In the morning, I walked pass a farmer’s market on my way to the bus stop. The Germans told me there was a farmer’s market every Wednesday and Saturday. It was like what we have in the US plus some flower shops. Besides that, there was a performance going on in the plaza as well. I didn’t stay long enough to figure what was it for, groups of girls danced. Compare to weekdays, downtown Paderborn was fairly busy. I got a mango smoothie for myself and it tasted like strawberry with a pink look.
My mango smoothie
Farmer’s market
By the end of this day, Our game was pretty much finished and all of us attended a BBQ together. The BBQ took place in a park that was 10 min away from the lab. It was a casual and relaxing place where people have picnics, smoke hookah, get a tan, etc. While the organizers were preparing BBQ for us, I tried out two beers, Becks and another beer mixed with sprite. Becks was slighter better compare to the other, but neither of them impressed me that much. It was a very engaging event for us and the Germans; we shared information on different food, movies, music and so on. Unfortunately, the park didn’t contain a bathroom which was a little inconvenient for me.
After the BBQ, I came back to the game lab and wrapped up my work.
At night, Christina dragged me out of my bed to a bar with a club. Since she had a friend work there, I got in for free. They didn’t even ID me, which was weird. In contrast to the bars we went to, this one had really loud music that people had to scream at each other. #relatable Most of the music was German EDM I feel like but they played American pop on occasion such as Uptown Funk, I love It, etc. I was quite drunk at the end.
Friday was more jam time! I continued the work on our game’s Heads Up Display (or HUD, for the cool kids). Our 3D artist completed the models for all of the weapons, and our designer was hard at work blocking out levels.
Despite all the sugar in my Fritz-Spritz, I was feeling pretty exhausted by mid-afternoon. I checked in once more with my team before checking out for the day. On my winding journey back to the hotel for a nap, I stopped in an odd shop that appeared to sell only three things: cosmetic lotions, wooden figurines, and candles for baptisms and communions. I was mainly interested in grabbing a souvenir (I’ll let you guess what kind), but what I found was a nice conversation with the shop owner. He has apparently been in this little store for fifty years, and he takes pride in the tourists that he has met from all around the globe.
At 9pm I realized that I hadn’t really eaten in a while. It was hard to believe that it had gotten so late, as the sun had barely seemed to go down. A few days earlier, I had been recommended a doner place (doner, or “döner,” is very popular in Germany), so I took a late night stroll to get my kebab fix. Paderborn is very beautiful in the late evening, with seemingly the whole town eating outside at cafes if not sitting in the park by the water.
Even though we met up at a reasonable time 10:45 am, I was still tired in the morning…… (like usual) We took a train to a non-existing city Bielefeld, where Sparrenburg castle is located. On the way to the restaurant, we past two McDonalds and a carnival.
Garlic Pasta with a coffee
After lunch, we walked up a hundred hills to the castle. The weather was beautiful and so was the view. Our tour guide gave us a brief introduction about the fortress in German and I totally understood it… Very nice of Volker to translate everything for us. Followed by, we traveled through some underground tunnels and visited several dark rooms including a jail. We finished our short visit by climbing the tower and the view on top was absolutely breathtaking.
Welcome to my house
Best part of the day was ice cream. Sam kept selling this ice cream to us that the whole group was very pumped to try out Spaghetti ice cream. The flavor is the same but the ice cream was formed in the shape of Spaghetti noodles. I also accompanied my ice cream with a cup of coffee. The weird Germans serve hot coffee in a glass with a straw… I burned my mouth….
Not my ice cream, the picture is stolen from Patrick
Wednesday took us on an excursion to nearby Bielefeld. Our main attraction: a castle! A few of us took Switches for the ride, so we easily passed the time with some Smash Bros. Coming in the station, we were met with lovely weather, and we walked through a lively street fair on the way to the castle.
Sparrenburg castle sits on top a high peak, and it’s tower reaches even higher. Needless to say, we got quite the workout. Our tour guide led us around the exterior with details about the fortress’s long history, followed by a dive into the catacombs. Under the castle, we trekked through tunnels and explored several dark stone rooms. After the tour, we climbed the central tower and enjoyed a great view of the surrounding area.
In our few days in Paderborn, I managed to get people excited to try “Spaghetti Ice Cream,” a treat I learned about long ago in my German class. Our local friends helped track down the best ice cream cafe in Bielefeld for us to enjoy it properly. The treat itself is traditionally just vanilla ice cream, pressed into the shape of noodles, with fruit sauce and white chocolate imitating tomato and parmesan. This particular cafe had four whole pages of their menu dedicated to different varieties, and everyone ate well.
The Castle Tower!The view from up topThe Main Course
We spent our time in the morning resting / freshening up before we headed out at 10:45 to catch a train to Bielefeld. Maybe I’m just not paying attention to the scenery at home, but it feels like Germany is much greener. Being that green is my favorite color, I appreciate it.
The view out the train to Bielefeld’s window. I find that pretty clouds like this often spur me to take pictures.
When we got to Bielefeld, we found ourselves in the middle of a carnival. There were all kinds of typical carnival sights to see, like ferris wheels, spinning contraptions I usually refer to as “X-Treme Merry Go Rounds” (I don’t know what they’re actually called), and numerous places to eat food of all sorts. Nothing much struck me except a hot dog stand with american flag designs all over it (which I regrettably didn’t take a picture of) and a neat drink stand of sorts with a medieval, high-fantasy motif.
Beerenweine, a fantasy themed beverage stand, presumably alcoholic by the name. They’re evidently well stocked on potions.
But we had no time to dabble in the carnival. (That’s a lie, but just go with it.) We had a castle to siege—The Sparrenburg, Bielefeld’s landmark—and a big hill to climb. I’m no stranger to walking up hills, and it was no less difficult walking up this one than any other respectable hill. I must have gotten stronger since my summer camp days, though, because I wasn’t completely knocked-the-hell-out by the time we got to the top. I was, however, tired enough to stop and admire the castle from the outside.
Just outside The Sparrenburg, before the bridge to the front entrance.
And so, we breached the castle walls by walking into the wide open front entrance. It was completely serene inside, and awoke my usually dormant desire to wander and look at things. Look at things I did, and many a picture did I take.
Map of The Sparrenburg, from www.sparrenburg.info.Map of The Sparrenburg, but in English.
Just outside The Sparrenberg’s entrance, to the right.
On top of Schuster Bastion.
The courtyard / visitor center, just inside the inner walls.
The view from St Mary’s Bastion.
The view of the bridge to the front entrance, from St Mary’s Bastion.
Looking up at the central tower from behind.
Inside the courtyard, looking out to the right.
A statue of Friedrich Wilhelm, Elector of Brandenburg. Lighting is hard.
Then we started our tour, the guide unsuspecting of our scheme to take over the castle. We first looked at a very old well not too far behind the central tower, originally 60 meters deep if I recall correctly (partially filled with debris from hostile occupation and time). After some more looking around the edge of the inner walls, we descended into the catacombs, which dated back to the 1600s.
The living quarters of the soldiers during the Thirty Years’ War, and likely other times. Complete with a large oven, very little light, and a cannon or two. (The original cannon[s] are no longer here.) Looking up and out of one of the openings in the catacombs. The alcove on the right was used to store logs, tar, and soldier residue to dump on foolish invaders.
Unfortunately, it was here the guide got wise on our plans, and put us in the soldier’s disciplinary prison, a fairly small featureless room with a lumpy floor and no light besides an electric light installed on the wall in the modern day (which was operated by a switch outside and out of reach, might I add!).
We were promptly let out because I’ve been lying to you all this time, we were never actually sieging anything, as far as you know. Emerging out of the impressively cold catacombs (so cold you could see your breath!) and into the sun once again, we made our way to climb the central tower. After our gracious hosts paid for everyone’s access, we made our way to the central tower’s entrance, but not before I took a picture of some flowers.
Miscellaneous flowers to the right of the old well. You can see it on the right edge. Why didn’t I take a picture of it?
The climb to the top of the central tower, as to be expected for a 37 meter tall tower, was a long one, with three different flavors of staircase; metal, wooden, and metal spiral.
One of the central tower’s staircases.
Getting to the top however, was worth it; from there, we had a view of all of Bielefeld, just as the brochure boasts.
Looking down on the courtyard from the central tower.
Misc. scenery from atop the central tower.
The flag atop the central tower.A picture of the sky from atop the central tower.
After coming down from the tower and leaving The Sparrenburg, we went on a quest for the fabled “spaghetti ice-cream,” something I initially thought was going to be spaghetti noodles hanging off a vanilla ice-cream cone. I was wrong, but not disappointed.
A menu displaying various Spaghetti Ice Creams. I ordered the Spaghetti-Tris di Pasta, despite my carbonara affinity. (It looks like there’s nuts in the carbonara one.)My order of Spaghetti-Tris di Pasta, chocolate, fudge, and chocolate. I forgot to ask for no nuts, so the left heap went uneaten. (I was full anyway. It’s a lot of ice cream!)
We intended to go out to a bar after returning to Paderborn by train, but most of us didn’t feel up to it, including me. An eventful day, and one that went by quickly, even despite all the walking.
Tuesday began a bit earlier in the morning than I think most of us would have hoped, but we had a good start at the Heinz Nixdorf MuseumsForum (HNF), the world’s biggest computer museum. Exhibits covered topics from the beginnings of number systems, to the invention of the first computer, to the future of computing. They have a lot of old hardware on display, and it’s fun to track the changes in design throughout the years.
Our next main event was a presentation on artificial intelligence at the university. We talked about the application of different kinds of AI for games and discussed how it might develop in the coming years. When the talk ended, we all had a few hours on hand until the scheduled board game night. When most of our group returned to their rooms to nap, I wandered out into town to find Welt der Steine.
Welt der Steine, or “World of Stones,” is a cute little store that sells pretty rocks. I noticed it on my way to the hotel on Sunday and took a note to return. I bought four very nice rocks.
We opted to return to the university at night by foot, and it was very nice out. There was a light drizzle, with the sun just barely peeking out from a single corner of cloudless sky. I stopped a few times to take some rainy day pictures. Of course, board game night was pretty wild too. We stayed up a lot later than I expected, and I got really good at a game called Tichu despite still not understanding how it works.
A final note before the pictures: Germans don’t have Italian sausage or pepperoni on their pizzas, but they do have tuna.
HNF had the fabled “PainStation,” and no, I didn’t try itThat Wet Cobblestone Aesthetic
