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[palaste]

Right after I originally heard about NordCon 2010, I decided to go there, no matter the cost. I had originally planned to organise a group trip from Helsinki or Turku to NordCon and back, but too few people expressed interest, and so I decided to only take care of my own travels.
My flight from Helsinki left at 07:40 on Saturday morning. That meant I had to wake up at about five in the morning, to be able to take the Finnair bus to the airport. Having only gone to sleep at 01:20 the previous evening, it was an understatement to say I woke up tired. Still, I managed to get to the airport, have my luggage self-checked in and get on the flight to Aalborg.
There were four of us Finns coming to NordCon 2010: me, Psychotron, Blackarachnia and vmv-81. Inkku wanted desperately to come but her schedule couldn't allow it. I would have liked to see her there as well but if she couldn't make it, nothing could be done. I first met vmv-81 at Copenhagen airport where we switched flights. He had come from Oulu to Helsinki the previous day and stayed at his aunt's place. He was on the same flight to Copenhagen but I didn't notice him at the time.
At Copenhagen airport I wanted to get some lunch but none of the restaurant had their kitchens open yet. I still managed to see some people drinking beer. It wasn't even 10 in the morning yet! I know beer is great, but there's got to be some limits!
I and vmv-81 got on the flight to Aalborg. When we got there, I started getting SMSes from Psychotron about what was keeping us. He and Blackarachnia had taken an early flight from Turku and taken a taxi to the Hotel Scandic Aalborg, where all four of us were staying. I and vmv-81 were saving money and taking the bus, which took over an hour to get to the hotel. On top of that, it was raining very hard when we got off the bus, and I had to walk all the way to the hotel in the rain, carrying heavy bags.
When we got to the hotel, we met Seaspray as well as Psychotron and Blackarachnia. All five of us went on our way, first to the supermarket (because none of us had had anything to eat yet), and then directly to the convention. Psychotron and Blackarachnia said all they had seen of Aalborg was fields and slugs. They were right, that's all I could see as well.
We arrived just in time for the convention. I first noticed we couldn't even get in. There was a sign to ring the doorbell, and we did that, and nothing happened. We kept on doing that for several minutes, until finally we got an answer. It turned out that the organisers had forgot the doorbell on silent mode.
When we arrived, each of us was given a "goodie bag", containing the convention exclusive figure. My copy is #02 of 60. #01 was put in a special display case at the convention.
The first things I noticed inside the convention were the infamous "Crap-O-Plenty" store and Simon Furman. I took a few quick photographs of him immediately, because photographing him was one of my original goals. The "Crap-O-Plenty" store looked like a candy store to a small boy. But then I realised that almost everything there is either of a series that doesn't interest me, too expensive, in too bad condition, or something that I already own. All I ended up buying was a copy of the original HeadRobots toy and a Transformers: Generation 2 comic hardback.
The first competition was the Cyber Slammer race. I took part in that, and as far as I can remember, I finished third, and got some prizes for it. I also took part in the trivia contest, but couldn't make it past the second round. Here I noticed who the real experts were: Tformer and vmv-81 knew the answer to pretty much every question. I also met Blackbee and had a look at all of her drawings she had brought to the convention. I particularly liked the detailed layouts of the Ark.
As the convention progressed, I noticed Tformer and Blackbee amassing higher and higher amounts of toys and merchandise. It went to such extremes that Tformer was forced to sell some of his items right there to avoid taking so much luggage back to Hedemora.
The first day finished with the exclusive dinner, which almost everyone took part in. It was really great to finally get to eat proper food. During the dinner, we started discussing about Transformers, and it was nice to see that even Simon Furman joined in the conversation just like just another Transfan.
Back at the hotel, all of us who were staying there went for beers (or soft drinks) together. That included all four of us Finns, Groundsplitter, BigPete, Tformer and Simon Furman. We had originally planned to go to Aalborg centre afterwards but couldn't be bothered, as we were too tired. Before this I couldn't have even imagined going for beers with a Transformers celebrity. It was really a unique experience.
The next day, we noticed we were short of cash, so I asked the hotel reception where the nearest ATM was. It turned out it was half an hour's walk away, per direction. Even though we tried to walk quickly, we missed both the "transform the fastest" competition and the sandwich lunch. We did arrive in time for Simon Furman's presentation, the remaining contests - Cyber Slammer race part 2 and "guess the music" - and the scheduled DVD screenings. I particularly liked the "guess the music" competition. Simon Furman joined in, even though I guess he couldn't have actually won anything. i didn't recognise nearly all of the tunes, but did manage to spot some more obscure ones. What I'm most proud of is that I recognised "Weird Al" Yankovic's "Dare to be stupid" after about one second, and that part was just a synthetised guitar without any vocals. I ended up with two points less than Simon Furman, which was less than I had hoped for, but not by much. Then we got to see the "Headmasters" Singapore dub, which was pretty funny, but not especially hilarious. I especially liked how they called the Matrix a "power pack", Blurr "Wally" and Blaster "Billy". The best part, of course, is seeing Galvatron looking at Billy's and Soundwave's fight, saying "Darn that Soundwave", and yawning.
As the second day was wrapping up, Simon Furman was pretty much the first to leave, then after him almost everyone else. Finally it was just the organisers and us four Finns who were left. We helped clean the place up, and had the left-over sandwiches and free soft drinks for dinner. Then we went back to the hotel, and in the evening, we Finns went to the centre of Aalborg for beers (or soft drinks). It turned out that in comparison to the university area, the centre of Aalborg is architecturally a very nice-looking place with old buildings everywhere. We went to about three to four bars and had one drink at each. Vmv-81 was the first to leave back to the hotel and I was the second. Psychotron and Blackarachnia stayed until late in the night. I'm proud to say I managed to take a bus ride in the middle of the night, drunk, in a city I was visiting for the first time in my life, and had no problems whatsoever.
The next day, vmv-81, Psychotron and Blackarachnia left early in the morning back to Finland, but my own flight was only at 18:40 in the evening. So I got on a bus to the city centre, and just walked around, taking photographs of the buildings, for almost four hours. Then I got to the airport, and even there I had over an hour to spend before my flight left. When I got back to Helsinki, it was almost midnight already, so I was in a hurry to get back home, as I had to go to work the next morning. This was a very bad time for the return flight, but it was the only one that was available. Flight schedules suck.
All in all, this was the best Transformers-related experience I've had in three years - ever since the previous big NTFA convention in Arlöv. It wasn't a spectacularly amazing experience but lots of fun and a nice diversion from work anyway. And it was good to meet so many other NTFA members, both from Finland and from other countries, as well.

[Fighbird]

Nice report! You wouldn't happen to have some pictures to go along with it, do you? I seem to remember you taking a loooooot of pictures...