23 November 2011, D-day… The day of my first DreamHack. Why should i go to a LAN in Sweden, while you have plenty of LAN’s in Belgium or Holland? Well, it’s the BIGGEST Lanparty of the world… reason enough?

When I finally made it out of my bed (like a zombie) I was full of nerves for my first DreamHack (I didn’t have enough sleep). Of course I was too late out of my bed. I had a few small things to do like getting some food, packing all my gear et cetera.

Eventually we (me and two mates) could leave our home heading to Eindhoven, where we got on the bus heading to Sweden. With some luck, we arrived on time and after a quick look around we realized we were the only Belgians . Can you imagine? Three Belgians between 147 Dutchies? Like every Belgian would say: this is hell!

When we dropped our gear on the bus and found a free seat , we headed off to Enschede , where we would pick up the last Packers before heading off to Jönköping. During the bus trip, we already met some people and for many this was the first time. Normally, they go to Sweden with one bus (75 people). Well, not this year. There were two busses, so that mean 150 people! They told me that the trip on the bus was long and boring, but to be honest it was a nice bus trip. No traffic jams or annoying people and there are way more worse things to do…

Around 7 AM we arrived at the Elmia expo and my first thought was: this is HUGE!
But you can’t do anything here without your materials. So first we unloaded the bus and all the administration stuff et cetera. Once we got into hall B (where we sit), there was a serious disappointment. There is so little space per person! You have barely space for your pc and screen next to each other. Well, what about the keyboard and mouse? But, we are on DreamHack! An hour later, nobody remembers the little space. The people here are from all over the world. They all have the same interests and each person is friendly like they know you for years. Paying with Swedish money is a bit confusing in the beginning, but you get used to it rather quick.

Everybody asks here which games I play. I’m sorry, but I don’t play that much games. When I go to a Lanparty, it’s for the atmosphere, the crowd and the things around. And now we are at day 3 at the event and I didn’t got bored at all! Tomorrow we are heading back home, and I don’t like that at all! But they have convinced me: I’m coming back next year. Thank you all and a big thanks to the Intel Pack4DreamHack organization as well!

Bram Goris

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