Author: Penny Wang

Hi, this is Penny Wanng, a third-year majoring in Game Design and Development at RIT.

Touring Paderborn

My day started at a little coffee shop(I don’t remember its name anymore). People at the store were old and they were reading newspapers, don’t think they had an intense day going on. After knowing that staring is common in Germany, I don’t frick out no more. And many of them actually tried to talk to me, it’s just that I couldn’t understand them. Also, they sell packaged eggs at the shop which I thought was interesting. The store had a variety of bakeries, I feel like I have to go back to try out more stuff.

After breakfast, we walked around the town a little bit and got to see some historical buildings. Near the bus stop, we got more coffee!!!!!

My first time taking the bus in Paderborn was awkward because I kept pushing the “stop” button until someone yelled at me. (not really, but I was still embarrassed, I’m shy ). After arriving at Paderborn University, we headed up the games lab that is dominated by computer science students. The lab is like ours but smaller which makes sense since they don’t have a game design major. There weren’t many students in the lab, Bernie was working on his side project Q while we arrived.

For the rest of the day, we pretty much just chilled and fought with the game Q, that is made by a group of German students. If you are wondering what the game is like… Think about a mix of GeometryDash and Celeste plus Hallow Knight and Getting Over it. Yes, I gave up after half an hour. It’s not released yet but I’ll buy it just to support my friends. And then make my BFF beat the game for me, pretending I’m good at extreme action games.

Arrival Day

My flight was at 10pm and I was upgraded to premium economy at the very last minute. I was happy about it. For those who know me, I absolutely hate international flights, especially in economy class. I slept my entire flight and skipped both meals, which helped some with my jet lag.

I was a little worried about my visa since it’s a Swedish Visa instead of Germany but they barely checked anything nor gave me a hard time. The line for customs was surprisingly short compared to getting into USA, which usually takes 3 hours. After successfully getting into the country, I treated myself with a Starbucks and then met up with Josh. Patrick told us trains always get hella delayed here, so I think we were lucky that our connections went smooth. Neither Josh or I knew there was a taxi station near the train station, we ended up dragging our suitcases around for 20 min to our hotel.

At the hotel lobby, a large group of German students were waiting for us… I was not ready for that… Quickly dropped of my luggage, we walked to a Pizza place together. I’m lost in words to describe how large the pizza was, it was like the size of a table. The Germans invited us to a local carnival but I had to pass on the offer due to jet lag.