Frankfurt – RIT German Games Industry 2019

The Last Couple of Days and the Tale of the Overbooked Flight

This past Friday was the one day over the trip I did absolutely nothing of importance. I slept in until almost noon… then checked out of my current hotel room into my new one. It took several hours for the hotel staff to move my bags into the new room, due to a confusion in their system. I had Burger King for breakfast/lunch; a chicken sandwich with french fries. I’ve noticed that but mayonnaise tastes different in Germany than it does in America. Perhaps they tend to use more egg yolks? That would explain why it’s more yellow in color, as well.

Afterward, Stephen treated us to ice cream, and that was about the end of my day. The next day, trying to get home was quite an adventure. I checked out of the room and took a taxi to the Frankfurt airport, as planned, and went through airport security, and noted that in the Frankfurt Airport I was not required to remove my shoes, as I was in Boston Logan. The fun part of my trip started right as I printed out my boarding pass; it had no seat number assigned. I talked to a few staff members at the airport and they told me my flight was “overbooked” and that I might have to re-book a different flight, most likely at an additional cost, or upgrade from economy to business class, which apparently has free seats available, but would cost 900 euros to do so, which was more than the initial cost of my ticket. After explaining my problem to the Lufthansa service desk, they told me I could still book take the flight anyway if I ask for a seat at the gate, and that it “looks good” if I were to do that. After walking to about 4 different locations, talking to several clueless staff members, going through security and then reaching the gate, I was fuming when the gate staff offered me a flight the next day at 6am as an alternative to the flight I had already booked 3 weeks prior. Trying my best to contain my anger, I kindly told them that would not work, as I had been exhausted being away from home for two weeks and was really hoping to go home that day. They told me that they “are working on it.” The situation became even more frustrated when I briefly lost my CBG kit. Thankfully, the gate made an announcement over the intercom about 10 minutes later about a lost item, which happened to be my kit. After I picked it up, they also informed me that they assigned me a seat on my original flight after all. After the frustrating day I had already been having, the relief I felt at that moment was indescribable.

Despite my failed attempts to take a nap in the plane, the 8-hour flight I had to the Boston Logan International Airport felt more like 4 hours. The bus ticked I printed out had surprisingly little helpful information. Even though it says right at the top, “Boston Express,” the bus I ended up taking at 10:30pm was a Concord Coachline, after missing the 9:30pm bus because I didn’t think it was my correct bus.

My parents picked me up at the North Londonderry bus stop in New Hampshire, thankfully bringing water and ibuprofen for my aching throat, as it was extremely sore after an entire day of coughing, due to what seems like an oncoming sinus infection. All in all, it was a very fun and eventful 2-week trip. Definitely one I will remember for the rest of my life, and I look forward to traveling around the world again some day ✌

Sam’s Send-off

On Saturday I finally got the chance to Really sleep in. My flight wouldn’t board until around 4pm, so I had time to snooze, eat breakfast, and figure out how to get to the airport. I kinda wanted to see one last sight before taking off, but lately my efforts exploring would turn up nothing. Anyway, I had some paperwork to handle on my laptop.

Patrick and I took the train to the airport and arrived with a few hours to spare. I had my final German meal right outside of my gate: a pork knuckle with Mezzo Mix. Tasted just like any other piece of ham I’m sad to say, but it was quite the sight on the plate. I also thought it was funny that all the German-themed stuff in the airport was Bavarian, which is to say from a different part of the country.

There really isn’t all that much to recount. We got in our seats and just took right off. I had my last legal Warsteiner on the plane for free and watched Captain Marvel and Germany faded out of view.

I think I’m quite satisfied with my time there, and I’m especially happy with the range of towns I visited. I’ll hopefully be back soon, but I want to visit all the big places I missed, like Munich and Berlin. For a first trip though, I got a lot more than I expected. I also got a lot fewer souvenirs than I expected. I’m not sad about this by any means, but I think its funny that most of the stuff I brought back was literally rocks.

Until next time, auf wiedersehen!

It’s Friday I’m in… Frankfurt

On Friday we said a lot of farewells. Our friends from Paderborn were scheduled to leave in the early afternoon, and there was nothing else on the schedule until “goodbye ice cream” in the evening. I decided to stroll on down to the Goethe House in the morning on my own.

For those not in the loop, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a pretty famous German author. He’s not talked about nearly enough in American public schools, but you might know him as “The Faust Guy.” Anyway, his childhood home in Frankfurt was converted into a museum, and my host from Cologne recommended I check it out.

Now the unfortunate part here is that the house was actually destroyed by bombs during World War II. Luckily all of its furniture and other accessories were saved in storage though, so at some point it was rebuilt and restored to look how it did in the past. This is the kind of museum where it really just is a house, but there are written guides explaining the significance of every item in every room . Without an actual tour guide, the whole experience was over pretty quick.

One more note on Goethe though: The whole time I was there I never actually saw the exterior of the house. It was surrounded completely by tall modern buildings under construction, and the entrance was through a separate smaller building. Even the courtyard was blocked by temporary wooden walls. Otherwise I’d have pictures.

Next up I strolled on down to SKYLINE PLAZA with Michael. We didn’t really find any shopping of interest, but we got a good workout and some ice cream to cancel it out.

And speaking of ice cream, the whole class of us got even more at night! It was a bittersweet ice cream social if I’ve ever seen one. We exchanged stories of our day before separating for one final time. Of course, we would continue to awkwardly run into each other until taking flight, but I guess that just shows that nothing is ever final.

One more (currywurst) for the roooooooaaaaaad

Do You Like Worms?

Thursday’s studio visit was in Worms! I’m told this is a particularly old and historical city. Dragon slaying and the Protestant reformation are the biggest motifs, as well as some historical Jewish sites. The cold weather on this day through everyone for a loop after so much sun earlier in the week.

Calypso welcomed us after a short walk from the station. They’re the company behind the Tropico series, and this office handles marketing for this neck of Europe. We were given a detailed presentation about the company’s structure, followed by a tour of the office and some Q and A. I learned that they have an office in my native New Jersey. Apparently only three people work there for minor distribution business, but I might check it out some day.

Our hosts at Calypso were very nice and provided us “Presidente” branded sodas and some food. The office seemed pretty cozy, though I knew there was no development going on there.

Our only other planned stop in Worms was a walk through the old Jewish Cemetery. Headstones pointed in different angles among tall, wild grass. Moss lined cracked surfaces and extented from graves to the stones left on top by visitors from the past.

We didn’t have much time left until our train, but I really wanted to explore the old town. I ran in circles for a while and found nothing but newer shops. It’s possible I was in the wrong area, but there wasn’t time to move very far. After taking a few pictures, I joined the rest of the group for ice cream. On the train ride back to Frankfurt, I asked Volker questions about Germany and his travels to Canada.

That night we had our goodbye dinner with our friends from Paderborn. They found a traditional German place with Schnitzel, so I could finally check it off my list. After some good food and conversation, some of us moved back to the Irish Pub and had a final drink before hitting the sack. Goodbyes would have to wait for Friday.

One of the many dragons spotted in Worms

Finally some German food around here! Note the Frankfurt “green sauce”

Dawn of the Final Days – 48 Hours Remain

Despite what the title says, the Germans thought we were leaving Friday evening, not the day after, and so were preparing to leave already; the “final” day was basically the day before. The confusion was cleared up long ago, and so, we were to switch rooms for one night before we went. The whole day was up to us, so naturally, I spent it showering, watching YouTube, and planning to do more souvenir shopping and then not doing so. It didn’t help that the service on my SIM card ran out and now ran at “reduced speed,” i.e., too slow to feasibly do anything (including using Google Maps) except text on Apple Messages and nothing else.

I did discover a really neat item at Starbucks while searching for a very late mini-brunch, a chocolate cheesecake muffin.

That stuff at the top is, like, real cheesecake stuff. The chocolate part is good too. Why isn’t this more common?

Stephen then treated us to ice-cream, citing the fact he wasn’t allowed to buy us drinks. I intended to get some non-desert food into me at the train station McDonalds, thinking it’d be an easy grab and go deal, but I was SORELY mistaken. I had more trouble ordering there than I ever had anywhere else throughout the entirety of my trip. (To be fair, there were really hard to understand people the Germans took care of in other places.)

Frankly, though, I’m glad, because it compelled me to get a slightly less anticlimactic last dinner, a very long, thin stick of bread sandwiching salami and butter.

After my last night of rest in Germany, it was time to get a quick breakfast and prepare to leave. There were no complications. I stopped by the train station after breakfast to compare prices with Sam’s help. I didn’t quite know how to access the subway tickets as opposed to the ICE tickets, so I left Sam to it and headed back to my room to finalize my packing.

At 11:50ish, I headed down to the lobby and checked out, and then me and Sam headed out to the subway, got some cheap tickets to the airport, and were off. The airport was unintimidating; whether that’s because Germany’s airports are less crowded or because I’m just that much more optimistic after the inflight’s smooth sailing, I’m not sure. Regardless, checking our bags and going through security was just as easy as the vibes suggested, and made the ominous warnings I got via email seem vastly overblown.

Said ominous warnings. No such interviews were done. [MAY HAVE ONE IN AMERICA]

Since everything went so smoothly, we were sat down next to our gate and ready to go at 1:35PM-ish…and our flight was set to board at 4:25PM according to my boarding pass, and leave at 5:10PM according to the email confirmation. We had a lot of time to kill.

There’s always someone or a group of people camping the outlets at the airport, and since me and Sam were so early, we got to be those people. I spent a lot of my time playing games worry-free because of the outlet, but after a while went out to do a little more shopping, since Sam had pointed me toward the stores.

On my way there, I noticed an oddity; a place to play various games for free, in the airport. Nothing in their selection particularly interested me, but it was very neat.

I took a while shopping, getting guidance from my parents about what they’d like, and then looked for a place to spend my last full euro. I stopped at a McCafe, where I bought a rainbow donut for €1.75.

Despite being a typically shaped donut, it had little pockets of jelly filling all around it!

Shortly after that, it was time to get on the plane.

The seats were like the ones on the plane we flew in on; the outlets were slightly different, but still worked. I never tested the ethernet ports to see if they actually worked, because I spent the whole flight playing games, and getting mad at Smash Ultimate’s CPUs and their stupid immaculate reaction time garbage.

A little ways into takeoff
Breaching the sea of clouds

I still have yet to really see why airline food is demonized like it is, because the food on this flight was even better than last time. (The only bad food I’ve ever had on an airline was really, REALLY bad, though. Maybe I’ve just always been on the right lines.) All it was described as was “beef,” with the only elaboration I could get being “it has rice with it,” so I can’t place a name on it, but it was good.

There was originally more there, I only thought to take a picture once I had fully realized how good it was.

Eating was a bit of a challenge, though, because my table was the only table out of all the tables in the row and the row behind us that was broken, as shown in the video below; As soon as I got the food, it almost slipped right off then and there.

Regardless, the ride was anything but excruciating, and going through customs was a breeze. I didn’t quite understand what “commercial merchandise” meant specifically, so I said I did have some (the candy I’d bought at the Frankfurt Airport), but judging from what the man I talked to said (“I appreciate the honesty,” after explaining what I was declaring), that was unnecessary.

Grabbing my checked bag was super easy, too. There were LOADS of bags already there, and within seconds, I spotted mine, and grabbed it off with no issue.

It bears noting that I’d accidentally left my old SIM card at In Via, where it was likely trashed on accident or broken on accident, so I had no service to communicate with my parents, and the WiFi wasn’t cooperating either. But we immediately found each other with remarkable ease, and after buying a quick second dinner of sorts, I was on my way home.

This trip was great! I really appreciated having a schedule, because I tend to be a very sedentary and content person, and more of my days would have likely turned into nothing days like the final day if I didn’t have my travel-mates and the germans to spur me on. Thanks for everything, everyone!

Bye, Germany

Today was our last day together in Germany. It was not as emotional as saying goodbye to my Paderborn friends since I will see most of them again on campus. I didn’t get up until noon and then I went to Starbucks as usual. Near Starbucks, there was a religious event going on and you could get a free massage at the event appeartly. Late afternoon, followed by saying goodbye to my German friends in the lobby, I went shopping. Skyline Plaza is one of the most popular malls in the city which is a 10-15 min walk from the hotel. Half of the stores were American brands interestingly, such as Lush, Hollister, abercrombie& Fitch, etc. And they had a store called American Food Club. They sell some authentic American snacks like Pringles, Sour Patches, Coke Cola(I was surprised, prob cuz the coke here is different), etc. I thought about getting my nails done in the mall but the price for acrylics is 48 euro; it’s usually 35 dollars in the US. My biggest surprise at the mall was Chipotle! It’s the only Chipotle I have found in Germany, wondering if there’s a difference tho. The mall was nice enough to walk around but didn’t have anything special enough to purchase. I might go to this shopping village tomorrow that’s 2 hours train ride away.

There are Chipotle, H&M, and Starbucks in the same picture.

Around 8pm, it got cold suddenly and started pouring. All of us headed over to an ice cream place nearby in replace of a goodbye dinner. I ordered a Banana Split that I made everyone else finish it for me. I have one more day in Frankfurt and then I’m gonna be out. Not ready to be home yet.

Professor Jacobs treated us to some nice ice cream. Thank you Stephen!!!!

Worms

My goal for the day was to get a free copy of Tropico 6 and I didn’t succeed.

Kalypso had a chill environment and everyone was very friendly. The presentation was long since they went over every procedure for publishing and every department, lol, they even had a chart for all employees in the office. Kalypso is a young private publisher for video games. The company has two game studios in Munich and Hamburg, developing Tropico series and some mobile games. As a fan of strategy games, I’m pretty familiar with their IPs like Tropico, Rise of Industry, Railway Empire, Shadow Tactics, etc. We got a full tour of their company and I really liked some of the offices where I wasn’t allowed to take pictures. Almost every department had a person introducing their roles and responsibilities to us, I felt welcomed. Excited for their E3 release!

The hosts indicated two interesting facts in the presentation that I feel like sharing here:

Americans show much less interest in strategy games than Europeans. The biggest gaming market in the US is action games.
Most players for time-consuming strategy games like Tropico are old people. (Betsy and Mark, are you reading??) Which makes sense because they are the people with money and time (the game is 60 bucks).

In the afternoon, we stopped at a Jewish cemetery first. As a person who’s not that into history, I cannot speak that much about the graveyard or the culture. Then, Sam and I took off first for a little walk in the town. Due to the history and title of the town, there are dragon figures every a few blocks. Those are not like the traditional European statues, instead, they are artistic figures decorated by newspapers, plastics, etc. We met up with the group at Vannini ice cream shop where they had many unique flavors including lasagne ice cream. It got colder while we were sitting there and started to rain a bit so we decided to walk towards the train station.

We neutrally decided on a traditional schnitzel place as our last dinner with the German counterpart. The restaurant was old, traditional and cozy but the waiters didn’t really speak English. My German friend ordered a schnitzel with mushrooms for me and I also tried other’s with herb green sauce; it was mild. Schnitzel is a traditional German food that meat is pounded thinly and then deep fried. It tasted a lot like country fried steak which reminded me of Cracker Barrel for some reason.

The walk back home was beautiful with sun setting. We passed a bridge which was popular for couple’s to hang love locks… I was kinda sad at the bar realizing our trip has come to an end and the Germans were leaving. Hopefully I’ll see them again.

Stu-Stu-Studios (Whoah Oh)

Wednesday was a pretty big day, but I’m legally obligated to not share Too many details. Our first stop was Nintendo of Europe’s Frankfurt office and we took a tram all the way there. I got a little over-excited just in the lobby of the office building. I knew they didn’t make any games here, but the idea of being in a ~real Nintendo location~ was enough to make me feel special. Our guest tags even had Mario on them!

Our hosts were very kind and bought us some coffee before we started. I got a frozen coffee and was delightfully surprised to find out that it was basically ice cream. Now I can’t say much of what happened in the middle, but we also ate lunch with our hosts in the office cafeteria. They gave us some really cool swag and then brought us up to a really cool recreational room. This room was huge and had a small exhibit of Nintendo memorabilia as well as a bunch of TVs set up with Switches and other consoles. I played some Puyo and geeked out over the display cases.

This room also has a little shop for employees. It was stocked with basically all the Nintendo products that are currently in the market, as well as some fun other stuff. I found a cute Kirby blanket that looks like it was an old prize for European Club Nintendo members. Unfortunately, I was not allowed to buy anything. However, our hosts were, and one of them was so kind as to buy it herself and let me pay her back. I was so happy I could have just floated away right then and there.

Next up was Crytek, which (naturally) is on the exact other side of the city. I was still in a blissful state from my Nintendo experience. Once again I can’t say too much, but I did get a nice look around where they develop CryEngine and all their games. The wild thing here is that they’re actually a location that hires game developers. It was weird to think that the people touring us might interested in hiring us one day.

On the tram ride back we watched the Pokemon Direct that had aired earlier in the day, all crowded around one cellphone. I think we spent around four hours in the trams alone on Wednesday. Later on we took a long walk to a ramen place, which was a nice opportunity to look at the city as the sun went down. Like the other places I’ve seen so far in Germany, there are curious statues, buildings, and fountains to be seen around every corner. Later in the night we had a smash tournament at the hotel, and I won!

You can take a picture just like this from almost every other block

An Excursion to Eltville

So Tuesday might’ve been the highlight of this trip, for me anyway. We started the day exploring the nicer part of the city, in and around the old town. As you might expect, there’s a big cathedral there! We had a look around inside at all its fancy artwork before moving along. Other important stops include a German Five Guys and a cool (but creepy) antique shop. While our friends from Paderborn enjoyed tasting Five Guys for the the first time, I tried out Mezzo Mix. It’s a popular soda here that claims to be no more than coke and fanta in one cup. It was alright. We walked back to the hotel along the river and soaked in the skyline.

Of course the main event wasn’t in Frankfurt, but Eltville. Eltville is a beautiful little town right on the water, and we were somehow all invited to meet the mayor there. I didn’t find any exciting shopping, but I enjoyed some ice cream and some lahmacun in town before heading down to the shore. The shore was very nice.

To be a bit more specific: the shore was amazing. It was lined by trees leading up to gardens leading up to a castle. I excitedly climbed down to the water and collected pebbles and seaglass while enjoying a cool, nautical breeze. Before exploring the gardens, we enjoyed some long wine (a regional specialty) at an outdoor bar overlooking the river.

After posing for lots of pictures among the roses, the mayor appeared and showed us around the castle. In one of the rooms of its tower, there was a small exhibit about Johannes Gutenberg. From the top, you could see the whole town as well as the neighboring that is supposedly owned by one man.

The rest of the time in Eltville was spent sipping champagne in the garden with the mayor. The temperature was just perfect, and the sun set slowly over the evening. We ate pretzels and cream cheese and talked until it was time to head back.

The real best part: a fountain of pose-able ducks

Frankfurt First Impressions

Monday morning took us back to central station. There we took a high-speed train toward our next destination, Frankfurt. I had taken a train like this from Frankfurt’s airport to Cologne when I first arrived in Germany, and I was pleased to return to those comfortable seats and free wifi.

After being rushed off of this first ride, we made a transfer into a train with only a few open seats. I bounced between sitting on the ground and standing by my luggage in a not-too-cramped open area by the bathroom. As I enjoyed the view from the window however, I noticed the temperature steadily increasing. At first I thought I might be coming down with something, but when the train halted just a few minutes before our stop, you could see everyone glancing around in the same panicked sweat.

By the time we checked in to the hotel, we were already decidedly hot and bothered. The pouring rain luckily waited for us to move in first, but our rooms were even hotter than the train was. Apparently this week is uncharacteristically brutal for the area, and air conditioning is not a standard. I immediately got very anxious about being in such a busy city. Cologne was very large, but every area I explored had some amount of peace to it. Our hotel’s location across from Frankfurt’s train station however, is more like your average NYC street corner.

Luckily I was able to cool off and calm down in a nearby Irish pub with some of the rest of our group. Most of the day since arriving, I was really missing Paderborn. I soon realized how much more there was to do here though, and so I found some peaceful sleep, despite the city heat.