This weekend was really fun. I had been looking forward to this for a long while, because a group of my friends came together to plan a big meetup at FACTS. We were 9 people in total, and some of us were even meeting each other for the first time.
We woke up semi early because our friend was arriving at 10 am to pick up Nathan and I and take us to FACTS. It was about 1h drive from our destination. The drive itself wasn’t bad and we arrived at the convention around 11:30am, after struggling with finding a parking spot.
Our friends were gathered outside and it was REALLY nice seeing familiar and new faces. I met my friend Sunni and Gortax for the first time, since Sunni had flown in from her country to attend this event. After our first greetings, we headed into the building. We started right in the middle where all the big stalls were. You could skip that if you wanted and just enter it by the artist alley.
We started walking around and looking at what they had. There were a lot of everything. TCG stands, T-shirts, Plushies, Posters, Cloths etc… We ended up splitting into smaller groups cuz of different interest and walking pace. We visited the 18+ area which was the first for me. I thought it was sort of cool that they had a dedicated section for those type of stuff. After a while, we all met up at the food hall to get something to eat and drink, and just to share the stuff we had bought so far. We then checked out the artist alley, where I ended up buying a lit up picture frame of Totoro (Japanese movie). I also walked around looking for more League of Legends trading cards, but only found one stall that got them.
Just like that it was already almost 6pm. We met up one last time before we said our goodbyes and left. It was really fun and I enjoyed meeting up with so many of my friends, BUT I did get super overwhelmed with the entire thing and I also felt like I didn’t get to see anything (Which was ofc, my fault for rushing through it all) If I do this again I will focus more about seeing everything rather than just sticking around my friends and just go where they wanted to go.
The drive home was just as smooth, but when we finally got home all the walking and overwhelming feelings caught up to me and I started feeling a bit sick. I also hadn’t eat a lot throughout the day. I just had 1 egg + bacon sandwich and 1 onigiri throughout the day. As for drinks, I only drank 1 monster and 1 cola. I also just felt overly exhausted and it felt as if everything in my body hurt xD.
After a much needed rest I felt much better. Sunday I joined the band boys for their photo shoot. That was also very fun, because they had such a great and goofy vibes.
Overall a great weekend with a lot of fun and I used a lot of energy XD Had a lot of fun and can’t wait to hopefully do more IRL things like this in the future.
So it’s been a while since last time I posted due to constantly forgetting about it xD but there are a few things that has happened which I will briefly update you guys in this post.
So we left off just at the end of January, going into February. The events that happened were 1) Valentines Day, 2) The boys first concert of 2026 and 3) My first TCG convention.
FEBRUARY HAUL
Valentines day
Not much planned for that day because Nathan had band practice for most of the day, so I decided to do a little Valentines stream with my community. I had a lot of fun. Tried an upcoming game together with Seyaca and then a new cozy game called “A little to the left” which is about organizing.
I made reservations for Nathan and I do go out the day after to a place we have been several times called Amadeus which serves “All you can eat, ribs”. We tried taking our bikes besides me suggestion that we go by public transport. Nathan quickly realized that biking wouldn’t work and we had to ride home and cancel. He understood that I was a bit upset about this, so we decided to go out to one of the few restaurants closer to our home. We picked one and made a reservation. I had a GIANT calzone and Nathan had a chicken pineapple cream curry. Even though it wasn’t what we had planned I appreciate Nathan understanding they situation and we ended up having a nice time in the end ❤
Pepperoni CalzoneChicken cream curry
The boys first concert 2026
The weekend after that aka 25th of February, the boys had their first concert of 26 in Gent. It was in this small very narrow bar with a small stage. They were the warmup band, but there were a lot of confusion about when they were going to play. First it was 10pm, then it became 9pm and at the last minute it went back to 10pm again, which is a bit annoying since Gent is ~1h drive from Antwerp. We also got to learn that the drummer had agreed to let the other band use his drum set, so we couldn’t even leave after their performance because of that. So we weren’t home until close to 1am, which isn’t the best.
The concert on the other hand was great! I personally thought they were WAY BETTER than the “Main” band. Not due to bias, but just like the genre better, the songs and just the overall experience. The members of the other band were all ~18-20, so they were quite young. They didn’t put any of their music online and was planning on just do physical stuff like Vinyls and CDs. They were apparently were well known and already had a decent fan base. I just personally didn’t really vibe with their music. The female lead singer also was kind of a drama queen and wore a pretty short skirt. Their most raved song was something about a monkey? idk xD Just glad when it was all over and we get to go home. I also had to wake up early the next morning.
My first TCG convention
The next day I woke up at around 8:30 am to get ready to ride into the city. I left my bike the underground bike garage by the central station and took the train to Breda. I was attending my first TCG (Trading card game) convention with Nacho and Moopie. It was my first time, since I don’t collect any TCGs. Nacho overslept a bit, so I got breakfast at the station before heading to the location. There were for some strange reason a lot of police people there that morning, even a small squad outside of the station as I left towards the buss stop. I never got to learn why.
After meeting up, we just walked around looking at all the stalls and all the cards. Nacho collects Pokémon cards while Moopie and I didn’t collect anything. I did however decide to get a few cards since I have been considering starting a new hobby, but I didn’t want to go with Pokémon. I picked the somewhat new TCG set from League of legends called “Riftbound” since I felt the most connected with that. I bought 5 single cards and 3 booster packs. The cards I got were really nice looking and I am excited to look for more in the future. We also had this funny moment where we walked around to find the best price for those transparent plastic sleeves used to protect the cards. I bought some and put them in my pocket and then we went to sit down. Not even 10 min later when we were a bout to leave, I asked Nacho if I could have some sleeves from here, and it wasn’t until I stood up and reached into my pocket that I remember that we JUST bought some! The best part was that all three of us had forgotten, despite walking around for past 30+ minutes looking for them. We all had such a great laugh and a great way to end the convention.
After my train ride home, I went down to the garage where I parked my bike and was greeted by the worst possible scenario. My bike was STOLEN! At first I thought I had forgotten where I parked it, but then I saw my cheap locker that had been cut, just laying on the ground. It was such a shitty way to end the day. I couldn’t walk around too long either since my phone was on less than 20% battery and I needed it for my buss ticket. R.I.P bike :c
MARCH -> TODAY
March was quite uneventful. The only thing that did happen was that I applied to a job at our local McDonalds. I was given an interview which I was thankfully allowed to do in English. I mentioned that I was very flexible as one of the reasons to pick me. He then asked if I would be able to work a random 1pm shift, to which I answered “ye” and he went “woaw, you are indeed flexible” xD. I met up the next week for my 2h trial run of “proefperiode” as they call it here. It was a lot and much harder than I initially thought. I was in charge of the grill aka “making” the burger patties. I tried my best, but it was sometimes hard to use the spatula to scrape the burgers off the grill without leaving too much behind. I also did some finishing and just learned about the workplace in between. The worker who was in charge of training me did his best to do it in English, and he did a really good job. Later when things were quite and we had a small chat. He asked me which lvl my Dutch was. I said it was 2.4 and went “THEN WHY ARE WE DOING THIS IN ENGLISH!!” xD Apparently he was lower lvl than me. I tried to explain that it was due to being nervous BUT I was nervous xD
I ended up not getting the job in the end.
That leads us to Easter. Where nothing much happened. I did get to do a lot of games with friends and I also finally started my Easter chocolate. Nathan and I ordered a lot of Chinese food which were delicious. My next adventure is FACTS on April 11th. I am so excited cuz I will be meeting up with so many of my friends. We will be like 8 people walking around.
That’s it for this quarter update. I hope that you all have had a great 2026 so far. Enjoyed your Valentines day and Easter with either your loved ones or just celebrated by yourself ^^. Next post will be about my first FACTS experience (if I don’t forget again)
Last weekend Nathan and I decided to attend Made in Asia. It was a very last minute decision. We even bought the tickets just one day before the event started. The reason was because this year they were merging with two other conventions, so you would basically be able to attend 3 cons for the price of one. The interesting part is that “Made in Asia” was the first convention Nathan and I attended together.
We woke up quite early on Saturday since it sadly takes us 2h just to travel one way. I quickly washed my hair and got dressed. We decided to take a new rout in to Brussels. Usually we take the buss into the city and then the train from the central station, but this time we decided to take the train from where we live in to the city and then swap to another train again. While we were on the train and close to entering the city I heard that there were some Swedish people sitting behind us. I overheard them saying that they were going to Brussels Midi, which despite how it sounds is NOT the same as Brussels Central. Nathan and I had just figured this out earlier that day since we were also going off on that station. They sadly didn’t know, and I was too shy to speak up and help them even though I understood what they were saying. So I just watched them make their mistake and told Nathan about it afterwards, to which he said that I was should have helped them.
After that little moment we made it to Brussels Midi and headed towards the metro to take it up to the convention center. We arrived there at around 1:30 pm. I sadly missed the cosplay contest, but we would have had to wake up around at 9 am if I we were to have a chance to make it in time. It was all good though, we just started walking around looking at all the vendors and see what they were selling. Just like any convention it was a lot of the same with a few things sticking out, but for the most part its was T-shirts and other variety cloths, figurines, playing cards, swords and food. I did get to meet up with my streamer friend Fluff, because she had come there to help out her tattoo artist friend.
We ended up staying there until almost closing hour. It was around 6:30 pm when we decided to head home, and the event closed at 7. We did get some nice things though. I got two t-shirts, a card holder and some washi tape. Nathan got a key chain and a t-shirt. We also bought two bottles of liqueur where one was Tutti frutti and the second one was forest berries and vanilla.
After another 2h long travel to get home, we finally got there and just hung out with our friends for the rest of the night. I did have a really fun time. If it wasn’t for the fact that these things are so expensive and also quite far to travel, I would love to attend more of these kind of things.
Our next outing will be to do a late celebration of both of our birthdays. Where we will be going to an “all you can eat” fancy restaurant. I am looking forward to that ^^
The Anna behind Yannani 