Some people think i dodged on purpose, but here is the story from my perspective about why i couldn't attend Dreamhack.

I'll try to start from the very beginning where i tried to qualify for DH.




In the next days, I try to get a sponsor without much success... until a friend pm's me asking me to talk to his multigaming org's boss about the situation.
So, i talk to the manager of Gamesense, got quite surprised when I found out he was portuguese as me. He tells me that luckily he had already booked 2 plane tickets to attend Dreamhack, arriving in sweden at the evening of the 24th, but the flights were from Portugal. I live in spain, so not much of a problem, just needed to get a train one or two days before. So i book a train for the 22nd.
I was the happiest man alive for the next couple of weeks! :D Was practicing like a madman, 5 and 6 hours per day, lots of demos/vods, etc.

One week before DH, i also remember i could be playing in the TDM tourney, so i PM Ventz, Fraze and Syz to make a team with them.
I knew Ventz was going to be there for the duel tourney, and fraze would be in europe living with his gf. And since Syz is a irl friend of all of us, he was the first person that came to mind to invite!



At 9 am, my manager, Gamesense's boss, gets a call from TAP where they tell him they'll be on strike the 24th, and to reschedule a flight, he needs to be in the airport WITH ME before 12pm. He tries to call me, I can't answer because my phone is dead.

I arrive at 14:00 and i get to my cousin's house in lisbon at 15:00 where i log in at ql, charge my phone and turn it on.
I instantly call him, only to hear him say that rescheduling TAP will be on a strike tomorrow and our flight got cancelled.
Right now I'm totally devastated, trying to find flights, calling air companies. Only flight available would cost 500€+ and was from Porto in less than 1 hour ( Distance from Lisbon-Porto = 300km ).
I really didn't know what to do now. I was logged on in ql, in a server with ventz and rapha, and i ask rapha to play for me in tdm since i cant do it. He says he'll think about it ( \:D/ ).

I wanted to go back to spain to my house but i couldn't leave lisbon, cause the whole damn country was on strike, no trains, no subway, no nothing.

I came back yesterday from Portugal.
Already found out that rapha did play with my team for me, THANK YOU SO MUCH SHANE! :D
They all had a good time in DH!! :D

Me missing Dreamhack could easily be avoided if I took my cellphone with me instead of my brother's, or if I knew about the strike ( I live in spain and I don't usually check Portuguese news sites ).

Syz, my portuguese teammate, went to dreamhack yes, but his flight was a couple of days before mine, to UK. Think he moved in for 2 nights with some friend there, then he went to sweden.






Ok, sry for the spam, was just getting pissed off at all the lan-dodging accusations, which don't make sense, since i was really looking forward to this lan. =)

Btw, for those of you who don't believe the strike -> http://www.marketwatch.com/story/general-stri...2010-11-24