Monday began our departure from Paderborn, which was a very sad event as I had grown rather attached to the small but beautiful city. Alas, Monday morning we headed down to the train station so that we could take two trains in order to get to our destination.
On the first train we were all lucky enough to have our own assigned seats. Because of my exhaustion from the Game Jam, I was in and out of sleeping during this train ride, but when I was awake I spent most of the time just looking out the window at the surrounding landscape. I learned firsthand that Germany seems to have a lot of windmills scattered around, as every few minutes I saw a new one.
AFter some time we got to our transfer stop, and once we boarded the new train it was discovered we didn’t all have assigned seats like the first one, and it was a sort of free-for-all treasure hunt in order to get one. Unfortunately, I did not find a seat in time, and was too tired to walk up and down the halls of the different carts looking for one. Instead, I and a few other students, opted to sit on our suitcases in a semi-spacious hallway near the restrooms. My fellow students decided it would be a perfect time to pull out their switches to catch a few games of Super Smash Brothers. I initially joined them for a few rounds, but once my Switch battery was getting low I decided to just check the news on my phone and play some games on that device until we got to our destination.
After getting to the Frankfurt train station, it was a surprisingly short walk from the train station to the hotel. We all traveled together to the hotel, then got checked in and sorted into our rooms. After that, some students opted to go on a bit of a tour/walk around of the City with some of the students from Germany, while others were allowed to get settled in and spend some time resting and recovering. I opted for the latter, and after unpacking a bit in my room and getting the essentials setup like my laptop and switch charging. Once that was complete, I decided I wanted to go get food and walk around slightly in the direct area. I teamed up with Sam from our group so that I wouldn’t be traveling alone on my first day, and we went to the ” Sapôres Sàigòn Street Food ” restaurant, which was only a block or so away. I initially though from the name of the restaurant it would be more like a food stand giving away street food, such as gyros and sandwiches. I was, however, completely mistaken. This restaurant turned out to be more of a sit down restaurant where you ordered food and it came in plates that you shouldn’t just walk away with. I decided to order something I couldn’t even pronounce, but was not disappointed with the results.
Once I had finished up eating this delicious dish of meat, noddles, and various vegetables, we learned that we were meeting in a nearby pub called “O’Reilly’s”, where some were getting food but most were just getting drinks. We walked back in the direction of the hotel, as this pub was basically right outside it, and found the table our fellow journey members were sitting at. I ordered some drinks, and spent the rest of the evening hanging out with the students from Germany until I decided to return back to the hotel to get some much needed rest.
