EBTM05 live! ... and further thoughts about the meeting

[Fons]

I'm back home safe and well!

I really had a nice weekend with all of you.
I really hope to see all of you again next year!


Fons.

[Craco]

Hi all,

a quick hello from me, out from the Big Time Bar in Helsinki..(Thanks to Cake for pointing out to me today that there is an internet access too)..

I must say I had an exceptional good time on the EBTM. It was again great to talk about our shared passion without getting the and to hear all the stories and adventures we go through for our EBT-hobby...

A big thank you to the organizers/helpers for this wonderfull meeting and a thank you also to all the participants for showing that the EBT-community has a passion and according to me a great future...

Greetzz,
Craco

[hoppa]

a last word from me before we take of and go home later today.
Just like everybody else we had a great time here in Finland, before, during and after the meeting. We saw about everything there is to see here in Helsinki. Thanks to Avij and his fellow-organisers we also saw some interesting sites which we probably would'nt have found on our own. So many thanks for that.

Hope to meet you all again in person next year and virtually(with a hit) a lot sooner.

[Fundamental]

Thank you for the great meeting. The organizers had made some really nice work! A BIG THANK YOU!!! It was really nice to meet new people and see old friends.. sad that we couldn't bee there any longer.. It was also really nice to get know Giberski better while visiting our house one night. Great guy! Hopefully see you all at the next ebt meeting

[Cake]

Now the meeting is really over. I waived Craco goodbye at the railwaystation couple of hours ago and realized that I have to wait for a year for the next international meeting.

[aplfi]

Yes the meeting was really great event. Thanks everybody, especially avij and imleH and all the international guests who came all the way to Finland for the meeting. Glad that almost everyone got also hits.
Can't wait the next years meeting

[Mr Euro]

Tripreport

Friday 19-8

I awoke really early that day. Finally, the first day of my EBTM05-trip had come. The flight went well. When the plane was landed, I send a text-message to Craco and Avij that Mr Euro was on Finnish Soil. Craco who already arrived a day before me, offered to guide me to Hotel Anna. He stayed there as well. He had seen my posting about the hotel and used the link to book a room as well over there. Within the first 15 minutes on our way to the hotel we decided to go to Taillin, Estonia on sunday together. Funny how our decisionprocess went. Hotel Anna looked ok. I called the Estonian ambassad to check if it was possible to travel to Estonia with only a Belgian ID-card. It was! So Craco and me went to find us a ferry who could take us there. The nice lady at the reception told us about Linda Lines and where we could find the company. Badly enough, there were only businesstickets. We bought them, because it was a crazy thing to do. We not only visited a new country, but EBT-fools we are, we would go there to collect a dot, a special dot that not many Belgian users will ever have. There I spend a bunch of fivers to pay the ticket. 10 minutes later I realised that this place was not the best place to spend only fivers. I had beter spend them in Helsinki city and paid with bigger bills the ferry. Too late. Craco and me, we continued our discovering journey in Helsinki. Nearby there was a nice looking building. Curious as I am, I entered it. It seemed to be a big hall with tiny shops in them. Mostly they sell food and booze. Vanha Kauppahalli. I learnt my first Finnish word. Because I didn't had anything eaten, I bought a finnish speciality: Potatoe-pie. Not that special, but hey, when you are in Finland you should try the local specialities! Spend another bill there and received my first one. We walked around in the city and discovered some nice buildings. Time was moving quickly and it was time to go to the station. Since we were a hour too early, we decided to have a drink in a pub nearby. My first Finnish beer: Kof. It tasted good, but compared with belgium, it was very expensive. Later that day I discoverd beer is expensive in Finland. When we were sitting in the sun (yes, they have sunny weather in Finland ) and drinking, we met Speukes and Prisje. After finishing our drinks we went to the Railwaystation. You could easily recognize were the meeting place was. About 20 people were already there and it was not even 18h00. It seemed to me, that I wasn't the only one who looked out for the meeting. Many faces I recognized from last year, many new faces, some even pretty as well I finally met one of the biggest Belgian users: Hoppa. I'm a bit jealous on this dude. Not only has he access to many serials, but he has a great collection of hits with many eurocountries. He brought his wife Francine as well. It was also great seeing Haemoglobin back. We talked for a while and he showed me his "suicide video". Not only is he a top german user, but a hidden talented moviemaker as well. He also told us, that he soon will leave on a trip to Japan for three months and probably not able to enter many notes than. Still, how many of us do have a Japanes dot you think? Time to move on, EBTM05-participants on the move. We went across the road to the Sport Academy. During the walk, I talked to other EBTM04-participants Ellinoora and Heidi. We dugged up the Hahn-story and now we can laugh about it. Great girls, too bad I didn't see them after that anymore that weekend. In the pub, I talked to many participants and discovered that Balibenni a Dutch user, has moved to my hometown in Belgium, so hits between us two are to be expected. Osku did manage to get us all some roles of 1 and 2 finnish cents and was changing them in the pub. Thank you! In that pub, I ate my first Finnish dish. I orded Calcunna Salaatti. I thought it was a sandwich with turkey meat, but it actually was a meal with Turkey meat, some fried potatoes, bread and really good dipsaus. While eating I had a chat with Craco, Haemoglobin and Prynde. We talked about... EBT. What did you think? Haemoglobin was telling us about his money-exchange-stories in Finland and Germany. After that we went outside on a tour of the city. Nice! We ended up in a sort of rockpub. This was the pub, were I first met Cake and I think Airis. We had a good time, I learnt a new finnish word that actually was Swedish. Nojesguiden. Suddenly everyone got up, and moved outside, time to rush to the fireworks. It was some sort of competition. Well, I'm no fireworks expert, but in my opinion it was not that great. Still, I had a fun time talking with my new and old friends. After the fireworks, we decided to call it a day. On our way to the hotel, we couldn't get pass the Belgian Pub called William K. It was very crowded, but we managed to sit at the bar. There we met a few non-ebt Finnish people. We had a long chat with a good-looking blond finnish girl who worked for a computercompany. Although she was in that place with three guys, she stayed and chat with us for like an hour about many things. Too bad, I didn't think about changing emailadresses. Meanwhile, we also saw that 80% of the finnish people paid by card. The girl told us, that this was common in Finland and it's a sort of electronic wallet. In Belgium we have something similar. At half past one, we moved to our hotel to get a short but well deserved nightsleep. (to be continued!)

[Prisje]

It really were 2 great days. Thanks to Avij for organising it so well!

Last year we were a bit nervous because we didn't know what to expect, but this year everything was relaxed.

Also many thanks to Fundamental for giving us our 10th hit (a real hit!). Too bad we spent the note in Tallinn... We changed it with a Spanish tourist who needed 5ers. A few hours later we entered it (we wrote the serial number down before) and saw it was a hit. Let's hope someone finds it in Estonia...

Prisje & Speukes

[Fons]

We changed it with a Spanish tourist who needed 5ers. A few hours later we entered it (we wrote the serial number down before) and saw it was a hit. Let's hope someone finds it in Estonia...

Or in Spain

[Fundamental]

Also many thanks to Fundamental for giving us our 10th hit (a real hit!).

Big Thank to You also.. It was nice to have a hit with such a cute couple

[soilian]

Mr Euro, when do you release the part two of your report? We are waiting....

Btw, do you still remember what that ice cream thing is in Finnish?

[Asiamaniac]

Hey, I did some more tracking, inserting notes from Finland as I am quite behind with it due to my workload. What should I say? I have five more hits. But I wonder if they might get moderated as I have them all with imleH and the "hit time" was always the same.

[Craco]

But I wonder if they might get moderated as I have them all with imleH and the "hit time" was always the same.

4 of them will be indeed moderated, but still you have a lovely hit with imleH...

Take care,

Greetzz,
Craco

[Mr Euro]

Tripreport Part 2: 20-8

My first breakfast at Finland. All the food on the buffet looked quiet the same as at my place, only the fish I couldn't place. So I tried that one and for belgians it seems really strange to eat fish at breakfast and it really is. It tasted not bad though, but the days after that I didn't eat that again at breakast. Together with Craco I walked to the station. We saw that there was a lot of trash and glass laying on the streets. All left behinds of the mass of people who came out on the street last night. This seems to be a finnish culture thing. Dakkus was telling us the day before of the "backpackculture". Because the beer is expensive, people fill there backpack in the shop with booze and than take of to a place in the park or elsewhere to drink with their friends. Offcourse this happens only in summerstime. Anyway we went on our way to the railroadstation. Again we were on time and it was already crowded by EBT-participants. Some seem to have a real long night in Helsinki In group, we went on our journey. Dakkus was trying to speak to me in Dutch. Well, it was not bad at all. I asked him were he learnt the language and he told me that he mostly learnt it on the Dutch EBT-forum. Great, if you ask me. We went on the tram to the big white church. On my travels I've seen many churches and they all seem to have their own spectacular angle. Also this one, by being this white and located really high, it really shows off. Avij guided us to our first grouppicture on the stairs of this church. Everybody smile: *flash* *flash*, I think there were like 50 grouppics taking over there (Japanese people included ) Haemoglobin also made a little "we miss you Marco(Nerzhul)"-movie. Time for the next event. Avij got some card of Gauss, that we all read. Up to the Finnish Central Bank Museum. We got a smooth funny guide: "You can all leave your backpacks at the counter and I can ensure you they are safe over here, you are inside of a Central Bank building remember". He also told us, behind this line no flash and just a second later Hboz made a flashpicture. Everybody laught offcourse. We got a guided tour and it was nice to do. Not everybody seemed interested, for the first part but when we came to the middle of the museum, we started our questionnaire. Not as heavy as last years, but still very interesting. We asked him some questions about Trichetbills and he said: "I've never seen one of those" and suddenly 10 people took out their wallet. For me this questionnaire was the interesting part of the museum. We also passed by an Eurobillgraveyard. Which actually was a small tube filled with tiny pieces of distroyed eurobills. Seeing the volume and the knowing the hitratio of Finland, I bet there are a few tracked serialnumbers in there. We past by the art-section of the museum, which showed the different finnish notes throughout the history. This was also an interesting part to see. They had serialnumbers real early!!! The guide had place some notes in the collection which real notecollectors are jealous of. I presume, he meant the notes with the starting serialnumber on it. The tour of the museum ended. I tried to convince the guide to set up a panel for EBT. He seemed to like the idea and since the collection of the museum soon is going to be revised, the chances are that there will be a spot for us. Let's wait and see! Bhoeyb changed some Austrian commemoratives with our EBT-ers. I also got one! Thank you Bert! Some of us bought some memorables at the shop of the museum. You could buy your own ebt-graveyard in a small cube. It costed like 6,5 euro. Asiamaniac made some promotion for us in the guestbook of the central bank. Everyone back together for a walk to the harbour. We passed by an old church, a market and a statue and we went to a small ferryterminal to board for the trip to the island. (to be continued...)

[Asiamaniac]

But I wonder if they might get moderated as I have them all with imleH and the "hit time" was always the same.

4 of them will be indeed moderated, but still you have a lovely hit with imleH...

Take care,

Greetzz,
Craco

And another hit can be added with Jani73. That makes three hits during the five days and some more might hit me in the times to come. Yes, THAT is Finland. I love Finland.