Fortunately, this morning I was able to wake up early enough to eat a decent breakfast served in the hotel… unlike yesterday. We started the day with a tour of the Heinz Nixdorf Museum to see computer-related exhibits.
One way to visualize counting in binary. Drop a ball at the top, if there is already a ball in the slot next to the ramp, it will flip a switch, dropping the existing ball, and letting the new ball roll down to the next slot.Visual representation of how computing efficiency grows exponentially. After every 1 1/2 years, computers can perform twice the amount of operations with 1/2 the volume of space (If I remember correctly).
One of my highlights during my visit at the museum was when I took a stroll by a facial recognition screen.
Apparently I look much older with my glasses, 31 years old……and much younger without my glasses, 19 years old. Not too far off, though, 24 is roughly in the middle.
Later that night, we went back to the University of Paderborn to hang out with and play board games with the students. Some games we played were a German version of the card game Fluxx, where the rules constantly change depending on how the player play, as well as Jackbox party games.
After getting settled in the In Via hotel, and trying to recover a little from get lag, we toured the University of Paderborn campus, as well as toured the city of Paderborn.
Some examples of the architecture
We also had lunch at a nice cafe in Paderborn with the German students. We talked a little more about differences from the USA. For example, most Bachelor’s degree programs require a minimum of 3 years, contrary to 4 years in the USA. I also found it interesting how in some shops, hot drinks can be served in glass cups.
Later in the day when we visited the University of Paderborn, we were also fortunate enough to see a game that the students were working on; A 2D puzzle game called Q.
Steam page
The German students were kind enough to let me and a couple other students play their game for a while. We found it to be a lot of fun, and we even discussed some ways they could go forward with the game.
The day was a welcomed slow day. After a breakfast at the hotel where the language barrier nearly left me soy-milk-less, we met up with our professor friend who showed us around town. I loved touring the area around Paderborn; I saw so many cool buildings and carvings and areas that I would love to 3D model, so I took a lot of pictures to add to my reference library. Although, looking back through the pictures it’s obvious that I like the industrial look, so I’ve got a lot of construction sites peppered in with old buildings and pretty parks.
After that we went exploring the bus station to get tickets and took the bus over to the university. We toured the facilities and got to see the games lab the students work in. I don’t know what I was expecting, but it was a lot smaller than I thought it would be. Comparatively, it was lacking in the decorations and posters that our labs had, though their seats were much more comfortable.
Once formal introductions were done we got to spend time with the students and see what they’re working on and what games they’ve made in the past. To be honest, I was kind of blown away at how polished and innovative all their past games were. I feel like compared to us, they had really solid, viable products and we just had… school projects. I don’t know what makes us different, but I was a little intimidated by how creative and knowledgeable they were. I still had a really good time talking to them about their processes and what programs they use and how they did the things we saw in the game. Everyone seemed to get sucked into their current project, Q; a lot of time was spent just watching the American students playing this game that had an amazing concept and an even more amazing execution. It was the exact kind of game Alex plays, so he had a really good time. Secretly I was disappointed to leave.
We also went over to the mall near the university to pick up supplies. I expected there to be more English then there was, so I was stumbling through trying to order food and read labels. I did get a happy cat mug that changes with heat at the GameStop. 🙂
I miss my cat so much, but meeting the German students has been such a great experience so far.
Yesterday we did some introductions, saw the local tourist stuff, and toured of the Game Lab facilities. We saw some cool German homes and buildings and a huge church followed by a much smaller church. We learned how to use the public transport and cruised over to the main campus. We met some of the German students who are super cool, started learning their names and got to play a couple of their games. I was particularly good at a game they made called Q. They showed us the University Campus and took us to lunch. Most of us were still pretty jet lagged so we stopped by a local mall for an early dinner where I got a German copy of Halo Reach and my first of many German schnitzels. We bused it back to the hotel and I went to sleep real early.
Today began the first of many days traveling around Germany and becoming immersed in the culture and gaming scene. The day began with a light breakfast provided by the hotel, then a quick tour around the general area near the hotel while going to get bus passes. We also stopped at a small coffee shop for some quick beverages for those who needed an extra boost to start the day off (Jet lag is a boss no one wants to face).
After acquiring our bus passes and learning the general guidelines for using them in the public transportation system, we then continued our journey and took a bus to Paderborn University. At the university, we were given a general tour of the campus and shown where some of the cafeterias are, and enjoyed lunch with the people that had been showing us around. During this time I took the oppertunity to further introduce myself to our German counterparts, and showed off some of the side projects I had been working on for video game addons/mods. After that we went to the Gameslab on the campus, where we discussed various details of our trip and the general scheduling. After those discussions were through, students within the lab showcased a platformer they had been working on called “Q”, a game where you navigate a block to various destination points throughout different levels. This showcase turned into various play-test sessions where we all tried our hardest to get as far as possible through the game, as well as discussing projects we have worked on in the past and our experience as students at RIT. Particularly, I discussed Virtual Reality games with some of the students from the university, and talked about some of the projects I have already had the opportunity to work on using this technology.
From then on the trip diverged, with some of us returning to the hotel to try and catch up on many needed hours of sleep while others opted to go shopping. I personally decided to go shopping, as I decided on acquiring an external hard drive for storing games and various files for the Game Jam for this trip. After all the shopping was done, the rest of us returned to the hotel to try and rest before the adventure continues tomorrow.
Overall, the day was light on intensive activities but set a good foundation for the rest of the trip in Germany to build off of, giving us a good idea of what to expect in the days ahead.
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:
Cologne’s Famous CathedralThe Chocolate Museum’s Fountain… of ChocolateEltz Castle
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.
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…
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.
For my very first flight alone, and my first international flight (as far as I remember), things went amazingly smoothly. The plane me and Sam were on was not uncomfortable, aside from the usual, unavoidable trappings of airplanes. I even managed to get an hour or two of sleep, and the plane had USB ports under the armrests, allowing me to charge my phone for the trip. Little did I know I would sorely need every single percentage point upon getting off the plane.
The view out of the plane window while landing in Germany.
I expected the plane ride to be the difficult part, if anything. I figured the train ride would go smoothly, save for maybe a little confusion as to where my train would be. There was plenty of that, but the train, when I found it, was three hours late. Thankfully, I had a flexible ticket, meaning I could take any other train on the same route with that ticket. All of those, however, were also incredibly late, and those that weren’t came in on the wrong side. The only way to get from one side to the other was to go up a floor and walk over up there, and the trains that showed up on the wrong side didn’t wait for passengers as long as the others. Fun times. When I finally got on a train, late for my connecting ride for which I originally had two hours of leeway, I got off at the wrong stop, because I wanted to stop at the main station of Frankfurt, Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof / Frankfurt Central Station, not Frankfurt am Main Stadion.
A video surveying Frankfurt am Main Stadion—not to be confused with Frankfurt’s main station, Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof.
I finally managed to find a train with Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof as a midway stop. When I got there, I had to buy a new ticket to Paderborn, which also ended up having a connecting trip. The first trip was very comfortable, but like every single other train I had seen that day, it was late, and so I missed the connecting train. Finally, I found a way to get to Paderborn from there with, wouldn’t you know it, a connection. This connection, however, I made, and after fumbling a bit with the bus system at about 1:00AM, I finally got to In Via.
I’m confident the rest of this trip will go far better, and save for a bout of post nasal drip I just recovered from today, it has, so far. But the trip hasn’t even techincally started yet, so we’ll see!
