---
type: blog
title: Eurofurence, a goodbye and a promise
brief: >
    Reminiscing about the beauty of Eurofurence, furries and *being*.
tags:
    - personal
    - real_life
    - eurofurence
    - ef28
---

Eurofurence 28... You were a beautiful event. One hell of a ride, in a way we both fully expected yet still surprised us.

We arrived on the 17th, right after a stressful week handing in our master thesis. The reg queue was abominably long, in part because the priority queue actually was a lot slower than the regular one... That was... Fun.
But conventions always start a little slow for us.



And from then on, every single drop was worth it. It's hard to put into words, but whoever was there I am sure shares
this feeling - of a big family, almost, and belonging together.

We got to see so, so, *so* many suits. We are talking about literal thousands.
A suit parade that took 20 minutes to pass by you, every second of it filled with creativity you hadn't seen before. And I don't want to know how many of them we got to hug, too!! Not enough, really, to be quite honest.

![Kernel, one of the gorgeous suiters from EF](20240919_175352.jpg)
Hi Kernel~, one of the *amazing* Protogen suiters at Eurofurence.

![Protogens and Synths group photo :D](20240919_174629.jpg)
And the group photo of the Proot meet and Beep~

Stickers *everywhere* - some we bought, some we exchanged, some we found.
So many plastered onto the sticker-wall or people's laptops or such. Each one like a little memory to hang on to, now.

![Stickerwallll](20240919_181737.jpg)
The Stickerwall at EF - on the second day even, this is not its final form!

And we learned. About how to stay safe. How to handle yourself in crowds, be yourself more...
Make plushies. That one was a lot of fun! Saw games and enjoyed music and dances.
I feel like we kept busy with so many
panels and there were so many more to explore, I have *no* idea how you are supposed to ever get to them!<br>
Sorry PhD Furs meet, we were busy :P

!["How to make your own Plushie" panel](20240921_111557.jpg)
A scene from the "How to make your own Plushie" panel. It's extra funny out of context :P

So many smart people... I know people joke about how the EF was next to a nerd convention, but the people we met
at the Eurofurence were ... Ridiculously smart. One of them just casually mentioning they're a core dev for the Berlin
public transport?!
One of the core blender developers?? Y'All are amazing. We kinda count, too :P

On the way home we met a few other furries, just... Randomly. And they felt so much more familiar, in spirit, than so many
other people, even ones we know.

Now we are sitting at home, tired, feeling like we need a week or two just to sleep and catch up.
But what's lacking in energy right now is replaced with pure ... Warmth, and connection. And motivation to do so much more for next year.

![Suitwalk before it got going](20240920_111740.jpg)
A scene from the Suit Walk before it really got going. Just look at so much creativity... <3

We want a suit. Art. More stickers. We got so many hugs that we *will* repay to the people of Eurofurence, with interest.
I'm not kidding - this event single-handedly makes me want the suit be designed *speficially* to be huggable.


Eurofurence, you are a force of nature. Seconds drawn out to hours while the whole event feels over in the blink of an eye, almost too much to experience yet it feels like you only scratched the surface of it all.
The moment you enter the CCH you feel like you had never left from last year, yet right now it feels so far away, still.

This is not a goodbye. Eurofurence may be over, but it's not gone - we are all just looking ahead to the next one.

See you in 2025