GP Brussels as all GPs started with me applying. I had already been rejected for Lyon (yeap L3s are having that issue nowadays 🙂 ) so I was hopeful. It is accustomed regional coordinators to get a draft of the selection. There I saw my name, and what is more that I would be selected for three days; success!

When I tried to book flights my smile froze. The prices were 300+ and some of the flights including spending the night at an airport. I was trying to fit everything in my schedule and at the same time not to ask for that many days off from work, but there was no way out. And then I had a revelation! What if I didn’t work on Sunday, but only Friday and Saturday? Ryanair had a direct flight leaving Wednesday night and returning Sunday for just 70euros!

Armed with hope I proceed to the next step, which was persuading the judge manager (Johanna) to let me work for just two days. For those you does not know her, Johanna is a L3 and the regional coordinator of Europe – North that really-really does not like when people messing up with her plans. I had to use words like “I am too old for this” (staying overnight at airports) which she shamelessly published on facebook to persuade her. Balkan and Zohar were also selected for this event, so not only would I have company, but also Zohar managed to book an escape the room for Thursday night.

Flash forward two months, and you find me sitting in the uncomfortable seat of Raynair trying to order food, mainly because I was trying to kill some of the four and half hours of flying. The sweet talker that I am, I had persuaded my manager to let me work remotely on Thursday and half day on Friday since my shift was starting at 16:00. But back to Ryanair and ordering food; my first order was canceled 4’ afterwards, because they didn’t have starter X. My second order cancelled within the next 10’ because they were ran out of main dish Y. As you might have guessed my third order was also cancelled because the hostess has miscounted. At that point I was thinking that they were meshing with me, trying to see if I know all the combinations of choosing two things out of two subsets, but no it was for real. By repeating 70, 70, 70… I controlled my temper and let it go.

Nothing else notable happened and at 1am I was in my hostel room along with other 3 men that were not snoring so everything was well. Next day I decided to work from the hostel lobby, so other guests get to enjoy the view of a 30year old dreadlock guy talking alone (meetings).

Yakup pinged me and we agreed to meet at one of the Outposts the game club chain if Belgium. Meeting with Yakup always includes a risk (ahem, Utrecht, ahem) but surprisingly he was there with only 10’ delay. The rest of the Turks were expecting us for dinner and drinks to worm up for the escape the room. The place was called Barakat and its name should have prefigured the disaster. It was a Muslim restaurant, so no pork and no alcohol! Probably that was the reason that we actually escaped the room. Speaking about it, I think I solved zero puzzles, but one where I was just pressing buttons and it opened! Balkan on the other hand mastered the art of carrying water with a giant spoon with holes – for no apparent reason. The whole experience was much enjoyable and I wish we repeated it in the future.

Friday was upon us so let’s talk a bit about magic, shall we? I was appointed as a HJ in a GPT, but upon careful inspection of the schedule I noticed that I was the only L3 in the late shift, so I was prepared for everyone dumping all the tournaments on me. Speaking of the devil, after the team leader meeting, the public event manager approached me giving me a status of all the tournaments before fleeing. I started walking through the room familiarizing myself with the judges, making sure that they had a break and making also sure that their tournament is well staffed and it will finish on time.

At 22:00, all the judges left the room and I was alone with a normal sealed, a 2HG sealed, 4 GPTs and some on demand events. Fortunately some judges volunteered to stay behind, so we moved all the tournaments as close as possible and tried to speed them up. Despite our efforts at 23:30 there were still two GPTs that just started the final match. The organizer took the executive decision to give all the players the two byes and I was free. I got out of the room at 23:55, lost the midnight train, entered my hostel at 1:15, shower and while I casually looked at my phone I had 5 unanswered calls. That is how I learned about the Paris incidents, while I was trying to persuade the caller that I am fine.

Saturday was the team leading day. I hadn’t team lead for a while so I was looking forward to it. I have asked my team members to share any goals that they have from the event. I would suggest that you proactively share any of your goals with your team leader. Remember that your team leader is the person that you will interact most. Most probably he/she is the one that will help you achieve your goals rather than the HJ.

The problem is that I was team leading a logistics team in a constructed event which meant we would have specific tasks only at the beginning of the day. Well, our team was logistics late shift, which means no dedicated tasks at all 🙁 Fortunately I had David (Gutesa) in the team and we took advantage of his extensive experience. He presented several cases that kept us entertained, which I am going to share with all of you on facebook group.

The tournaments itself has no major issues. We silently delayed its start because the parking opened late and ten minutes before 9 there was a queue of 100 cars. The format being slow didn’t help speeding up the tournament, and at one round, 3’ before the end, there were still 400 outstanding matches! Still we managed to finish within the time limit at 21:31.

Since the next day I was not working I was trying to persuade people to go out with me! The first victim was Giannis Papadakis, who refused quickly, with the excuse: “My uncles don’t let me out that late, due to the Paris incidents”. The second victim was Yakup who gladly accepted my proposal, especially when I mentioned that I will pay for everything 🙂 We hit the streets and we were lucky to find a nice joint that was a bar for the first 10 meters and disco for the next 10. As a bonus there was an old painter there, probably forgotten from the surrealism era.

Next day was the return journey. This time I decided not to order anything in Ryanair, especially since a friend had persuade me to accept the offer of dinner at her place with lasagne and wine 😉 I also took advantage of the 3,5 hour flight to write this report in addition to the three reviews of the members of my team; success!

Before leaving you I want to mention that at the beginning, the journey to Brussels included only me Zohar and Balkan, but since Brussels was huge the judge manager asked for more judges. David Gutesa was the first to respond and also brought in 3 more judges from our region that would attend Brussels as players, Giannis, Scarface and Yakup. Awesome job David 🙂

That’s all girls and boys; as promised I will share the GP rulings on facebook. In the meantime drop me a line in the comments if you have any questions, and/or any suggestions of the things that would like to see me posting in the future.