CeSFuR was an absolute blast. Perhaps because of its location in the middle of the Czech countryside, it was far more relaxing than a usual furry convention while its relatively small size was definitely conducive towards meeting new furs as well as frequently bumping into new acquaintances. I have always preferred smaller conventions and with around 250 furs in attendance, this was perfectly sized. In addition to this, we again spent very little money, needing only an additional £30 on top of the £110 of Polish money which was left over from Gdakon in March. Consequently, not only do I find these cons better than the larger ones, but I also find them far cheaper and thus better value for money too. EF in August may yet prove me wrong but my feeling is that I'm likely to focus on the Central and Eastern European cons going forward. There will be many tough choices to make in 2016 though.

One of the huge advantages of CeSFuR was how easy it was to meet people, with the compact nature of the hotel aiding acquaintances as you often just bumped into the same people over and over and got talking. The nightly campfire was another highlight as it's very easy to meet people when you are sat around a campfire, cooking snausages and drinking beer. We went down to the fire on both the Thursday and Saturday evenings, and it was a fantastic place to be, with the path to it lit by oil lights and the fire itself hypnotically dancing in the breeze with the Sparks ascending towards the trees. Some furs had brought a guitar and they were singing Czech folk songs in dulcet tones, adding to the party atmosphere, while the endless supply of snausages meant we could all get to know each other over exceptional food with that unmistakeable smokey flavour you get when you cook on an open fire. The snausages were of high quality but also frozen, meaning we had to cut grooves into them to aid the cooking time. Either way, time didn't matter as life took on an air of relaxation, with little pressure or deadlines. It's very rare I can relax at all but the stunning views over the Czech countryside, a lake sunlit in the summer sunshine and a modest program of events meant that going with the flow was the only way to go.

In many respects, this felt less like a furry con and rather a country retreat with friends. We knew about forty before we arrived and probably doubled our friendship group, with some recognizable faces from Gdakon back in March. We also got to meet our Russian friends again, with whom it is always a pleasure to spend time. On opening night, the Wednesday, I spent a good two hours with Dimonius in the tea room, which was a furry-run enterprise by a known tea expert in the Czech furry community. This was one of the highlights of the con for me largely as it was something different, with a tea tasting session on the Friday adding to the experience. The tea bar itself was open like the alcoholic bar and here you could purchase a range of about forty different teas of differing blends, caffeine strength and sweetness. Minon, the expert, was on hand to advise depending on what tea you wanted and then he brewed it up for you while you waited. As the water had to be at the correct temperature and the infusion with the tea was so important, it did take up to fifteen minutes to get the order but it was definitely worth the wait as that flavours were divine. I had two teas with Dimonius and his Russian friends on the Wednesday night - one a Tiger Assam and the other a decaffeinated fruit tea - and I must admit that chatting over tea was very similar to chatting over alcohol, except the awkward drunk effect didn't set in. This was quite positive and I lamented the lack of a suitable tea house in the UK. At around £1.20 a cup, the tea was affordable and the faint waft of cinnamon and incense in the room definitely contributed to the relaxing air. I did feel a little guilty when speaking to the Russians as Dimonius had to do a lot of translating for me when the conversation slipped back into Russian from English, furthering my resolve to learn Russian more. I could pick up on some words but I was still a long way away from conversational standard. The same was true with the Hungarians although there is no way I expect myself to know that language and they were happy with English. English, although with Czech and Slovak, were ubiquitous languages of the con so we had few communication issues and I even found my Czech knowledge improving as the con proceeded.

As I mentioned, on the Friday we were back in the tea room to enjoy the tasting session, where we got to sample six different types of tea with Minon giving a talk (in Czech but translated into English) about them, along with general tea history and other interesting stuff. The talk lasted an hour and was very enjoyable - aside from cold carrying slurpy man next to me - and I got to find out a range of things about tea that I didn't know. The preparation of the tea was the most interesting though and it was fascinating to watch him make the brews as if he was a magician brewing spells. I don't have a particular favourite tea we tried but the mint tea brought back memories of Morocco in January (although it wasn't quite as sweet) while the final tea, in a tablet form not too dissimilar to an Oreo biscuit, was a relic of Communist times and was pretty horrendous. The differences between green, white, black and red tea were also interesting to discern, particularly regarding bitterness, while the whole event was received well by the twenty-five or so of us in the room. The tea room and the bar both operated on a credit system so when I came to pay on the Sunday morning, I delighted Minon when he asked for feedback when I said this was one of the best things about the con while he poured me a small glass of refreshing ice tea. It was just a shame the tea drinking was confined to one room as it would have been great to take the tea outside. Consequently I didn't drink as much tea as I would have liked.

Similarly, we didn't drink that much beer either. We had brought a fair few beers to sample in our room, which we did to some extent, but in the end we ended up having a final night panic session on Monday after the con to get through them all. We also didn't end up buying many drinks at the bar and the one drunken night I typically have at a con didn't really materialize, although the Friday night with Andy Blackpaw and the Hungarian crew was probably the closest we came. This was very much a night of new friendships as we met around ten new Hungarians including Dave, who had a fantastically cute wolf Fursuit in pharaoh regalia to match the convention theme. We ended up having an engaging discussion about politics over some Hungarian Tokaj before moving on to the beer before the bar closed around 2am. We then brought beer downstairs and drank on the terrace, overlooking the lake as we watched the sun start to rise. Wolfie went to bed about one hour earlier but I tend to stay up until the very end at these events and thus it proved again. This was also the case on the Saturday, when I flitted around various groups of people - having a room party with Kamsirius and the Russians, fursuiting for a while, going to the campfire with the Hungarians and speaking to Skavi and Xolani, during which time I got my hand caught in a rather viciously slamming door which hurt like buggery. I chatted to Skavi a little while around the campfire as Xolani and Tark went to reception while I ended the evening with Andy and his friend again on the dance floor as Enter Sandman was being blasted out. It was now approaching 4am and we were the last few up, and indeed the only three people on the dance floor. Metallica bizarrely then segued into 99 Luftballon before the DJ decided to end the night with a Hungarian folk song "because everyone here is Hungarian". I don't know what to make of being called a Hungarian although we are honourary Hungarian furs so I guess it's just part of the assimilation process. We also spent a good twenty minutes trying to wake up a guy in a black wolf Fursuit, who had just collapsed in a chair and was looking somewhat worse for wear. In the end, he was fine and we all could go to sleep.

The hotel itself was quite a good one, in the middle of the Czech countryside with the little village of Lisek around 2km away. On the Thursday we walked out here along a country road which was undergoing Tarmac repair work that very afternoon. Lisek is a picturesque village with one bar, a little Coop shop and a charming church on top of a hill with a very well-kept graveyard. Getting to the church proved difficult and we had to yomp over a farmer's field before entering the back way, but once in the grounds its functional beauty became apparent. Unfortunately the church was closed so we contented ourselves with walking around this rather typical village and it was certainly good to see how rural Czechs live away from the capital, it seemed a more authentic experience. The villages in the Czech Republic are gloriously pretty, so much so that Wolfie and I are contemplating buying a house there at some point in the future (provided the EU referendum result doesn't shut this avenue off for us). Lisek was one such example, with a small textile and carpenters works in the centre along with an agricultural farm of some type on the outskirts. I think it was a centre for rearing cows.

We hired a car, thinking that we could do a bit of sightseeing during the day and then enjoy the con in the evening. Certainly with smaller cons, there is a paucity of events and so this can easily be done, but we found ourselves wanting to stay at the hotel as it was so relaxing. Going to a few mid-afternoon room parties helped and in the end, many of our sightseeing plans fell by the wayside. I had hoped to visit Brno, the Czech Republic's second city, which was only forty-five miles away but this was soon canned. However, we did get to see a few sights, including the awe-inspiring Pernštejn Castle, which was about twenty kilometres from the hotel. Situated in the mountains, marking a change of topography from the rolling countryside near Lisek, the Castle is a true fairytale structure. Perched above the rivers Svratka and Nedvědička and the village of Nedvědice, this Gothic construct is still in the form in which it was completed in the sixteenth century, despite being attacked by the Swedes during The Thirty Years War. The cannonball marks still remain but it was a very resilient fortress, with many of its residents receiving military honours in battle. There is a car park by the river, where we had to navigate the payment system courtesy of one friendly lady, and you have to hike up the hill to the Castle, which only makes the experience more magical. There was a numbered eductation trail through the woods to the Castle but we couldn't make sense of this so we just walked straight up. It was a swelteringly hot Friday afternoon but there were very few tourists there, only perhaps around ten, and although we didn't have time to do the interior tour, we did enjoy walking around the grounds, looking at the granaries, tower, fortress and dungeons (Wolfie particularly enjoyed the last bit). There was also an exhibition in one of the rooms of the castle dedicated to the military devices used to defend it throughout the years, as well as some of the brave men who fought to keep it. This was interesting but what was most marvellous was wandering betwixt the tall towers of the castle, reaching up to the sky from next to you, while the commanding view over the forested valley was breathtaking in its awesomeness. The tower, connected to the main castle by a wooden bridge, added to the magic as it jutted out of the cliff face and commanded its presence over the countryside around. There was a small restaurant there too but as the drink driving limit in the Czech Republic is zero, we couldn't stop for a drink, although I did buy Wolfie a nice cookies and cream ice cream.

The nearest sizable town was Nove Mesto Na Morave, a rather non-descript place but a place with a gloriously beautiful red church upon which murals and frescos were painted. This town was where the main supermarket was and with my back playing up again, on the Thursday we went there looking for some ibuprofen or equivalent. Unfortunately, you can only get such medicaments at an actual pharmacy - supermarkets and drogeries do not sell them - but we only found this out by visiting three separate shops before being advised of this. Still, we got to walk around the town and see the charming cobbled main square too, upon which the pharmacy sat. There was a festival going on here for some reason, with a small stage erected and concessions like face painting and games lining the pavements. We saw a troupe of dancing girls with batons in hand nervously awaiting their turn on the stage and there was a definite carnival atmosphere in the town. Sadly we couldn't stay too long as we needed to be back for the Fursuit walk, which was at the far more acceptable time of 5pm rather than early in the morning at the vast majority of cons I've been to.

The Fursuit walk was well-organized although it was quite short, consisting of a walk around the hotel followed by a trip down to the lake. EZ Wolf, who was the Guest of Honour, took over the photographing and did a very good job of organizing us, so much so that you can actually see me in the picture (although in the typical paws in the air shot, my face is obscured by a red salamander's paw), which is quite rare. I tagged along with Dave, and he helped to get me towards the front, which was very much appreciated. We also then posed for a range of other shots too, including one where I played with a bemused fisherman's line and another where someone pretended to kick me into the lake. We also had fun throwing our Russian friend Tim into the murky water. In some respects, Tim was a figure of fun at the con as he flitted about everywhere and got into all kinds of scrapes. We had met him at Rusfurrence in 2013 and have got on well since, so it was great seeing him again. His red hat was somewhat ubiquitous and very fun to steal from him, with Lovely Dog and I having a great deal of fun at Tim's expense while he did spend a lot of the time saying "you're so fluffy" to everyone he met, whether they were in Fursuit or not (he once did this on my jumper sleeve for some reason).

As is usual at these events, I sometimes find it a rather difficult mix between socializing and suiting although I think I did both justice. There are always so many things to do though so perhaps I didn't suit as much as I could have, getting about eight hours in on four separate occasions overall. Suiting was very rewarding as everyone stopped for hugs and scritches, while the suit enabled me to meet new people too as this is the only recognizable thing about me on social profiles, and specifically FA and Twitter. Indeed had I not suited on the Friday night, I wouldn't have met Andy and we wouldn't have had our Hungarian drinking session so it was a good facilitator while the sixty or so other suiters there were all fantastic to interact with. Indeed, it was great my suit was noticed and appreciated by so many, which is again something I rarely experience at larger cons as you are just one of a larger crowd. The suiting delivered many happy memories, none more so than the inflation and balloon popping parties I attended with the Russians on the Saturday. Part of this charm was the presence of Taffka, who made my suit two and a half years ago and who had not seen it live since the night she gave it to me at Rusfurrence in February 2013. It was a real honour suiting around her and she admitted she was delighted to see her suit again, saying she has a particular affinity with all her creations. The balloon party was great fun and largely consisted of popping balloons in weird and wonderful ways, from hugging them to dry humping them and everything in between. During the afternoon, we launched balloons from the fourth floor window into the grassland and onto the balcony below, with a few fursuiters and children struggling to catch them as they blew in the breeze. Indeed when they did catch them, they often popped due to sharp paws. We were sent to the naughty corner when popping balloons late in evening, with children trying to sleep, but this time I spent a lot of my time drowned in Fursuit under a load of balloons, which was quite fun. Dimonius also had a giant zorb ball that the Russians took to a disused castle - I would have loved to do Fursuit zorbing too but alas we did not have time. Still, continuing our balloon experience from Gdakon was fantastic, with the unpredictable nature of balloon popping quite a thrill, even if it was occasionally hell on the legs and exceptionally hot in Fursuit, not aided by the overly warm hotel.

Aside from this, we took in a few events, including the aforementioned tea tasting. We also went to the Sponsors Meeting, where we could meet the staff before tucking into a generous spread of food that they had laid on for us. There was a range of sandwiches, cakes and pastries but unfortunately I had to come down in Fursuit as I lost track of time with the balloon popping. Still, a crafty trip to the Fursuit lounge meant I could grab some food although there I got distracted by a few fursuiters with whom I struck a conversation, meaning I missed the rest of the staff meet and greet. Still, such distractions were common and added to the convention experience, with everyone's friendliness being an abiding memory. We also managed to secure a few bargains in the art show, turning up half an hour before it closed and bidding on pieces which as yet had attracted no interest. I find the auction prices at cons somewhat ridiculous but here we got three good pieces for 1000Kc (about £26) so I was quite happy with that. We had bid on four - a horsey bondage one slipped through our grasp - so I was happy to pick up three. There was also a table where there was a pile of lion plushes with the sign "take for free" (which Tim reappropriated as the con went on) - I picked one up (a KFC toy) while sober and added a friend when moderately drunk.

All in all it was a fantastic four days which passed far far too quickly. It was great meeting old friends and making new ones, while the whole experience was incredibly relaxing, even if the lift and the wifi were frequently overloaded (although a lack of reliable wifi I think made it more relaxing). It was also incredibly cheap, partly because beer is inexpensive but also because it was full board meaning all lunches and dinners were included. These were largely meat and potato - and we had to choose what we wanted from four options a fortnight in advance - but for the price you couldn't complain even if the meat was a little stringy. Still, a starter (soup at lunchtime, something more elaborate for dinner) and a main course thrown in for a nominal price was exceptionally good value, particularly as there was nowhere else to go in the vicinity anyway. There were also a couple of nice extras, such as a free necklace for sponsors which you got when you registered. I would definitely go again and am hoping to return as early as next year. My next con is EF in August and it has an awful lot to live up to after the last two fantastic events.