Winter Meeting 2015

[Mimus]

Heya,

for those of you who did not yet read the thread about the last meeting (Summer Meeting 2015 - What happened): The meeting we had was awesome, but rather short due to a lot of rain and therefore some very wet tents, even on the inside due to some leaking.

This is why we came up with the idea to have another meeting this year to make up for the very short duration of the summer meeting. This meeting is supposed to take place in winter (so we have like half a year between the 2 meetings, more or less) and it shall not be in tents but in a warm, nice and dry place where we dont have to fear the weather (especially in cold winter nights).

Some more info on this first winter meeting:

1. Its not only for TWC members, just like the other meetings friends and family etc. are welcome

2. It is going to be in Germany this time, in Berlin to be more specific. There are several reasons for using Berlin:
a) The city has a huge airport and is close for people from the north (estonia and the baltic states in general, maybe even finland) so it is cheaper and more likely that there will be some people from there at the meeting.
b) The city is huge, so there is a whole lot of things to do even in winter when u can barely spend more than a few hours outside at once (I will show u a list of some things to do later).
c) Because we do not want to go camping (lol, wintercamping), we would need some kind of hostel. There are several cheap ones in Berlin, but more than that we (Lig and I) live in Berlin and can host the meeting in our apartment if we are not too many people.
d) even for people from the netherlands it should not be too far, since Lig and I drove the same way (just other direction) in the past 2 meetings and it was fine
e) and ofc people from eastern europe (poland, czech, bulgaria ....) would have a good chance to come, since its not far

The date for this meeting is quite clear, since there are not a lot of things to choose from. Most students have holiday around the end of the year, but people who work usually dont. However, there is a certain period (between christmas and new years and the few days after) when the meeting could easily take place without people having to take a lot of days off:
New years eve is thursday the 31st, that means friday (the 1st) is a free day at least for the people in NL and Germany, and I guess aswell for other countries. The 2 days after that are weekend, so free for most people aswell.

This means, we could have the meeting for some days from the 31st till the 3rd, maybe even a few days before the 31st for those who have holiday either way (which would be awesome, cause the 29th is my own birthday and i would LOVE to spend that with some of you ppl )

Berlin offers so many things Im sure we could spend a month and do sth every day, even in winter. Some things are:

- Spending New years at the party @Brandenburger Tor (free entrance, but SUPER FULL)
- go shopping (Alexa, Mall of Berlin, das Schloss etc. -> huge shopping centres with awesome christmas decoration)
- Bowling at American Bowl (they also have a restaurant called Play off with american food and special days like Burger, Spaghetti, Pizza day etc.)
- going to some cheaper clubs on new years who do not sell super expensive sylvester-tickets in advance (like Golgata-Club with free entrance or Soda-Club with free for women and 8euro for men, little-miss-sunshine free bar or living-room free bar)
- watch all the fireworks on new years from one of berlins big bridges
- we can aswell go in the famous e-sports bar interface (fifa, dota, LoL, mariokart etc. tournaments for you to compete in)
- go free dart-playing, pub quizzing, playing pool etc.
- one of the berlin street food markets (really cool, unusual food for low costs)
- some bar with nice happy hours (NSTAGS with a free snack for every drink, cheap cocktails etc.)
- some special bar (middle age, turn around with chairs on the ceiling, all chemistry bar, gothic bar etc.)
- one of the berlin winter markets (some are really huge and more like a fair, e.g. the one at the Alexanderplatz, lots of them also have ice-skating, shooting and more)
- go having fun in the snow at some hill in berlin
- indoor-pools
- go-kart driving inddor
- huge sportsfields (indoor) with tennis, volleyball etc.
- visit an aqua-building like SeaLife, Aquadom etc. with fishies
- ofc lots of cool restaurants in general like spanish tapas, real bavarian/german food etc.
- have a cheap sightseeing tour with the Bus100 where u see almost every kind of berlin sightseeing thing for just the price of a normal bus ticket
- etc.etc., so many things to do

Money-wise it would be even less expensive than the last meetings (which always were like 6 euro a night + food money) because you could sleep for free at our apartment and would only need to spend money for food (which is also less since i have a kitchen and would say im pretty decent when it comes to baking and cooking :P)

So, what do you people think? Suggestions, remarks? Who is interested in coming?


Mimi

[Cross]

I am on board with this! :] I will come for sure.

[$!l3nc3r]

It sounds awesome, but I'm not sure if we could be there.
Around christmas and new year it is kinda busy and we mostly spend some time with family and friends.

But I do like the idea and will ask it to my wife

[Sky]

i'll only come if my love veli comes

[Poseidon]

I also think that it will be not easy to find time in these days, like silencer already said. But still I will ask my girlfriend We're living only 350 km apart from you And I already promised to my gf that I want to show her Berlin because she has never been there. With real Berliners that would be even more amazing!

The only thing that bothers me a bit is the date but we will see if it's still possible to arrive.

[Mette]

Well, I like that it is going to be in Berlin (not far from me and nice city) but at New year?! I have to spend time with my family and friends, so I won't be there.. But it sounds awesome!

[HeXXor]

Unfortunately i wont have time :> Im celebrating every new years with my friends in an other country..This year im celebrating new years near Budapest! (last years Prague, Wroclaw, Hamburg) But im quite sure u guys will have a lot of fun! Berlin is awesome and cheap if you know the right spots (and we have 2 berliners here hehe) CAnt wait to see the pictures :P

[Mimus]

Well we can surely do it some other time in winter etc., the only reason we found new years to be the most "efficient" date was due to the free days at that time (1st of january) and because its not all that much of a family-event (unlike christmas).

Afaik there is no "free day" or even a longer weekend around winter time for people, or am i mistaken? If there would be more suitable dates for you ppl, pls post them so mb we can find another date most people are fine with

[Poseidon]

Hey Mimus
At first it would be interesting to know for how long people could stay with you there. After all you and Lig are the hosts and without you the meeting would not be the same.
I would suggest the 2nd January right after New Year's depression and from that day over the weekend until tuesday or wednesday maybe. In these days we (me and my girlfriend) could come definitely because we don't have to work on the weekend and the next two or three days of vacation would not be a problem. For us, this is possibly the only timeline we have for a trip so I hope that you and the others like my suggestion!

[Mimus]

Well we have no problem having y'all here for long, however our "vacation" (which is just the few days around christmas) only lasts till the 3rd of january, which is the sunday after new years. On Monday our university starts again so we would both have to go study again. This is why I would rather have the meeting last over the weekend, but not longer.