Oloring

Abunai!

Friday

For some reason I had chosen to bring 5 cosplays along, including one huge one, so my adventure started when I left my house and tried to carry my bags to the train station in Den Bosch. I succeeded, but by the time I arrived my arms were hurting and I was already pretty sweaty from holding one bag high up so it wouldn't drag on the ground. Luckily, I only had a short train- and bus ride ahead of me.
In Eindhoven, I met up with 2 cosplayers I knew and after a short waiting period, the bus showed up. There were probably about 4 or 5 people in the bus who weren't going to Abunai, and all other space was occupied by congoers, bags and props. Once again, my huge bags proved to be problematic, but some very friendly people offered to hold on to stuff and eventually, we all made it safely to the convention, even though some turns were pretty exciting.

I arrived about 20 minutes early, and check-in for both the convention and the hotel went very smoothly. After finding my hotel room, dropping off all my stuff and checking my 3DS for streetpasses (nice!), I changed into my Painty the Pirate (Spongebob) cosplay and went looking for the Spongebob cosplayer I was going to hang out with.
I walked around a bit first, re-familiarizing myself with the hotel layout, and it was fun getting recognized and seeing smiles and laughs when people saw me. I met up with Spongebob fairly quickly, and also met some other friends and acquaintances along the way.
We didn't do much except walking around, goofing off, posing for pictures and singing some Spongebob songs. At around 7ish, our Patrick arrived and our tiny group was finally complete.

Dinner was had in the food court (small noodles for the ladies, large noodles and soup for me) and afterwards we did plenty more of nothingness. Listened to some karaoke, did some ballfishing (we weren't allowed to use Spongebob's net, so we cheated in different ways) and did a round of the dealerroom.
We also met plenty of other friends and familiar faces along the way, so there was a good amount of hugging all around. I also carried my 3DS with me the whole time, so I processed some streetpasses every now and then (so many streetpasses! <3 )
Spongebob and Patrick had to leave in the evening, and I changed into my casual Luigi for some anime disco dancing. On my way there, I met up with 2 friends, and we had a great time even though the music wasn't incredible. We left together at around 1am, had some tea in their hotel room, and then went back to my room to get some sleep.

Saturday

The big day! First, a nice shower, then I took a little walk around the hotel, but it was eerily quiet in the early morning. Met up with a friend at breakfast and we talked while we ate. The food was plentiful and varied, just what I wanted
Now it was time to put on my dragon cosplay, so I texted a friend at around 10:15, and he showed up even faster than I expected. He helped me get into my costume (mostly putting on my wings) and everything went smoothly. He went back to his room to change as well, and I started my slow lumbering walk to the main convention hallway.

I was supposed to meet up with some other Fire Emblem cosplayers that day and maybe do a photo shoot, but I also wanted to see a good friend who would only be there on Saturday. However, I wasn't allowed to wait by the entrance because it was too busy and I'd take up too much space with my big cosplay. The Soren cosplayer found me very quickly, with Ranulf not far behind, and that turned out to be our entire group. We spent the next couple of hours slowly walking around because I couldn't really do much else. We visited the Nozlan photo stand for some nice shots and took a few breaks outside to cool down.

I was sweating like crazy in my dragon suit; little streams of moisture just dripping down all over my body and collecting in my dragon claws and underwear, or dripping out of seams. Once I took off my claws, I noticed that my fingers were actually wrinkly, as if I'd taken a bath for too long. There was no way I could wear it all day.
The weather had gotten worse and it had been raining a bit, but a momentary dry spell to go into the woods for a little photo shoot. It was good fun, and we got some nice pictures out of it.
After that, I just had to get out of my costume, so I waved goodbye to my buddies and went back to my room. Going up the stairs wasn't easy, and it took some time to open my door because the keycard that I'd kept in my dragonfoot (nowhere else to put it) had gotten all dirty with sweat and flaked off paint/latex. I think I drank about 5 glasses of water and then took a well earned shower before I went back out.

Next up was my Facebook cosplay, a last minute decision because 2 friends (Spongebob and Patrick from friday) were doing Twitter and Tumblr) I must be good at finding people because we were together quite quickly again. I also went in search of my other friend and found her in the gaming room. The rest of the day consisted mostly of losing people and finding others again. We did a social networking shoot at the photo stand and those pictures turned out really great.
I ended up having dinner with 4 friends at the buffet restaurant. Not too special, but some good healthy food is always welcome. We had to say goodbye to the one friend who was only there on saturday, and I decided to change back into my spongebob painting cosplay for a bit again. Saturday is a much busier day than friday, so I figured there would be a lot of people there who hadn't seen it yet.

I had a blast singing the Spongebob theme song to large groups of super enthusiastic people who'd yell 'SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS' at the right times. Lovely. Later in the evening I also ended up following a friend who I'd only met recently to her hotelroom where we just talked in peace and quiet for almost an hour I believe. Somehow, it felt like that was just what I needed at that time.
She wanted to check out the Liar game, but when we got there, there was a huge line and a few minutes later, some paramedics had to get through so people were being pushed out of the way and I completely lost her again.
I think I walked around aimlessly some more, and went back to my own room after a while to change for the 4th time that day. Back to my casual Luigi for some Deshima Sounds dancing. The music was better than on Friday, and the place was quite packed at first, though it had gotten a lot emptier by the time I left again (around 2am)

Sunday

I actually slept fairly well and wasn't a total wreck like at some other convention. Another shower and another nice breakfast to start the day. Then I got into my Toad cosplay, which is actually pretty comfortable to wear and one of the few cosplays that doesn't reduce my vision.
Another day of doing very little besides posing for pictures and hanging out with friends. I also constantly ran into this girl who would poke my Toad hat every time, which was fun.
I don't think I did anything else that was noteworthy, except maybe watching a bit of the cosplay dating show and the exciting finals of the ballscooping game. Had an early pizza at the food court and decided to leave during the ending ceremony in an attempt to beat the crowds. Just before I got to the bus stop with my massive bags, it started pouring rain, and on top of that, the first bus was completely packed and a lot of us had to wait for the next one. Luckily, the next one arrived some 5 minutes later, and it turned into an awesome bus ride with everyone singing silly songs together, and even though the busdriver was taken aback a bit, he didn't seem to mind too much.
I'm not sure how, but the walk back home was much easier than the same walk the other way around on friday. Maybe I was just too tired to notice sore muscles, but it was good to finally be home again knowing I had a great weekend to look back at.