To help ease us into the swing of things, we had plenty of time to sleep in on Monday. After 11:00am had rolled around, we went out and took a small tour of the city as me made our way to the bus stop.
Paderborner Dom, the local cathedral.
After that, we rode the bus over to the university and toured the campus as well. We—or rather, everyone else—also had lunch there, and after some more time spent in GamesLab that we’d been shown not too long ago, I headed back to the hotel to chill out some more.
One part of the University of Paderborn. It’s quite green.
There’s not that much to talk about, but that’s to be expected for an introductory day. It’s for the best we don’t leap right into the fire right away.
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
