My First time at Eurofurence and Germany

This past week, as I said in the forums, there weren’t any articles posted or any major activity on the website because I was abroad(More specifically, at Eurofurence 28 in Hamburg, Germany). Now that I am back however, it’s time to talk about my experience! It was the first time I ever been to a different country, in an international airport and in a furry convention, so a lot of it was new to time and I learned a ton.

I’ll separate this post in two major parts: Eurofurence and Germany(Specifically Hamburg, but other small bits of just trip stuff like airport and plane as well), with obviously expected content on each one. I’m gonna try and include as many photos and videos I’ve taken/recorded but I’m bound to either forget some or not be able to post it because it includes someone’s face.

If you are in one of them and wish not to, use my contact page to message me(with some proof its indeed you there) and I’ll either censor or remove it altogether.

Eurofurence 28

Eurofurence is the biggest Furry Convention in europe, and one of the biggest in the world. It used to happen yearly in Berlim, but recently moved to Hamburg, in the CCH(Congress Center Hamburg), which attracted the attention of many local news stations and older people who had never heard of furries before.

Inside it, there was a ton to do: Meetup areas, panels about all sort of topics, parties, gameshows, concerts, open music stages, VR Portal(for talking to people in vrchat), dealers den(where you could buy things, see art or play games from partnered devs), puppet show, bar, etc.

And of course, because no furry convention is complete without them: people in fursuits. LOTS of people in fursuits, even though most days were warm and sunny. I saw all kinds of species there: Nardoragons, protogens, wolfs, foxes, dutch angels, axolotls, crows and more.

Majority of them got together outside during the con for the furry parade, where they walked from the CCH to a nearby park then back for other people to watch

Last but not least, the silly moments. Like the one fursuit guy with a very long tongue, a fursuit head impaled in the terrace and a furry driving a miniature train that you could get tickets for.

Honestly the only “downside” of the whole thing was how tempting everything in the dealers den was. I went there just 3 times and ended up spending about 200 euros buying a beany, the event’s coin and shirt, a set of cards, a wallet, RGB glasses, a collar and probably more I can’t remember.

Finally, after what felt like just a minute, the 4 days long con came to an end, with the closing ceremony followed by Eurofurence’s Pawpet show, which told the story about the first mage.

(Apologies for the low quality on some of these, it was dark and the stage was far away)

This was my first experience with a furry con. I got to meet, in person, people who I’ve known for years but only ever online. It was a magical experience that passed so fast it feels like a blur.

Hamburg, Germany

I’ve only ever known Germany through pictures and others’ descriptions of the country. Not once have I been outside of Brazil before, nor flown by myself before, but the experience was great… for the most part.

The flight itself was pretty uncomfortable, but one can’t expect much when they decide to take an 11+ hours flight to a different country. When there, I waited less than an hour for my second plane, this time to Germany. I expected airports to be a lot more complicated and unforgiving, but ended up pleasantly surprised. All I had to do was:

• Get through security, which quickly scanned my bags.
• Go to immigration, that asked just 2 questions before letting me in
• Find my gate, which was easy considering how many signs pointing to it were there
• Fly

And the airplane food was tastier than I thought too!

Talking about food, German cuisine is fairly similar to Brazil’s, so it didn’t surprise me much. The dishes may have been different, but the parts that compose them were familiar to me. This is a pretty big deal, as last time I traveled somewhere the food was too strange to my system I didn’t have a very good time when back in the hotel..

Hamburg had a pretty big amount of things to see. From cool statues and their history, to very old buildings still standing and the lake where many ducks and goose hang out. Thanks to the city’s good infrastructure, majority of the time I travelled using train or simply walking. Some friends preferred to rent bikes and scooters.

On one of my last days there, I went to a Zoo + Aquarium place, where I took a few(lot of) pictures, and even shot a video of a very friendly Stingray. The place was huge, had a pretty good variety of snacks and different events each day of the week.

Not everything was rainbows, however(Wish I had more pictures to show, but some occasions were too dangerous to take any).

Many places in Hamburg have graffiti which doesn’t appear to be legal. Near the main train station there always were drug addicts walking around begging for money. Different groups often picked fights at night in the middle of the streets.

In my hotel’s neighborhood, I could hear drunk people speaking what I assume to be russian, breaking bottles and screaming so loud police was called 2 times in a night(word of advice, do NOT book in a hotel called “SleepHotels” or “SleepHotels Cosmos”. They are across the street from each other, are overly expensive and lie about the amount of rooms and size you’ll get. Staff are known to be rude and their review page on booking.com is botted to have a higher rating). One time, on the way back from the convention with some friends, strange people followed me and I saw a group trying to break the door to a store.

All in all, this trip was awesome. I got to meet people in person, learned to better book a place to stay(and that I should time the days better, so arrive and leave around the same time as everyone else to not be alone in a different city), saw a lot of cool things, tried different food and overall had the best time of my life!