11 days of pure creativity, fun and friendship...
These are my feelings as soon as I think about the Duke of Bavaria 2011.
I went to the monkey cave on 21st of April and stayed there till yesterday. At the beginning there were only Roman, Robert and me, but after some days Max, Oli and our Austrian friend Kurt joined us at Raffa�s place (who just returned the same day from his travelling across Germany). Finally the group was completed by the arrival of Mati and Martin last Thursday. Almost the whole jungle-family had gathered in Augsburg. I always felt like being home.
There was a lot of work to do: everybody had to finish some miniatures till the beginning of the competition last Friday/Saturday, so we only slept a few hours every night. But that was not a big problem ;) We had a great time by laughing a lot about the crazy thing we were doing, talking about our hobby and any other topics. It was a hell of fun! But in my opinion the most impressive part was to help Robert finishing his big big BIIIG project. Everybody of us helped him as soon as there was a little free time and if it was just by talking to him and keep him awake ;) Sometimes we were not even interested in our own projects but only in doing something at the ship....
So the days went by and our stuff was nearly finished, except for the ship. In the last three days Mati, Roman, and Raffa were working fulltime to help Robert in realising his ideas. There had stitches to be made, canvas to be created and ropes to be painted. It was a lot to do and we monkeys were getting less and less sleep. Even in the last night we had no sleep. But now I don�t think about this hard hours. I only remember the pure happiness and pride when we saw the whole project perfected and Robert laughing in relief and joy. This was the result of true friendship.
Feeling tired but excited we went to Ingolstadt, taking the big ship with us. I was overwhelmed by the mass of minatures shown there. By seeing so many beautiful pieces next to each other and to stand in front of well-known miniatures it was hard to keep on breathing. There is such a big difference by looking at a picture or to see the stuff in reality. At the same time it is possible to talk to the painters about the hobby and they explained a lot how they did their paintjobs. It was also a awesome experience to meet some of the people I knew from the internet. A special moment was to see our monkey-brother Andrea the first time and talk to him. Special greetings to Korsica ;)
After a small sit-in at the evening in Augsburg we went back to Ingolstadt the next day. We all were curious about how Robert�s ship would be awarded and as he got the "Best of Show"-award we felt so happy for him. Two years of planing, thinking and preparing were being rewarded. But something else was as joyful to see as Robert�s happiness. There were a lot of children taking part in the competition and most of their stuff was very good. They are the hobby�s future and they are doing very very well. I�m looking foreward to see them next year again :)
I enjoyed the last day a lot and I�m free to say that they were surely one of the best in my life. Thank you some much my friends! And a special thank to Anna and Anci for their patience and support :)
Now you get a lot of pictures! I will upload pictures of miniatures I took at the Duke of Bavaria in a Picasa-album and post the the URL as soon as possible :)
Best wishes,
Peter
PS by Roman: Musica! :)