Euro Party 2nd Edition
By: Manora al'Sara in the Tower Parties Forum on the Old Boards
This was my first Tower party so I was very excited and yet terrified at the same time! Up to this point I had only met one Tower person and that was Lifa, who at the time was my roommate and we had both just been raised to Accepted.
I set out from home to go to Stansted airport to pick up the Dutch contingent who were flying in – Elyna, Val, Relk and Janos. Waiting in the arrivals lounge I truly believed that I would never know who they were but the reports are true… Tower people stand out a mile… and when I saw them come through the gates we all recognised each other easily. We all bundled (rather squashed and uncomfortable with all our luggage) into my little car and set off for Norfolk, which fortunately was only just over an hours drive away.
When we arrived at Maidelyn's I met Rhianna, Rhuarc and Rij. The other party goers, Lifa, Melana, Mar'Alex and her boyfriend would be travelling together from Gatwick airport and wouldn't arrive until later because Mar'Alex's flight from Portugal had been delayed.
The merrymaking got into full swing with an interesting punch that Maidelyn had made along with her wonderful spread of food and we sat outside in the (for once) wonderful English summertime long into the evening chatting and laughing. We had another call from the Gatwick team who were going to be even later so we all went off to bed until they arrived at around 4am. At which point we all woke up and there was lots of hugging and chatting.
On the Saturday, we all got up and queued for the shower!!! lol! then after breakfast where Carlos and Rhuarc attempted to teach us English tea-drinkers the delicacies of coffee (they failed miserably by the way!) and we all got ready and drove down to Cambridge for a day of sightseeing.
We split up into two groups, with Maidelyn, Rij, & Rhianna doing some shopping and then making their way back to prepare the food for our evening barbeque, and me (being the only English native left) playing tour guide around Cambridge for everyone else. We took a nice walk along the canal and saw all the people punting on the river. Then we visited the Round Church, which was very interesting and quite a unique structure. Then we moved onto St John's College where we found a choir rehearsing in the large chapel there so we stopped to listen for a while. Then we found a lovely courtyard area where we sat down and relaxed a bit before making our way back to the cars.
We got back to Maidelyn's house to find that some of us where rather sunburnt! But that the dinner preparations were well underway. Maidelyn's brother had joined us and we got down to the drinking and eating, which was followed by much silliness and hugging and photo taking. Maidelyn took charge and lead us all in the traditional Tower toast of Goldschlager and Rhuarc made us a rather interesting drink called Kalimocho?? (I've probably spelt that very wrong!)
To say the least the whole gang was pretty inebriated and Lifa and Mar managed to convince Relk that being Property of the Red Ajah was a good plan, and the poor guy jumped in to torture with both feet! We celebrated Elyna's birthday with cake and gifts and also drank rather heartily to a new pair of Near-Sisters in our midst.
Then we decided to log onto the message boards for some drunken posting. There are people who can type drunk, and those who can't. I admit that I am one of those that falls into the latter category, but we all had a good old laugh at our appalling ability to spell and type at 1am after way too much alcohol.
After more drinking, some people having to go to bed early, others trying to walk into closed patio doors, a demonstration of green-ness, some drunken dancing lessons and a certain two people laughing hysterically till they cried (with no idea what was funny) we gradually started to fall asleep.
One or two of us were woken in the night by a glass of beer falling out of a certain person's hand, as they fell asleep, and onto someone's head, but the rest of the night passed quietly. The next morning, with most of us nursing nasty hangovers we all got tidied up and ready to leave. Some Aes Sedai were even seen helping the Novices with the dishes! I took Relk, Rhianna, Rhuarc and Rij back to various stations where they could catch trains to their destinations and took myself on home. A good time was had by all. :D
