Milano (Feb) Day 4
Day 4. The last day of the Milan Tattoo Convention. I had been sick the past two days, and I really wanted to get over it, so I slept in again. I woke up sometime around 1pm. I felt fine, until I stood up. It’s weird how a change in position can also make you go from “ok” to “death-like”.
I jumped in the shower and just stood there for a while, trying to wake up and gear myself for another day. Out of the shower, I donned some apparel, grabbed my camera, downed a shot of Jager for health, and headed downstairs.
When I first entered the convention center, I though everything was going to be better. It didn’t seem as hot, or as crowded. About ten seconds of time cleared up that misconception =). Amazingly, unlike US conventions, Sunday was the most busy day of the entire weekend, and therefore the hottest inside. It was like a rock concert. Everyone all pressed up against each other, unable to really move, and hard to breath. Just dead air.
That’s when I knew I would only be able to take a brief amount of time of this. First stop, the food court thing in room 3. I needed to get some food. The line there was long, but went rather quickly. I opted for the pasta again. I figure it’s the safe bet =)
I took my food back to the Tribulation book to sit and hang out while I ate my lunch. Jeremiah Barba was getting tattooed today, so his station was available for me to chill at. After I finished my lunch, opted just to stay there. There were too many people and it was too hot to do any walking around. I figured, I would just take peoples photo’s as they walked by.
I’m glad that I did stick around, because [@]Grundstuck[/@] and [@]VenusInFur[/@] showed up with their awesome new shirts that they nabbed from the day before =). It was cool hanging out with them and the couple others there for a while. Nice people =)
About an hour or so later, they announced that they were going to begin the tattoo contests up on the main stage. I didn’t want to miss out on that, because I figured this would be the best way to get shots of a lot of great tattoo work, and not have to hunt all over the convention to get it. (I’m always trying to figure out the best way to do something with as minimal work as possible =)
Let the contests begin!
The first section was for best back piece. There were a lot of great tattoos being shown off. The best part was that I snuck myself on stage and got to be part of the coverage area. This meant that after the judges and audience looked at the tattoo, they would come over to where we were just so that we could take photos of them. That was awesome. I didn’t have to move more than ten feet, and I got the best shots possible of the work.
After the judging and awards, the convention pretty much died. Stations begin wrapping up, and booths were starting to empty out. I helped clean up a couple of my friends stations and then packed up my stuffs and headed to the room to check out my shots from earlier. On my way out of the convention center, I noticed the guy running the Max Signorello Tattoo Supply booth wearing a Skully shirt. I remembered him from the previous conference. His english was about as good as my italian, so we didn’t talk long, but shook hands and traded smiles. Awesome guy!
I only had an hour to check out my stuff before I was to meet everyone downstairs to head out for our final dinner in Milan. Tonight we decided to head out into the city via taxi and go out to a really nice restaurant and splurge with some great wine. The group this evening would be [@]DanMarshall[/@], his wife, [@]Liorcifer[/@], his wife, Ethan Morgan, Robert Hernandez, Jeremiah Barba, his girlfriend, and myself.
The taxis let us off a little ways away from the place because it was along the canals, so we had to walk a ways to get there. It was really cold that night, but the area of the city we were in was beautiful. I snapped a couple photos of the nightlife, and then we all had a great meal.
Enjoying a great authentic meal with friends from all around the world in a foreign country is by far one of my most favorite things ever. There isn’t anything like that feeling. It’s like a family reunion of long lost friends. It just makes everything taste that much better, and the conversations that much more entertaining.
I can’t wait until I get to do this again in Munich at the end of March. If anyone here wants to join in, you’re more than welcome, and I look forward to meeting more of you and having amazing and memorable experiences with you, my friends!
If you want to see more photos of the tattoos that were in the contests, Click here to view this blog on BodyMod.org
.: Adam
