Hey guys,

GameGune 2010 is only hours away and I am really excited to be here in Bilbao, Spain. I'm currently sitting in my hotel waiting for the Counter-Strike team to arrive, so I thought this would be a good opportunity to write my first blog and tell you about my jouney to Bilbao and my first impressions of the city and the people.

My day started quite early, as my flight was supposed to depart from Munich at 09:10 CET. Getting to the airport was no problem, but things changed at the airport. I had to hand out my hand lotion to the airport security, as any form of fluid is forbidden on airplanes. What made me a bit angry was the fact that only ten meters you could purchase the exactly same hand lotion in the Duty Free Shop, but well, security goes first these days.

After checking out some of the shops and grabbing the latest newspaper, I headed to the gate where my flight was supposed to depart. When it finally was time for boarding the airplane, we were told that the flight would be delayed. It soon turned out that this was due to the French air controllers, who are on strike currently. My flight eventually departed more than three hours later than scheduled.

However, it seems I was lucky to even get to Bilbao. Both mousesports stand-ins, Blizzard and d0m AZ, had their flights cancelled. Blizzard apparently found another flight, while d0m AZ needs to hope for a flight tomorrow morning. I am really sorry for him, he skipped his vacation just to represent mousesports at GameGune, and now he can not even be sure if he will be there in time. Maybe you will see me playing instead of him :D Anyway, I hope that no other teams are affected by the strike.

As we could not use the French airspace, we flew over Italy and the Mediterranean Sea. I saw the airport of Nice for the first time, it's right beside the sea! Must be beautiful to land or take off there. When we finally were about to land in Bilbao, we were suddenly surrounded by countless clouds. Beautiful white clouds. You couldn't see anything else when looking outside the window, just white. I've been in an airplane for some time now, but I never witnessed something similar to this.

The city of Bilbao is near the Atlantic and surrounded by hills. From what I have seen so far, I think the city has a good mixture of modern and vanguard architecture. There is a really awesome looking building called the Guggenheim Museum I have to see once again before leaving. The climate is really enjoyable, I'd say it has around 22-23 centigrade, which hits the spot if you ask me. People also seem to be nice, although not to many of them speak English.

Alright, I'm finished with my blog and still no sign of the guys. I hope they don't arrive too late, so we can grab some food together and talk a bit before the action starts tomorrow. Make sure to check back to Fnatic.com for our coverage from the event, which will be featuring photos, interviews and more.

Andreas