Getting There – 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 ✌

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!

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.

The Fires of Frankfurt

We woke up at a reasonable time to get on our train from Paderborn to Frankfurt to start the second half of our trip. Just before heading out, we got the opportunity to buy some breakfast and a snack for the train. After some debating with myself, I decided not to buy any candy for the train, but instead, buy a supplement to the breakfast I had at In Via.

All that shininess on the pastries is sugar icing of some kind, by the way.

The train ride was plenty comfy, and had WiFi, so I spent it writing one of these blog posts. In what felt like no time at all, we were off the first train and waiting for the second. I decided to wander, see if I wanted to buy anything, and look for a bathroom. Find a bathroom I did, but at a price. Literally.

I was thinking to myself, figuratively, that bathrooms are a commodity in these midway train stations, and then I see a toll booth, with more secure doors than I’ve seen than any other toll booth in recent memory. I don’t know if the goal is to get stingy people to resort to desperate measures, or what, but regardless, it was easily the worst bathroom I’ve been in the whole trip. Even in other public bathrooms, the toilet seats were on securely and they didn’t smell bad. It wasn’t unworkable, though. One doesn’t require much to go through the bathroom process.

The next ride in our trip to Frankfurt didn’t have enough seats for all of us, but me and a couple others got by sitting on our suitcases. I played against Alex in Super Smash Brothers Ultimate and got moderately to severely bodied for all but one match, which coincidentally happened to be our last one. I’m not saying he rage-quit, but… (He absolutely did not rage quit. I’m merely obligated to make an overconfident joke about it.)

Frankfurt, like Paderborn, made a terrible first impression. Though we got there very much in time, unlike my arrival to Paderborn, it was hot as all hell, seemed fairly shabby (I would later learn this is only the case for the area near the train station), and vaguely stank of smoke. It was even hotter in the hotel, even in the lobby, and only some lucky customers get a ceiling fan in their room. It’s not even an extra charge. I pity, and worry for those without a window OR ceiling fan.

After the raging thunderstorm that exploded onto the scene almost as soon as we set foot in the hotel, the sky brightened once more, like night turning into day. It was only half past four, but it felt like eight throughout the storm, and the brightness of the sky was frankly a little disorienting. Not disorienting enough, however, to prevent us from going out to dinner.

I’m pretty sure there were intermediate events, but I’ve forgotten them if so. We found a nice place called Salzkammer, which was constantly playing music that sounded uncannily similar to Despacito for the entire time we were there.

Here’s Despacito in German. I’m not sorry.

I had a schnitzel, followed by some white chocolate mousse. “Sweet and sour rhubarb” didn’t quite sound like the kind of thing I’d enjoy, but I had faith that it wouldn’t be put in with the strawberry, white chocolate, and vanilla ice cream if it didn’t go well with it, and that faith was well placed. It certainly couldn’t match the strawberries (which I’m beginning to think I should eat more often), but it was no slouch.

Finally, Frankfurt had one more special event planned for me; it introduced me to Frick and the MEAT ROOM. I did not enter either of these stores(?), and do not plan to change that, because I fear the consequences.

And so, my first night at Frankfurt came to a close. The stupid levels of heat were thankfully beaten back a little by a fan graciously given to me by the front desk, and allowed me to sleep fairly well. All’s well that ends well?

Getting to Frankfurt

Today was just a traveling day. I had pretty much packed my suitcase already so my morning was chill. I sat in the cafeteria and drank coffee until our cab was almost here. Which my professor found out later that our breakfast wasn’t free; we drank 500 euros worth of coffee for the past few days.

Unfortunately, our first train was delayed that we couldn’t make it to our connection ride. However, I think the Germans are very experienced with situations like this so we quickly had a backup plan for a different connection. In the first train ride, we did not know where to get off until the very last minute so everyone was panicking to get their suitcases and to rush off the train. Our second ride was quite sick, I would say. First of all, we did not have seats where many of us had to stand for a couple of hours (I was lucky enough to get a seat). Second of all, I was overheating the entire ride!!! Especially when the train stopped for 10min before the final destination, I could not breathe there.

The hotel has a very convenient location that’s just across from the train station. But for the same reason, the hotel is also very aged without AC. I understand that it is a German thing most places don’t have ACs; so I’m trying my best to adapt. After we settled down at the hotel, it started pouring which cooled down that temperature a lot. Then, I popped into Stephen’s cab for dinner where I had caramelized pancakes. It was so delicious that it’s even compatible with my favorite dutch pancakes. I also couldn’t believe that Stephen tricked me to look away so he could steal my pancakes.

On to Frankfurt

Today was our last day in Paderborn at the In Via Hotel. It was a pretty uneventful day, except for taking 3 hours worth of train rides to Frankfurt. I discovered in some places you have to pay one euro to use the restroom (What?) Despite 90-degree weather continuing to plague us, some of us were fortunate enough to have fans and windows to open up in our rooms.

After getting settled into the hotel, we had some dinner. I had schnitzel for the first time, which is veal pounded flat as a pancake, then fried.

Afterward we went out for drinks.

I ordered a frozen strawberry margarita.

Out Here in Paderborn

I’m writing this now in my first morning in Paderborn, but it is my sixth day in Germany. I came a bit early and spent some time with a family friend in Cologne, where I did a lot of sight seeing and exploring. Navigating the country through subways, street trains, and cross-country high speed rails has been confusing, but I haven’t gotten lost yet! My high school German education has helped me out a lot, though most people I’ve spoken with knew plenty of English.

Paderborn is a lot smaller than Cologne, but in my less than 24 hours here, I have already come to appreciate it. There’s a beautiful park in the center(?) of town with water running through and around it and with lots of ducks. I’m already sold!

Here are some Choice Pics™ from my travels:

The Chocolate Museum’s Fountain… of Chocolate

Traveling to Frankfurt

I started my “journey” with a very nice 6.5 hour flight from Boston, MA to Frankfurt. After a rather awkward conversation with customs, because I’m not awkward at all, I was fortunate enough to meet up with my fellow traveler classmate Penny, who has much more experience with international travel than I do. I’m afraid that if by myself, I would have either gotten lost, or missed trains. From there, we boarded 3 consecutive metros to Paderborn, then arrived at the In Via hotel safe and sound. In the afternoon, we met up with and had dinner with the German students, and discussed some cultural differences between Germany and the USA. For instance, in America you would never see anyone drinking in public, and in restaurants, tips make up part of a waiter’s/waitress’s salary, whereas in Germany they’re fully compensated, but tips are greatly appreciated. One thing I thought was funny, was that people seem to think that pineapple on pizza is a sin in America. While it is not, necessarily, Americans tend to blow things out of proportion so it seems that way.

I also discovered that although my adapter/converter will work to charge my phone, it will not charge my laptop……. Thanks, Best Buy.

Day 1: The Great Migration

I’m going to start with this: I’m very tired.
Starting in Rochester, I had a nine hour train ride to Penn station, where the handle of my new (expensive) luggage promptly broke off, and I had to treck the six blocks to Grand Central with a precarious and heavy luggage bag during peak travel times. A stop at the Cinnamon Snail was not enough to raise my spirits. Once in Grand Central I failed to understand what the app was telling me on how to get to my train, but I was lucky enough to wander into the right place for a nice business man who couldn’t hear a single thing I said to point out the train to me. Thus, surrounded by tired business people who weren’t putting up with my questions or my luggage, I made it safely (albeit with a year taken off my life from stress) into Norwalk, Connecticut where my boyfriend – Alex Wisdom – was there to pick me up and assure me that the rest of the trip wouldn’t be as stressful. Spoiler alert: it was pretty stressful. I spent a day and a half in a very fancy house surrounded by visiting Swedish family. Now, I’ve been learning swedish through duolingo for three years (on and off, but from what I heard from other duolingo users, I was one of the few who managed to keep up with daily lessons far longer than most). However, being confronted with native Swedish speakers who were told that I was pretty proficient in swedish, I remembered all of four nouns and “Jag talar Svenska en lita gran” (I speak swedish a little bit). Although I had a good time, I was eager to start our journey. Using Uber because no one was able to take us to JFK, we took two hours to drive fifteen miles stuck in traffic with a driver who was concerningly wearing headphones the entire time.
The security through the airport was surprisingly easy, although I nearly passed out because I hadn’t eaten enough and it was very hot surrounded by lines for half an hour. On the plane, we squeezed in between two other people, our backpacks on our laps and our knees crushed up against the seats. Miraculously, Alex managed to see two seats on the upper level that were empty and asking nicely was all we needed to do to get upgraded. We had so much more room and an empty seat next to us, and although we were still uncomfortable, it would have been 100 times worse if we hadn’t moved. Hopefully we can do the same thing on the flight back home, but I’m not trying to jinx us.
Then came the seven hour layover in Manchester. We couldn’t get any sleep on the plane, so we we’re both very tired and could only manage to find a bar with outlets and overstay our welcome as we played video games the whole time. I had a small can of gin and tonic so that we could use the restaurant, but I foolishly didn’t eat anything else except a couple fries from Alex’s lunch.
Oh boy, let me tell you about the flight from Manchester to Dusseldorf! I’m not easily pissed off; I worked at Cracker Barrel for a while and delt with a lot of different people that would try to get under my skin, so I was pretty tough. However!! A bachelor party was on the plane with us, and a very drunk man wearing a cheep wedding dress was yelling and singing the whole time. Alex and I were both so tired that we managed to get fitful sleep anyway, but everyone in the plane was ready to turn around and punch the guy. You can’t win with those types of people; they thrive on attention and confronting them about it would only encourage them. Also, I lost my blizzard sweatshirt at some point, so the journey through the Dusseldorf airport frayed our nerves.
I’m narcoleptic, so functioning while I’m tired is something I do daily, but Alex was very tired and getting irritated. Still, after all this, we still had a trek through the airport and to the train station, where we struggled to figure out the ticket machine until a man clicked all the buttons for us and we just stuck our credit card in. Of course the train was standing room only; we spent a while trying to avoid falling into the people around us, and there were no windows or air conditioning to dampen the smell of body odor and the feeling of hot breath permeating the train. It got better as we moved out of the city, but on the last stop before an hour straight to paderborn a belligerent homeless man joined us, yelling at everyone and forcing us to breath through our mouths through the rest of the journey.
A short taxi ride from the station to our hotel seemed like the longest part, and I had to read my card number over the phone to the taxi office because we didn’t have cash on us. I don’t recommend that. I don’t know what I was expecting of the hotel, but the concrete walls and lack of all employees was a bit off putting. We had slept through breakfast, but didn’t familiarize ourselves with the map enough before we went out and eventually followed the shining beacons of direction signs to McDonald’s, and ended up across the street eating Subway for breakfast. The area we walked to felt like home. Highways, concrete, overcast skies, treterous sidewalks; you know, typical Rochester. There were a suspicious amount of sun tanning studios, (like, alarmingly), and at one point we managed to wander into an empty casino where one guy was sitting at a machine at 11 on a Saturday. It was my turn to get cranky from lack of food, and I nearly passed out again just getting to the Subway.
The food raised my spirits, and after a long journey to find an ATM machine we were finally able to leave the Rochester like outskirts and enjoy the carnival that was in the park next to the hotel. Alex and I enjoyed looking at all the rides and attractions, trying to guess what signs were saying and not being correct about a single one. After ice cream, we returned to the hotel because my converse had started to cause blisters on my feet and spent the remaining time playing video games by ourselves before we went down to meet the German students for dinner.
I was worried I would be intimidated, but they were very friendly and helpful when the servers at the restaurant got angry about how little German we were able to understand. The server we had at the beginning just stopped even coming to the table, and I had to wait a half an hour for someone to even notice I didn’t have food when everyone else did. I still enjoyed my time talking to the other students about games and school and what we had in common, and I am so excited to start working with them and seeing what kind of insight they will offer. As I was leaving, a dirty look to the server that was unbelievably rude to us prompted him to follow me out the restaurant, shouting something in German that was probably an invitation for a fist fight. I shook my head and said some nonsense about talking to a friend, diffusing the situation and avoiding an arrest in a foreign country because he had absolutely no idea what I was saying but saw I wasn’t looking for trouble. I’ll try to avoid any confrontations in the future…

Bonus find at the carnival:

Traveling

Started with a 2 hour Uber ride to JFK. Followed by a 30 minute line in security. We got upgraded on our flight over the Atlantic and got to sit on the second floor on the plane for the 7 hour flight which was awesome. We had a nice long 7 hour layover in Manchester but we were able to get hotel buffet breakfast and a shower. Took a short 1.5 hour flight to Dusseldorf, transferred to a wacky German train for 2 hours, finagled a 20 minute cab to the hotel. 18 hours of travel and the most modes of transportation I’ve ever had to use to get to one place.