Travel – Page 6 – Jimbly's Wanderings

To Zermatt!

My first long distance train travel in Europe! First of many, I’m sure.

I have too much stuff.

Luckily half of this stuff (my skis, boots, and winter gear) is only going as far as Zermatt, but it’s slightly more than I can carry reasonably, so I end up exhausted after the rather short walk to and from the train station. Luckily I have plenty of time to rest on the trains. This train ride is where I started processing my photos and preparing my blog posts. As I write and edit this, I’m preparing my next set of blog posts on a train on its way to Lucerne, so I think this will become a pattern for me. Continue reading “To Zermatt!”

Ludum Dare in Geneva Day 2

Slept in quite late, I think I slept 10-11 hours, feeling a bit groggy, but probably over my jet-lag. Feeling a bit sad about time lost to sleeping that could have been working on my Ludum Dare submission (or touristing), but recovering from jet lag is important.

PIC_0036 Sun Lunch - Croque Madame pub food — Sunday lunch – Croque Madame. Delicious.

Spent the morning programming, and then went out to find some lunch. I sat down at an outside seat at a nice little pub, which was completely empty, that had reasonably priced sandwiches, placed my order, and then it started raining hard and gusting wind, so I moved inside, as did a bunch of other passerbys and in moments it was a pretty popular place. Continue reading “Ludum Dare in Geneva Day 2”

Ludum Dare in Geneva Day 1

I woke up a little before 3AM, wide awake, checked my calendar, and saw that one of the 3 times to do round 1 of the Google Code Jam was in fact 3AM today, so I signed on, did that (advanced to Round 2, which will be in a few weeks), and chatted with Bart (the author of the current Code Jam platform, now, finally, eligible to compete since he left Google a while back) about the problems, and tried to get back to sleep, but ended up thinking about possibilities for the Ludum Dare (which also started around the same time). The theme for the 35th Ludum Dare was “Shapeshift”, which was not particularly appealing to me, but working within restrictions is part of the Ludum Dare. For those unaware of what the Ludum Dare is, it’s a 48-hour solo game-making competition – all code, art, and sounds made from scratch, by a single person, during the 48 hours. This is my third Ludum Dare I’ve competed in, and they’re always a blast! This one will be balanced with a bit of sight-seeing in Geneva during the same two days though. Continue reading “Ludum Dare in Geneva Day 1”

To Europe! Greenlit!

PIC__001 Moving — Almost everything I own, in 50 boxes, in the corner of my previous apartment

After flying to Seattle and before flying to Geneva, I took a long flight to Frankfurt on Condor Airlines. I’ve never heard of them before, but they were like half the price of any other airline going to anywhere in Switzerland when I wanted to. I think this is the best flight I’ve been on so far! I paid a little extra for “premium economy” which gives a bit of extra leg room, which was nice. The seat between myself and the elderly bicyclers next to me was empty, also nice. The flight safety movie was pretty great, it included a dog, an Elvis impersonator, a mime, and what appeared to be a NASA astronaut, sitting on a Condor flight, wearing a space suit, quoting Neil Armstrong… in German. Continue reading “To Europe! Greenlit!”

Nomadic Plans

As many of my friends now know, I’m preparing to wander around Europe for 2.5 months, attempting to balance my independent work (which I can do from anywhere) with sightseeing and visiting interesting places.

I have planned the first legs of my journey – I will be arriving in Europe on Tax Day, April 15th, landing in Geneva, Switzerland. About 8 hours after I land, the Ludum Dare #36 kicks off, so I plan on competing in that while getting over my jet lag (or, since sleeping during regular hours is traditionally not part of any game jam, taking advantage of my jet lag…), while also spending a little time exploring Geneva. After a couple days in Geneva, I’ll hop on a train or two and get to Zermatt, Switzerland, apparently the biggest and one of the best ski areas in Europe, which should give me some good spring skiing.

After that? I’ll plan as I go, but probably my next stop will be Venice. The relatively small city of Venice seems to have an overwhelming number of hotels to choose from with availability when I intend to arrive, I guess I’ll figure that out later =).