I don't know about you, but when I happen to be within train distance of a PTQ in Manchester (and it doesn't happen all the time to people who live in Italy), there's no way I'm letting such an opportunity slip away. That's how this last November I got to know Raymond Fong and Ross Silcock, a local judge. Five months later Ross would tell me about a hostel called Hatters, and that's the place where I, Andrea Avedano and Luigi De Simone would check-in Friday 20th April 2012, just eight hours before the beginning of Grand Prix Manchester 2012.
Day 1
Day 2
In case you didn't know, hostels are not known for being very silent on Saturdays. It's not like once you turn the light off, no one else will turn it on later during the night. Or slam the door. Or get back drunk at 4 in the morning. Still, they do allow for nice encounters, like having breakfast with a player named Alexandre. He doesn't look very rested as well, but he's pretty friendly and we walk to the venue together. Once there we have to separate: there are draft sets to distribute, burocracy to carry out, and clocks to set using Dutch-only software (which can be a bit overwhelming the first time you do it). Thank God I spend the rest of the day mainly in the Feature Match Area, because every time I'm on the Floor something seems to happen.
At the end of Round 12 I leave my safe haven before the beginning of the second Draft. We're all gathered in front of the Judge Station, and while Carlos Ho talks to us I notice a strange twinkle. At a closer look I realize there are actually drops of rain falling on a table from the ceiling of the old railway station. Luckily, there's one extra table in the Main Event and so we decide to skip that table and renumber half of the pods. Joel solves this problem so efficiently that not all the judges on staff even notice that we skipped a table, so when David Larrea starts calling the draft, he is immediately interrupted because an entire pod is missing boosters. We on Logistics are startled, since we double counted everything before asking all judges available to help out, but Raymond realizes that someone must've distributed the product also on the rainy table. David tries to ask the players to count fourteen cards face-down, but a judge stops him again because all the cards in a booster are bent. I am close and I was given an extra booster just in case, and we fix it in no time, so David can finally say "You can look at the cards". Everything goes smoothly until he hands the microphone back to Carlos, who instructs the players to find their seats for Construction. Anyone could understand that something is very wrong when only half of the players stands up and starts moving around, while the others remain seated. Amidst the chaos a judge confesses he's picked up by mistake some of the Seatings for Construction thinking they were those for Draft, but he still has them and we manage to contain the damage.
DVD Bonus: Deleted Scenes
We wake up on Monday and have one of the best breakfasts ever, in pijamas and slippers inside an old-fashioned British pub, with a dance soundtrack and the complete Avacyn Restored Card Gallery freshly spoiled. The weather forces us to spend the day indoors, so we visit the National Gallery and the British Museum, we eat some Fish and Chips under the Big Ben, and we learn stuff inside the Science and Natural History Museums. After a quiet night, we're off again on Tuesday, still rainy in the early hours but better later, which leads to an intensive tour of every possible famous landmark you can think of.
After a night spent clubbing, the wake-up on Wednesday 25th is neither easy nor pleasant, but we are rewarded with Camden Town. This centre of alternative culture has an unmistakable atmosphere, great scenery and something for everyone: the shops sell anything from shoes and t-shirts to music, paintings and food, and talking about food, there's almost no need to buy lunch. Dozens of Chinese, Indian, Japanese, and Turkish shops literally shout at you and beg you to take a sample of their food: "Sir! Sir! Wait a minute! Take one! Take one! Also for you, Sir!" In the afternoon we come across the only place that could possibly be better than the Green Man, and mark my words, if you go to London you can miss Buckingham Palace but not this. Cyberdog is a huge cyberpunk-themed shop with a live DJ and two underground stories. It specialises in futuristic clothing, clubwear and accessories, displayed in rooms filled with androids and neon lights, and unlike most clubs, entrance is free.
Time to get back to the hostel and pick up our luggage. The return flight to Milan is very late, but we manage to be home in Turin by 2AM. The plan is to go to school on Thursday, but once I lie down on my bed I realize there's no way I can get up just 5 hours later. I close my eyes, and I start dreaming about planes, trains and convention centres.