We woke up and met up with the Germans at around 10 to hope on a train to Bielefeld which is known by the locals as a town that doesn’t exist. I am still not sure why. This was definitely a bigger city than Paderborn and felt more urban. We walked the streets and window shopped while on our way to see the Sparrenburg Castle. This OLD (800+ year old) castle stands overlooking 3 towns, a valley, countless landmarks, and more than a dozen windmills (I love seeing them all over the place). I learned that it had been destroyed and rebuilt multiple times, was owned by a Russian aristocrat a couple times, had “self-healing” defensive walls, and shattered the Geneva convention several times over on multiple occasions. We got a German tour of the whole castle which was so kindly translated by Volker and even got to climb to the top of the highest tower and see over 90km. When we finished our tour we got to do more urban walking and stopped to get ICE CREAM FOR DINNER. But it was no ordinary ice cream. The restaurant put it through a pasta maker and made SPAGHETTI ICE CREAM. It looked so fancy and was super filling. After that ice cream feast, we stopped by a grocery store to stock up for the national holiday the next day and called it a day.
Category: Places
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.
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.
Worming through Worms
Thursday was the day we were to head to Kalypso, a studio I’ve never really heard of that’s famous for a game series I’ve never really heard of, Tropico. More specifically, Kalypso is an entirely private publisher that is actually kind of a big deal, especially due to being private. They were very nice people, and despite the small size of their space, still managed to seem important simply by handing us all Fritz-Kola with El Presidente, the main figure of Tropico, emblazoned on them, and not after the fact, either; this was a bona fide brand deal. They also had catering, which I didn’t touch, because I don’t eat lunch. Germany sure does feed itself well.
The only picture I got from the trip was the Kola. We were allowed to take pictures (except for one slide which spoiled something; we didn’t sign an NDA, but I’m not going to go any further out of courtesy) but I just didn’t.
After that, we headed to the graveyard. It was gloomy and gray, and it was actually almost cold now, in stark contrast to all the days before. It wasn’t much more than a normal graveyard, to me, but I did take some pictures of some odd and interesting graves.
The graveyard from near the entrance. 
Yes, all of that is stone. 
The temperature turning toward the cooler end didn’t stop us from going out to get ice cream afterward; we were told by the people of Kalypso that there was a really good ice cream place in Worms. They weren’t wrong!
The ice cream at this place had numerous odd flavors I didn’t understand because I don’t speak German. The germans told me that the flavors mimicked common candies. I hesitated trying any of them out of fear of nuts. I got Oreo and “Raffaello.”
Oreo wasn’t just vanilla with Oreo cookie chunks in it like you’d expect from usual ice cream. It was actually Oreo flavored, and the cookie chunks weren’t directly from Oreos, but rather, like Oreo cookie flavored chunks specially made for the flavor. I don’t know what they were, exactly, but they were good.
Raffaello was a very, VERY profoundly dark chocolate flavor. My mom loves dark chocolate and even she would have to do a double take, it was so dark. It was very good, just pretty startling, especially from an ice cream. If only more ice cream places were this good.
After that, we took a quick shopping break, and headed back. I bought some candy, and while I was, I spotted weed gum. I felt obligated to take a picture, because that sounds like a terrible idea. Whatever works, I suppose.
Once we’d gotten back into Frankfurt, we made our way to a schnitzel place that was a snug fit for our large group. It was a very cozy place, even though the waiters were hard to understand even for the germans and seemed both tired and vaguely disgruntled. The schnitzel was even better than it was at Salzkammer, too; it’s hard to describe its flavor, but it was a unique kind of taste that I can’t recall ever having, and it was really nice. I’m definitely going back if I ever return to Germany.
A picture from the area we were all seated at. 
Germans seem to do thick fries far better than America does. Maybe I’ve just not been to the right places in America, or maybe America’s just better at thin fries.
We all paid for Volker’s meal as a token of our appreciation for herding us all to the right places, showing us a good time, and keeping any of us from missing any trains or getting lost around any corners.
Frankfurt Sightseeing and Receptioning
Having gotten an inexplicably decent sleep, I was out and ready to stroll around Frankfurt with little difficulty, at least as far as I remember. That is, except for the fact I had to go back and get my glasses just as the others were leaving. By the time I was back, they were gone; I’d told them to go on without me, but I didn’t expect them to be so far ahead. I walked at a pace substantially quicker than my usual, and never quite caught up to them on the way. That probably wasn’t helped by a couple photo detours.
Once I’d reached their destination, Frankfurt Cathedral, however (which they graciously supplied a link to in the group chat which I could plug into Google Maps), I found them standing around. Apparently, I’d arrived just a couple minutes before the sightseeing was about to start. I’m glad I was on time, because the Cathedral was just as impressive and nice to look at on the inside as the outside.
After that, we began to simply walk around Frankfurt, as I took pictures along the way.
The protruding center part is actually another building, behind the white one. What unfortunate placement… 
I didn’t realize it as I walked across, but we went across the Eiserner Steg, a bridge famous for it’s staggering amount of love locks. I wouldn’t have recognized it was a famous bridge had a good friend of mine not noted it while I was texting her. While everyone else was getting lunch, I took a detour back down there to look at it again, appreciating it a little more this time.
This would normally be enough to wrap up a whole day for me, but we had another event in store for us; a reception with the Mayor of Eltville am Rhein himself, Patrick Kunkel. I only learned of our shared name about two-thirds of the way through said reception.
Before we attended that, however, we had to get there, and once we did, we had plenty of time to spend until the reception. Me, Mike, Stephen, and Volker stopped to get ice cream first due to the sweltering heat, and the rest of the time I spent doing nothing by the river, which beat back the heat significantly with its cool breeze. I drifted here and there, loitering and lounging until I came to settle at a drinks place where everyone else was until it was time (which I did not take any pictures of).
The castle we walked into (yes, a castle) was positively full of flowers, ones I took many, MANY pictures of, but I kept only the best ones. Here they are;
The reception involved a short tour of one of the towers of the castle, from which we had a nice view, plus a few historical exhibitions within that I was too knocked out by heat to care about. I took pictures of the view, but they were through windows and not very remarkable. It was startlingly cool inside, to the point of being downright chilly. I joked the mayor was hoarding all of the cold air for himself.
Looking up inside the top floor of the tower. 
A view of the tower from the outside.
Afterwards, a miniscule “meal” of sorts where we were served champagne and pretzels with a special cream cheese to go with them. I did, in fact, take a couple sips of the champagne, but promptly decided it didn’t taste very good and I’d much rather have a couple glasses of water to combat the ever-present heat. The trees and coming dusk helped, at least. I can, however, technically say that my first drink of alcohol was in a big flower garden castle behind closed doors with a mayor that shares my name, overlooking a pretty river.
The place we had the drinks and pretzels, and where the panorama was taken. The tables aren’t shown. 
The cream cheese we had with the pretzels. 
The champagne I quickly abandoned in favor of water.
Thursday in Frankfurt
Today we took a tour of another game studio: Kalypso, located in Worms. Kalypso itself is not a game development company, although they published the Tropico series developed by Limbic Entertainment. As a marketing/publishing company, Kalypso works mainly with graphic design, such as banner art, box art, as well as quality assurance testing. Our tour guide showed us around the studio, including the quality assurance labs and some of the offices, used by employees who handle finances and marketing. We also talked a little about quality assurance as a job. Contrary to what most people may believe, it can be very challenging and tedious. It involves not just playing games, but carefully examining them and trying to cause bugs to occur, as well as reporting those bugs. Quality assurance engineering/testing is generally the entry-level job for most game design graduates, and is what I hope to land as my first job in the industry, eventually working up to a UI designer/programmer, or gameplay programmer.
After Kalypso, we walked through the Jewish Cemetery.
Wednesday in Frankfurt
Today we took a tour of Nintendo of Germany. Nintendo of Europe was located on the 16th floor of the building, while Nintendo of Germany, which deals with Germany, Sweden, and other nearby countries. Their office was located on the 14th floor, and we were shown a presentation about some of the history of Nintendo, and what Nintendo of Germany does. NoG mainly handles localizing games from Japanese into German, as well as marketing, and public relations.
After the tour, we headed downstairs to the second floor to a “game-museum”-like area, where we played a couple rounds of Super Smash Bros.
Later in the afternoon we took a tour of the Crytek Studio. They are a subsidiary of Ubisoft, and are the developers of games such as Far Cry, Crysis, WARFACE, Ryse: Son of Rome, The Climb, and Hunt: Showdown. We were shown a presentation of what students should expect when looking for jobs in the game design industry. After showing us where the employees work on their proprietary engine, CRYENGINE, and work on their games, one of the software engineers showed us the CRYENGINE and how to make a simple trampoline using pre-made objects from the SDK. We also got to try out one of their VR games on Oculus: The Climb.
Afterward, we had dinner at a nice ramen place called Ramen Jun. This was my first time ever having Ramen, and although it was the saltiest thing I had ever eaten in my life, it was pretty tasty.
Eltvile am Rhein
Eltville is a small town an hour away from Frankfurt, known for its wine, sparkling wine (Sekt), and roses. It is a very neat town that reminds me of Stardew Valley, where everyone knows everyone, there’s nothing but peace and relaxation.
I had a slow start this morning since I decided to sleep in. I pretty much just grabbed a drink from Starbucks and then got ready for our little trip. After we arrived at the town, we made our first stop at an ice cafe and I enjoyed a vanilla ice cream coffee. Then, we walked around the town a little bit and chilled by the river for a while. It was a really peaceful moment that I chatted with my friends while staring at the river. Besides boats, there were also people kayaking, crewing, jet skiing and so on. Followed by, we enjoyed some drinks at a bar by the river. It had perfect selfie lighting where I took 100 pictures until we had to leave for the garden.
The garden was absolutely beautiful! We got there at 6:30pm ish which is the time for perfect sunset lighting again!!! I made Sam take i++ pictures for me until he couldn’t bear with me anymore. (poor Sam) The mayor showed up at around 7pm and gave us a tour of the tower which contained a little museum and a small meeting room. In the museum, there was a case full of letters where capital letters are stored on the top rows, thus, they are also called upper case.
Back in the garden, the mayor prepared a little champagne and pretzel ceremony for us. It was so fancy that I have never experienced such in my life. I felt rich. Coming back home wasn’t so hot anymore, the train was actually cool and bearable. Surprising, I did not end my day at a bar again, instead, I wrote blogs with a nice mango colada by my side.
Tuesday in Frankfurt: Electorate Castle
After surviving nights of sauna-level heat at night, we took a tour of the Electorate Castle today in Frankfurt. This castle is as old as the 14th century, and contains an exhibit of the work of Johannes Gutenberg, the inventor of modern book printing. After having a drink at the bar by the river, we looked around the garden in the courtyard, then we went upstairs to see the exhibit.
Inside, there was a case which contained letter and number stamps which were used for printing books and newspapers. I believe we discovered where the term “upper case” for capital letters came from; the capital letters were stored on the top row of cases.
We also got ice cream prior to the tour. I finally got original spaghettieis this time, with strawberry sauce that resembles tomato sauce.
The tour was given by none other than the Mayor of Frankfurt, who mentioned to us that he worked on designing and publishing comic books, which are well-known throughout Germany. Afterward, we took a group picture together
Saturday in Paderborn (Game Jam Day 3)
Today was the third day of our game jam with German students. We made a good amount of progress on Soshi Shinobi, though Xbox controls with 2 controllers continues to be a pain to program. Though at this point keyboard controls work with Player 1 on WASD and Player 2 on keyboard keys. Switching works properly, too. At about 5:00, we took a break from the game jam to go have dinner at a barbecue.
The German students prepared a variety of food for all of us, including hamburgers, sausages, hot dogs, grilled cheese (literally), and steak. Some of us sat on blankets, others at tables, while Alex put his Minecraft wisdom to use to create his own throwing axe.
Before and after dinner, we played a fun little drinking game called Flunkyball. Two even teams of people line up with an alcoholic beverage in front of them on the ground. Between both teams is a half-full 2-liter bottle of soda (courtesy of me…), and each person on each team throws a ball at it to try and knock it over. If they’re successful in knocking it over, everyone on the team picks up their beverage and drinks as quickly as they can. Two people designated on the opposite team must run over and stand the soda bottle back up, and pick up the ball and bring it behind their own line of beverages, then shout “stop!” Then the scoring team stops drinking, and a player on the opposite team tries next. If a player misses, nobody drinks, and the next player on the opposite team tries next. The game ends when everybody on one team finishes, and that team wins.
