Our journey went as usual from Rune Johansson place in Naum and we were all up 19 people that should meet at 04:00 on the 30th November. We started at 02:00 from home in Orebro together with my live-together man Anders and myself. Some went from Stockholm area and some from Falun. Some even started a day earlier, but most of them the same day. The buss departed as usual in time just before 05:00. Then the bus picked up people along the way. The first stop was Alingsås, where it picked up the boss Rune Nilssson plus another 5 that came on.. The trip carried on to Mölndal and we were another 10 more on the buss. After an early breakfast in Kvibille we came to Helsingborg, where the last 4 came on board. We went by ferry, buss, ate and slept and by bus again, in order to be at Wels on 1st December in the evening. Our top bus driver found the hotel even this time. The exhibition opened at 07:00 on the Saturday morning. Most of us went up at 05:30 in order to go on the bus to the exhibition. Some of us preferred to sleep out a bit and arrived at the exhibition 09:00.

As usual for Europe exhibitions or German exhibitions, there were many exhibition halls, many animals. There were 14 large exhibition halls full with animals and things. Over 10.000 rabbits, 6000 pidgins 4000 chicken, 2500 cage birds and 300 Ginny pigs.
As you can understand it was impossible to see everything, but you had to select what you were most interested in.
When we arrived I went for the Ferrets (815 of them) there were many red and blue eyed one, but zoblar and fucharna was under all critic. Later we directed our selves to the Dvargvadurarna (824 of them). Taught by the one who had been there before and a bit from own experience, we looked and looked again, went back and forth, poked a bit here and felt a bit there (although you are not allowed). We only found a Siamese coloured female that was of interest and 12 Madagascar-manteltecknade rabbits. We wrote down the number and went for the Delinererna. There were only 84 of them. We also tried to find a nice female for Roland Bye at home. Now it started to get more difficult. I did not even know what they should look like. The colour, that one I knew, but the body shape? I selected 7 of them, wrote them down on my piece of paper and went to the cue that was there.

When I had stood there for about ½ hour and moved forward about 30 meters, it started to be boring. Then I saw Leif Nyberg 2 meters further forward, so I took a chance and pushed myself towards him. After a while Annika arrived with a bear and a sandwich for him. The poor fellow had been standing there for over one hour. As it was so boring, I got to help by either holding the sandwich or the bear, as more than one free hand was not possible to have du to the crowdedness.

Now the fight started. People pushed from all direction and you could actually lean yourself backwards of forward without falling. All around us we had people from Austria, Zagreb, Italy, Germany and so on. Here it was the heaviness and elbows that counted. In a surrounding of about 2 meters here was even a small Swedish camp. It was Ebbe Nyquist, Michael Rundgren, Mats Ekenberg, Leif and myself
You became dry in your mouth from cuing that long, so Micke called John Stolpe who came and served us with a nice bear each. That one sat good and lasted long and some got worried about that the toilets were a bit far away. Just the thought of that having to leave the cue after 2 hours……

As usual, I talked to all and everyone. All the people that talked a language that I did not understand I had to ask from where they came. After a while we had quite good contacts with the some that came from the Wels district (spoke an non understanding German). Our new friend ( a big Austrian in a lilac sweater, heavy lifter, Walter Krennenbauer) got help from the guards to by hand move those who tried to move ahead of us and move them last. Suddenly we were almost there. Then the Austrian who knew the guards tried to get advantages from them, all but Walter, who let all my Swedish friends. He said that after 3 hours a few 10-20 minutes would not make any difference, it was all the bloody same, as he expressed it. Now it was quiet!!

So close but yet so far. I say to the other Austrians, that we would never come back if we got treated this bad. The pressure eased a bit when Walter told them that we understood quite a bit of what they said, but however they did not understand a bit of what we said. I asked them to sing a song for us and joined in on a German song that is called Lanterne, Lanterne. Then we were finally there. That rabbit was sold, this one and that one and that one and so on was still there. From my 37 alternatives I bought 11 of them for myself, my Norwegian and Swedish friends. When I came out from this I felt at least 20cm thinner, but is was fun.

The trip home started the next day. The packing of our luggage and rabbits went well and the trip started 2 hours earlier that scheduled. The trip went through a nice nature strip with some sun and some fog. We stopped in Nurnberg and strolled around in the old city. In the evening over a nice dinner we took the opportunity in celebrating 2 birth days. It was for Par Ingeback and Madelein Hasselberg. While we others slept or had fun, Ingeback and Hilbert arranged so that 65 of the rabbits got carrots and felt well.
The next day went on to Rostock, where we went shopping in a big way for Christmas. Earlier on Tuesday morning we went through Denmark in a sunny December morning and over the new bridge. The passengers started to drop of after a superb Christmas plate at the Sofieros castle. At about 21:00 it was only us left and we arrived in Naum – unloaded the bus and went to our cars in order to carry on our trip back home. 

Everyone was pleased and happy after as usual, the fantastic Rune-trip.