Aaaaaaand I’m back (^. .^) after a lovely but exhausting time away in Germany for Eurofurence 2024. This has been my first EF since the covid pandemic reared its ugly head and my second con of the year after Confuzzled. I wanted to write down a few thoughts and feelings for anyyum who would be interested and for my own reflections as well.

The new site – having moved from Berlin to Hamburg, biiiiiiiig plus! Don’t get me wrong, Berlin was a fair city with good food and they had got plenty of time to get used to the fur suits randomly turning up every year like a great migration, but for this to be only the second time in Berlin, I was impressed! The locals were curious, friendly and engaging, the city had fantastic public transport and great food options and the convention centre was very well located next to the middle of it all. The convention grounds are nice, easy to navigate and the rooms are nicely fit for purpose (^. .^) so as much as the previous site had a special place in my heart from the previous year’s visiting, I am very happy with the move.

The sweeties – the wonderful wonderful sweeties! I bumped into old faces I had missed for 5 years and it was so great to see them again. Countless new faces that I had only spoke to online or in VR before, and plenty of new peeps who recognised my badge and said hello! For me I think this will always be the biggest part of the convention, seeing and making friends, sharing a hug and hanging out in a cosy space where we can be ourselves free of judgement and less self conscious concerns. To all you amazing people who exchanged a few words with me, a quick hug or a good hang out, thank you all for making my convention as magical as it was <3

The panels, suits and shows - great as always and ever impressive! I was a little less organised than CFZ so didn’t attend everything I wanted to and there were a few cross overs which meant I had to choose one or the other, but all the panels and shows I did engage with I had a great time (^. .^) Honourable mention to the Vore meet up and Story hour with everyone’s favourite labcoat wearing wine drinker.

Considerations for the future –
1) Gosh darn I need to lose a significant amount of weight so I can engage more with the things I wanna do and not feel so wrecked just trying to keep up.
2) I really wanna keep attending Eurofurence, Confuzzled and even more cons when time and money allows – big consideration currently being put towards Nordic Fuzz Con NFC, early next year.
3) I want a fuuuuuur suit (^. .^) not sure on full or partial, style or maker, but I know one day, one day, ooooooone day when money allows I would love an Umi suit to just be silly and plod around in.

Exhausted, but delighted! I had an amazing time away with amazing people. It has given me plenty of motivation to keep swimming forwards and to keep engaging with this sort of thing. I am so so very thankful for each and everyum who helped make this possible. All the organisers, volunteers, contributors, sponsors, attendees, and all the staff that go overlooked or are part of the local economy, everyone played their part, and thank you all!

Hope to see you at a convention someday, if you do see me about, come say hi and prepare to be offered a hug! Muahahaha
Stay scrumptious everyum!

Umi x