officers for the next year. The usual stuff.
Then we had potluck dinner. And Marc showed us photos from their honeymoon in England. He did museum research for us while they were there natch. It’s kind of amazing how much German stuff can be found in English museums (like the katzbalger that some German Landsknecht dropped in the Thames near Westminster Palace, probably when Emperor Charles V visited London in 1522).
Eventually things wound down and people started heading home. One of the new guys helped us move a cedar chest from the back of Kris’s car to the back of my car. It turned out to be much bigger than I expected, but it fit in the back seat, so that was good. We headed home and Jennifer and I chatted a bit, before I had to beg off and stumble off to bed.
Sunday I let myself sleep in just a teensy bit. But I wanted to make sure I got up early enough to make waffles before I took Jennifer to the train station to head home. Waffles achieved! We even had a bit of time to chat before we headed out to the car. Where we discovered the cedar chest that I’d forgotten was in the back of the car. Jennifer helped me wrangle it out of the car and into the house. (Thank you! I couldn’t have done that without you.) We headed off to the train station, and actually arrived a wee bit early. We chatted in the car until Jennifer’s train pulled into the station.
On the way home I hit the grocery store and picked up a few things for the week. Then I ate lunch and tried to motivate myself to get some housework and sewing done. But my motivation had flown the coop. I managed to get the laundry done and a tiny bit of picking up. Other than that I spent the day in the Comfy Chair, vegging out on the Internet and watching TV. And because I was feeling exhausted, I went to bed early.
Saturday we got up, got dressed, hit Dunkies, and headed north to Manch Vegas to attend Market Day at Birka. We zipped right through Troll (the lines have been significantly shorter since they started opening Troll on Friday night). The tokens this year were just silver beads. Usually they have something specially cast. I tied mine on my hat (since that’s where German wear their bling).
We took a bit of a wander around the dealer’s room. We ran into fionaniconnor almost right off. Then we found allgudallthetim, and guy_todd and got to meet his new lady friend. There were a LOT of Germans in the crowd this year. I spotted a couple of folks that I know I’ve seen before, and quite a few outfits that were new to me (and possibly new to the people wearing them). Mostly there were German women though. And what the Guild really needs is more Speiβtragers. Later in the day a couple of my Guild peeps showed up, but I think only five of us ended up attending.
The dealer’s room seemed thinner this year. There were a couple of empty tables, and a lot of the familiar vendors were missing. It seemed like there were a lot less of the “professional” vendors (you know, the type that actually have business cards and web sites) and more of the “crafter” level vendors (people who have a limited amount of stock and might not even be ON the internet).
I had a nice long chat with Resa Nelson, a writer that I met probably a decade ago at the Higgins when she was taking a sword class for research. We’d bumped into each other last weekend at Arisia too. She used to be a technical writer before she made the switch to writing fiction full time. We chatted for a good long time, and I finally broke down and bought one of her books. It feels awkward to have known her so long and never sampled her goods.
We wandered a bit more and around lunchtime tried to gather the gang for lunchies. We had lunch with Angela, Barbara, Mike and Karen at the same Italian place that we’ve eaten the past couple of years. When we were crossing the street a quartet of middle aged ladies were obviously staring at is through the plate glass window. So, cheeky buggers that we are, we all waved cheerfully at them. They waved back. =D
After lunch we headed for the Armory to check out the fighters. Unfortunately, the fighting was already over, so all we got was a snootful of sweaty-fighter stink. Ah, that smell always takes me right back to high school when I played ice hockey. The locker rooms always smelled like sweaty dude. So we headed back to wander the dealer’s room again.
The shopping was a bit thin this year. My two favorite book vendors were missing. Last year Small Churl Books was holding their going out of business sale as the owner was retiring from vending (too old to want to haul heavy books around anymore). This year Poison Pen Press was missing. She has Birka on her schedule on the web site, so no idea if Devra was snowed in or sick or what. But without book vendors to pilfer my wallet, I made it home without spending big bucks. There was an antique Singer sewing machine at one table, but I did the walk around first and by the time I got back later, it had already sold. I brought home four things: a book by Resa Nelson, a grooming tool, another pewter saint’s badge, and when I discovered that the fan in my bag had broken I bought another one to replace it (Julie + wool indoors often = overheating).
The crowds started to pick up after lunch (no idea where people were hiding before then) and I started bumping into more and more people that I know. Unfortunately I had to leave early because we were having a Guild meeting at 4:00. And those of us going to ReeanctorFest were supposed to meet at 3:00. *le sigh* Of course, once we got to Birka I realized that the cake I’d baked for the potluck? We’d left sitting next to the door back home. So just when things were starting to get interesting at Birka and the crowds were starting to show up, we headed back to Frogholm. We quickly changed, grabbed the cake, and headed back out. I don’t know if it was bad traffic or what, but two trips that should have taken about an hour total took an hour and forty-five minutes. Here I thought I was going to not be late for once. Argh.
When we got to the Hauptmann’s house, there were a couple of new recruits (*glee*). Even though it had taken much longer than I should have for us to get there, we still weren’t the last ones to arrive. There were a few presents exchanged since some of us haven’t seen each other since before the holidays. We went around and introduced ourselves to the new recruits. Planned events and workshops for the coming year. Talked about how much money we’ve got in the bank account and what we’d like to spend it on. Talked about what was good about the past season and what we want to work on during the coming year. Voted on officers for the next year. The usual stuff.
Then we had potluck dinner. And Marc showed us photos from their honeymoon in England. He did museum research for us while they were there natch. It’s kind of amazing how much German stuff can be found in English museums (like the katzbalger that some German Landsknecht dropped in the Thames near Westminster Palace, probably when Emperor Charles V visited London in 1522).
Eventually things wound down and people started heading home. One of the new guys helped us move a cedar chest from the back of Kris’s car to the back of my car. It turned out to be much bigger than I expected, but it fit in the back seat, so that was good. We headed home and Jennifer and I chatted a bit, before I had to beg off and stumble off to bed.
Sunday I let myself sleep in just a teensy bit. But I wanted to make sure I got up early enough to make waffles before I took Jennifer to the train station to head home. Waffles achieved! We even had a bit of time to chat before we headed out to the car. Where we discovered the cedar chest that I’d forgotten was in the back of the car. Jennifer helped me wrangle it out of the car and into the house. (Thank you! I couldn’t have done that without you.) We headed off to the train station, and actually arrived a wee bit early. We chatted in the car until Jennifer’s train pulled into the station.
On the way home I hit the grocery store and picked up a few things for the week. Then I ate lunch and tried to motivate myself to get some housework and sewing done. But my motivation had flown the coop. I managed to get the laundry done and a tiny bit of picking up. Other than that I spent the day in the Comfy Chair, vegging out on the Internet and watching TV. And because I was feeling exhausted, I went to bed early.