At least I can say… I´ve lived!!! (Second Part: Being a Quake Lady)

Once I became into QL – Lady Spain, playing was my very favorite activity. I can remember entire weekends playing, just stopping for eating and for get some sleep. It was funny to try to explain that war game playing passion at work to my female colleagues… and the wondered face of my male colleagues, maybe not even really believing me. (Hehehehehehe!).

At the end of 2002 one of the Lords sent a mail talking about a LAN party that would take place in Hagen, in April 2003, the V [´ju:nien]. Hagen is very close to Dortmund, Essen and Bochum, places where several Lords live. Since I knew about the LAN party, I had clear I should go. At that time Germanwings was offering really cheap prices for going from Madrid to Colonia, I´m afraid they don´t have that route anymore. I also found very good prices at an Ibis hotel in Dortmund, because, of course, going there just for the LAN would be a bit silly, so I took some vacations days to stay a bit more, btw it was my first travel to Germany.


The Lords were really wondered about my decision of going to the LAN, some of them living just some kms. away of Hagen weren´t sure about going there and in my case, I took the decision so fast… even knowing it meant to go there carrying my PC (not a laptop at that moment, but a normal desk PC), they would bring me a screen, but I should bring the rest with me.

Curro decided to join us, but due his work, he should go just for the LAN… and yes, also carrying his stuff! (The first one wondered was myself!). And yes, sure, my family and friends thought I should be crazy for going to Germany, carry on my PC, just for meeting my klan and participate in a LAN party… well… what can I say? For me it´s just a matter of: if I want to do it and I can do it… why not to?

So, as far as the LAN was programmed for the weekend (from Friday night till Sunday midday), I decided to be there from Wednesday night till Monday afternoon. I´d arrived at Colonia´s aiport at 23:45, Voni and MadDoc went to picked me up. They made a banner for me to recognize them! :D



On Thursday morning I went alone to meet Dortmund, a city that I really like a lot. Yes! I think I should do a post about Dortmund some day! ;)

It was my first contact with Germans in Germany, I should say it wondered me a lot how well educate and how kind they are. Somebody told me that I think that because I can´t understand what they are saying, but I don´t think so. I´m sorry for saying this, but in that moment my point of comparison was Spanish people, I had gone several times to Germany and I confirm it, they are so kind, well educated and warm (that contrast a lot with the coldness image people all over the world have about them). Also was nice and wondering as well to see that foreigners living there are very well integrated, I even saw black people working in high positions, like if they would be just another German one (that from my point of view, they are, just that this is not exactly like that in Spain, that´s why I´m remarking it).

Voni took that afternoon free for being my guide in Dortmund. I had bought a tourist book about the city and already had choose the places that I would like to meet, so, when he asked me where I would like to go, I showed him the places I had selected… point was that of course I didn´t know that all of them were far away from each other, and even being like that, he showed me them all that afternoon! :P :D

Two of my favorite places I met that afternoon are:

The Bodelschwingh Castle



The Rombergpark









That night we had a Quake Lords Dinner. So, there I was! Finally meeting some my battles´ pals in real life! :D Yeap, the communication was a bit problematic due the language thing, but was really nice and exciting for me to share that dine with them. The really funny part was when I wanted to clarify a point of the menu before asking for my food, the menu was just in German and there was a word that I didn´t understood in a dish that at the first sight I liked and I asked them to translate it to me… but they forgot the word in English and started to try to explain me it as best as they could, even with gestures… what a pity not to have a video of that!! Especially when Maddoc tried to explain it was something the vampires were afraid of! Hehehe! The whole restaurant released that they were trying to explain me that word and finally someone of another table said “garlic! It´s garlic in English!” :PP



(To be continued)

At least I can say… I´ve lived!!! (First Part)

As more or less all the females I know, I use to hate video games (in this concetp I included pc games and similar). My husband, Curro, is a video games fan and yes, I also was for several years part of that group of women that usually complain about “him” playing long time and feeling like the video game is some kind of unbeatable rival. So, usually, to watch him in front of the pc with a game made immediately my stomach to start to segregate gastric acid not in a nice way. But I should clarify a point here. Problem was not exactly just due the quantity of hours that he spent (now he plays just a bit), in front of the pc playing instead of giving me some attention, ok, that was bad enough but actually the worst part was about the kind of games he usually plays… monsters, blood, violence, explosives sounds… I mean action 3D games for being precise.

In my case, the pc games I like are the mind games, those ones that make you to think or, in case, pacific games like digger, mah jong, tetrix… that kind.





One day, in 2001, we had a dinner with a friend of mine, it was Saturday and 2 hours before the date time, Curro was playing at the pc and definitely not even thinking about getting ready for going out to that dinner. So, I started to remind him our date. Half of hour later, same scenario, me in a ruder way, I should say, reminding him again about the date. 1 hour before the date time, I was really mad due he was still playing and we would need at least 30 minutes to be at the date place. So, I got close to him as much as I can, telling him that he should stop playing or we´ll have problems. But in that moment I saw the screen and first thing that was amazing for me was that it had no monsters but soldiers “working together” for doing something that at that moment I didn´t got exactly what. At that time he already had explained me that he can´t stop till the end of the round or his team won´t be able to save the gold… that was some kind of mars language for me at that moment, but I was completely captivated about those cartoons running around, shooting to the enemy side and helping each other, medics giving life, lieutenant giving ammo, engineers placing dynamite… he explained me a bit more about the game and about how to manage the character, so I asked him if I could try to play while he got ready… and I should say that we were late at that date due my fault! :$

I asked him to please install that game, Return to Castle Wolfestein, in my pc. Please take into consideration that I had never ever played that kind of games before, so, simple things as just shoot while running, was difficult for me, but I was willing to learn in my own speed and by my own, so, Curro just gave me general instructions and with that I start my journey in different servers learning the game. First of all, was important for me to choose a nickname that made obvious I was a girl but not a teen, not a masculine one neither, and I found it: Lady. It was some kind of custom to put the name of your country after the nick, I was living in Spain and already with Spanish nationality, so I decided to use it, then my nick was Lady Spain.



So, once I had the nick I really liked, I start to travel around different servers. In first place I went to Latin-American ones and the experience was terrible. Taking into account that I was still learning how to move (not even how to play!) ;P it was really not difficult for them to believe that I was a woman… but the sexist commentaries wondered me a lot. I decided to move to Spanish servers: more sexist comments but with worst words. So I tried with American servers… yeap, wondering, also sexist comments, I really didn´t expected that. French servers: same thing. Finally at Italian servers it started to become better, no sexist comments, but the point that wondered me was that Italians were the only ones that, while playing, people of the same team were shooting their own colleagues in order to be the ones to carry on the gold. Then I started to play at Swedish, Norwegian and German servers…. YYYYYYEEEEEEAAAAPPPPP!!! FINALLY!!! They respected me and treated me very well, even taking a bit of time to give me some clues to improve my game. :D



RTCW started to be my new vicious. Well, if you look at me, you wouldn´t ever think I could like to play a shooting game, but at that time I loved to play at Swedish, Norwegian and German servers and it started to took up most of my free time. Ah! And just to mention it! I didn´t like to play as a medic but as engineer or lieutenant. ;D



By chance one day I started to play in a German Server named “Quake Lords” and some guys there even started to talk a bit with me (not just about the game I mean). It became into my favorite server and some weeks later even one of them, Eagle, became into my msn friend and time to time he took time to take me to an empty server to teach me a bit more how to play well. Was really nice to find people my age playing that game! So, more and more I spent my whole playing time at QL´s server and the rest of QL´s and other fans that also played there became into my game friends, with some of them I also had a msn friendship. I had been the only one female playing with them for so many months. It was really funny! Oh! I really enjoyed that! Point is that you really feel like you would be “doing something”, like the team work you have done at the game was in something real, not just inside a pc… yes! I started to understand Curro! :D (But rarely we played together, he liked, of course, to play at Spanish servers and for me all the times that I tried it the experience was terrible, so no reason why to lose my time in that way).



More or less a year after I started to play with them and just by chance, talking with my good friend Voni (one of the QL´s), I really don´t remember who asked whom, but point is he told me QL´s never invited people to belong to the klan so I told him I would love to be part of QL´s but I knew it was just for males and Germans… so he told me it wasn´t true… then I asked if I could be part of the clan! :D



It took more time than usual for them to decide if I could be part of the klan… yeap! First of all because I was a female!! :/ But also the language was a problem because they talked with each other with Team Speak and my German is so, so basic (enough for not to die if I need to eat in a German speaking country or to ask someone if speaks English!) and for them it wouldn´t be so comfortable to talk in English while talking, specially at klan wars… but… wondering! They accepted me!!! :))))))) So I become into QL – Lady Spain :D
Watch this video! (But you really will understand the funny part of it if you know RTCW)



(To be continued)