After two weeks in Europe, visiting Leipzig, London, and the World Horror Convention in Brighton, England, I have returned home and been mauled by my children and sorted through two weeks of email. I had intended to deal with my email while on my trip, and to keep this blog updated as close to daily as possible, but my laptop screen broke (possibly because of the flight, but I can’t say for sure) and I spent the whole time virtually Internet-less.
But all that is in the past, and it’s time for a quick recap. How did I spend my time Europe? Let us take a journey through the very recent past….
Tuesday, March 16: On planes! And in airports! And that’s pretty much it!
Wednesday, March 17: We wandered around downtown Leipzig, seeing some of its most spectacular sites:
One of the churches Bach wrote music for.
The other church Bach wrote for, and where is he buried.
My book in a real live bookstore!
This wasn't an ad, this is just how people dress over there.
Thursday, March 18: On Thursday we went to the Leipzig Book Fair, which was freakishly, ginormously massive. The only thing we have of comparable size in the US is ComicCon, or DragonCon, and those are about all media–this is about books, and nothing but books, and it was jam-packed with people of all ages. It was really kind of incredible.
One section of one path of one hall. There were four. This was a seriously huge book fair, I'm not even kidding.
That handsome man reading my book is Christian Von Aster. I just smiled and waved.
This is the group at my first reading. Don't they look enthralled?
That night I did another reading at a goth nightclub.
We had well over 100 people at the nightclub reading, and sold a bunch of books. It was pretty awesome.
Friday, March 19: Another day at the book fair, though we were pretty dang tired at this point. Lots of walking, lots of late nights, and lots of still-kind-of-jet-lagged.
My lovely wife, barely maintaining consciousness.
You got a discount on admission if you dressed up. This is the friend of one of the people who interviewd me.
My publicist, Barbara, and my editor, Carsten.
Most of the toilets were square, and my wife deemed that worthy of a photo. Please enjoy it.
German architecture is awesome. Not pictured: we had dinner with German author Michael Peinkofer, who was super awesome and felt like an old friend. I don't know how we ended up without a photo of him. Sorry, Michael!
Saturday, March 20: I bid my wife a fond farewell and flew to England; she flew home, by way of a 12-hour whirlwind tour of Paris. I had a fiendish, possibly self-aware toothache at this point, so I lacked the presence of mind to take any pictures my first day in England. The good news is, I didn’t do anything worth taking a picture of, either, unless you count buying British aspirin and crashing in my hotel like a scared, unconscious puppy.
I think that’s enough photos for now. I shall post more on another day, detailing yet more of my exciting trip to Europe!
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Wow, sounds like you had a pretty good, if tiring, time in Germany! That book fair sounds awesome, so many people there just for books – amazing! I look forward to reading more about your time in England. It was great to meet you at the Headline event – I was in your team for the quiz!
That toilet looks like something out of Battlestar Galactica.
Do you speak German? I was wondering if your reading was in English or German. Looks like it was a great trip.
Battlestar galactica toilet!
I don’t like airports very much because they are always filled with bookshops and no matter how many you step into you’ll never find the book you want, but you can’t just walk past without stopping to look ‘just in case’ even though, in your heart, you know it’s useless. And that, therefore, is why we have giant bookfairs.
I´d have loved to visit you in Leipzig, but just could not make it. Still, I think it would be great if more authors visited germany
Somehow, most SF/F I like is not written by german authors, and getting to meet someone who wrote some of my favorite books just does not happen any day.
In an aside, the toilet truly is interesting, I have never seen one like it
I have just finished reading your book at 3AM EST and I can only say it is mother hugging creepy. Your sleep robing prose left me no choice but to finsish your book and almost not get a bit of sleep. First book I ever wanted to immediatly wanted to reread.
Hey Dan-
So many pictures! I’ve got a picture for you: I caught “I Am Not a Serial Killer” lurking in my car yesterday after I returned from the bookstore! It gave me quite a fright, I’ll tell you. I was able to capture a picture of the previously elusive US edition before I wrangled it to the floor mat and gave it a stern bookmarking. Thought you might get a kick out of it: http://exploringeliza.wordpress.com/2010/03/31/updating/
I’ll keep this book fastidiously read until you get a chance to inscribe it with some sort of protective autograph on the sixth.
-Eliza
welcome back!
Your wife is right. That is one noteworthy toilet.
Nice fedora, Dan.