Yesterday Bren and I went to Elfia at Haarzuilens, which is one of the biggest fantasy events of Europe. We went there mainly to see Anne Stokes and to get something of hers autographed. Meeting her was one of Bren’s dreams and we made it come true 🙂

Just arrived!

There was a big line to get in, so by the time we finally made it onto the festival grounds, we were already about an hour further, from our time of arrival at the parking lot. I was kind of hoping that the line was shorter, given that we arrived shortly after midday.

The first thing on our program was to see Anne Stokes give her lecture about unicorns. She was doing this lecture with her partner, who was a very funny guy and often made jokes about Anne’s works and methods in a good way.

The Lecture about unicorns, which was mostly about dragons 😛

The lecture was only about unicorns for about ten minutes, before Anne told us about a lot of her other works, which was mainly dragons, but also the bond between two subjects. Most of them women with a dragon or some other fantastical beast. Knowing the background to some of her works is very cool and she also said that she likes people to have their own interpretations of her works. Because that way her art can mean something to everyone. A very nice way of thinking about it, I think. 🙂

After the Anne Stokes lecture I had to go to the toilet badly and that’s where our day at Elfia started to take a dark turn. The lines at the toilets were ridiculously long and unnecessarily so. First we had to get in line to get a wristband, after which we had to get in the actual line to go to the toilet. By this time my bladder was on the verge of exploding, but the line was so long, I thought it would be better to go to a different toilet group in a less crowded corner of the festival. It was probably a very wrong decision, because when we arrived there there was an equally long line. The whole notion of having to pay to go to the toilet on a festival eludes me too, because we already paid quite a handsome fee for our tickets. I’m definitely going to file a complaint about this. Not to mention the lines to get some food or drink. In the end we ate and drank what we had brought.

Part of our loot of the day! A candle holder “Dragon Heart” and the latest art book of Anne Stokes, both of them signed 🙂 (Can you spot the live dragon in the picture? 😛 )

I really wanted to take more pictures of the festival, but both Bren and me were cold and sore after spending an hour to just to take a piss. We did speak with some of my colleagues, Sebastiaan Koen, Garvin Pouw, Johan Klein Haneveld and Jen Minkman. They were all there to sell their books. Jen even signed one of her books for Bren ^_^

We went quality over quantity with books this time 🙂

We only ended up buying two books this time. Both of them hardcovers. I bought The Beauty and the Beast (leather-bound Barnes & Nobles) for Bren as a gift. She bought the other book, which is part of a larger series, which we plan to collect now.

We like to burn candles in the evening, and Bren just had to get these. The old book is my choice!

We got these lovely bookish candles at Letters and Lights. I love the Old Book smell, so that was my choice. The other two are from the Mortal Instruments series by Cassandra Clare.

Mead!

We both love mead and so we couldn’t leave without picking up a few bottles with our leftover money. As you can see, our cat Bobbie loves it too 😛

Overall we had a fun day, but the cold, rain and the ridiculous toilet lines kinda ruined the day. We went home far earlier than we had wanted, but we were both cold and sore. I hope next time the weather will be better, and the organisation better at handling the sanitary needs of their visitors, because this was the worst way to handle public toilets at a festival I have ever experienced. (Yes, I’m still sour about it and I can’t stop talking about it 😛 )

Today we’re spending the day relaxing and reading at home. I hope you all had a good weekend too!

Happy reading!

-Jeffrey