Preperations
babe: Oktober 17th, early afternoon. I have Fin on the phone to arrange a time for delivering the trophies I made: golden shoes for fastes runner and chaser and badges for the 5 best of each, runners and chasers. Made with løve.

I meet him an hour later at the metalab, he’s just back from copying the maps for tonight.
On my way home I buy a bottle of water and a pack of muesli-bars. Back at home I pack my drink, an extra jacket and gloves. It’s cold tonight.

suzyzus: While in August I did not really come that well prepared to the first Journey, this time I pack what a good runner needs: bananas, apple juice, bread, chocolate - I did not forsee the greatest aspect of those foods: making friends with fellow runners/total strangers on the public transport. And off I go to meet the babe, all jumpy and excited.

babe: 6pm: Suzy and I meet up outside my house. We take the bus down to WerkzeugH where already a croud of people is waiting in the cold. We pick our maps and ribbons and take a look at the route:

First checkpoint Erzherzog -Johann –Platz. Not too far. I start getting a bit nervous. Fin announces the rules. People around look at their maps, put their ribbons on and chat. It’s dark now. Let’s go!


suzyzus: We decide to run in the opposite direction to the checkpoint in order to avoid being caught early, trying to keep close together and close to the walls of the houses but at the same time to walk as normal as possible to not arouse suspicion. Every person coming around a corner might be a chaser, paranoia starts to build up. We hop on a bus that takes us to the Ring, which is safe zone. Instantly feel better, but not for too long - we need to leave the safe zone to approach the checkpoint.


Paranoia!
babe: When coming nearer to Karlsplatz we already see chasers in the park on the other side of the street. They didn’t recognise us – we walk further and try to hide our blue ribbons. I start getting a bit paranoid. I turn my head around and look suspiciously on everyone near, trying to make out red ribbons on arms – often it’s hard to say: It’s dark.
We walk slowly. This is too much tension for me. Suddenly Suzy sprints away – instinctively I start running as well – but taking the other direction. I look around me: chasers everywhere! I make it to a niche where I can hide behind a sign. When taking a look out I see a girl with a route-map in her hand about 5 meters away from me. I can’t see her ribbon but she might be a chaser cause she looks calm. The sign is hardly big enough to hide me. In this moment I get really stressed out.
I take out my mobile and call Suzy. She’s already on Karlsplatz, hiding somewhere. I have to follow her. I take a look out of my hideaway: No chasers in sight anymore. I sneak out and head direction Karlsplatz. It’s a park there. I am nervous as hell. When I meet Suzy I feel safe again. Good to see her.

suzyzus: When sprinting away I thought the Babe was right behind me and would hide close by, wrong! I hide behind a (not-so-easy-but-still) see-through ventilating shaft so I could see the chaser approaching. She does not see me (or she might have been more focused on a barking and snarling dog that's so excited by all this running and hiding that the owner can barely hold it) and walks past me, while I slowly surround the shaft. I cross the street and hide near a staircase at the Wien Museum. Babe! Where are you? There she calls, I whisper in the phone and give her directions. When she arrives I feel relieved - I would not have wanted to cross the dark dangerous park full of chasers without her. We walk in direction of the Karlskirche, always keeping close to the dark walls. I peek around a corner - a chaser! Run! Phew, he did not see us. We try the other direction and as i peek around that corner I run into the arms of the same chaser we just avoided. I try to run as fast as I can, but he eventually gets me. I ask him what he wants from me, oh a ribbon, what ribbon? Oh, the blue one, well theeeeeere you go, to give the Babe some time to escape. I put on the red ribbon - now it's CHASING TIME!! I can run slowly for quite some time but I am not too good at running fast, so what it needs to catch runners is hiding behind cars, sneaking around as quiet as possible and surprise. I try that but I am already too close to checkpoint 1 and the safe zone. I walk past it and behind the next corner 3 runners approach me, being chased by some red ribbons. I runrunrun and make my first catch - YAY!!!

babe: I realise that Suzy might have got tagged so I sprint back into the park – alone.
Suzy is on the phone – she said she was chased. I am on my own.

I am about 500 meters far from the checkpoint. 500 meters full of chasers as it seemed. But I had no choice anyway. I decided on doing it quickly. Someone once told me: When you’re feeling unsafe somewhere walk right in the middle of the street, so noone hiding in doors or between parked cars can attack you. This is exactly what I did: I ran. I ran as fast as I could and I ran in the middle of the street, shortest way to checkpoint 1.
Not fast enough. There he was: Chaser!

Nice guy actually, but now I was chased, too. I met Suzy on checkpoint one, now both of us wearing a red ribbon.


Red ribbons rule!
babe: When leaving the checkpoint I feel much safer. I kind of like my red ribbon. We’re heading to checkpoint 2: The Arsenal

suzyzus: We get on the Underground and meet two fellow chasers. We share some chocolate and get off the train a bit too early. Maybe we can catch some runners in the backstreets instead? No luck on that side. In order to get to checkpoint 2 we have to walk through a dark and kind of scary park. I am glad that we are chasers now, the suspense would have killed me if I had still been a runner. We mistake some creepy guys for fellow chasers. As we approach the checkpoint we meet a guy decorated in blue AND red ribbons, the blue ones dangling off his pants. Confused we ask him what he is, chaser or runner and he snaps at us, well, what d'ya think!? Obviously he is neither chaser nor runner but rambo, we were able to tell by the red ribbon slung around his forehead, keeping the hair from falling into his eyes.

babe: The two guys hosting the checkpoint were drunk. Actually the whole checkpoint2-experience was a bit odd what was sad cause the Arsenal is one of my favorite places in the city.

When we walked on to the next checkpoint we passed the south station. Two blues were just about to get out of a tram when we scared them in again. But as soon as we turned around they jumped out, trying to reach the bus on the other side of the street - too slow, we got them. We took their ribbons and they told us the tram driver wouldn't let them stay in the car cause it was the endpoint of the line.

I felt bad. Taking someone out of the game is not a nice thing to do. Also I liked them. But at the same time I saw a runner entering the station-building and I felt it: I want him! I crossed the street and sneaked into the building: there he was, standing in the middle of the hall. I tagged him, he didn’t even run. Then the discussion: he thought stations were safe. This was mean, I know, but I took his ribbon. I was on the dark side now. Totally.

Yellow ribbons!
babe: Obviously players got resurrected somewhere near cause there were people with yellow ribbons coming along. We decided on scaring them a bit.
We split up, I ran after one, but he was quick. I was standing on the street and had Suzy on the phone when someone with a yellow ribbon came around the corner on the opposite side of the street. Obviously he couldn’t see my red ribbon wich I wore on my other side. “There’s one coming” I said to Suzy. I watched him. He was heading in my direction. Obviously he wanted to cross the street. I couldn’t belive it, he really coming over to me. I was exited When he was about 5 meters away from me I turned and sprinted his direction. He ran and made it away. I hid behind a corner and waited for him coming back. As he was really coming I attacked again and again he made it away. I decided on meeting Suzy now and leaving this one but on the other side of the block I saw him again. I couldnt resist and sneaked between two kiosks. I jumped out but again he was too quick. I left to meet Suzy. Two other chasers came along the street and I said: Ther’s a yellow one over there – he’s quick, try your luck. When turning around a minute later they had him. This was sad somehow. I didn’t want to be cruel anymore.


Checkpoints!
babe: From now on we were good again. We scared the runners a bit but didn’t really try to tag them. Two that already gave up we motivated to go on, a couple of hungry players got some muesli-bars from us in a safe zone and some chasers waiting behind a corner right before the safe zone got some confusing information from us.
We wanted to see the checkpoints. After the odd Arsenal-experience it was so nice to arrive at Arenbergpark. There were a couple of people having a nice chat, music was playing and everyone was nice. Before we came the checkpoint had something like a laser-show, but they ran out of battery - who cares, it was just nice there.


Checkpoint 4 was at the finance ministery complex where they had some antimatter had that had to be handled with care.




Checkpoint five was making a movie

and checkpoint 6 was giving out shots.
Final destination was in quatier 21 in the Museumsquatier-complex.
When we arrived there a croud was alredy waiting, having some drinks and chatting. We saw a couple of familiar faces again that we met throughout the run. When winners got announced we saw that the Rambo-guy we met on the 2nd checkpoint, who already there had blue trophy-ribbons hanging off his legs and arms and was wearing his red chaser ribbon on his head really made it to best (or should we say: most cruel) chaser with unbelievable 19 catches! We loughed a bit and then went on to the bar next door.
In the bar we then saw a group of guys sitting with one of the golden trophy shoes. we started chatting - Leo, who was the winner together with someone else, really liked the shoe:

He documented his run here. It's a nice docu! Check it out!