WWI and Eurotrip Superblog

Retsukage

United States1002 Posts

July 21 2008 00:51 GMT

I’m writing this about three weeks after I left to Europe. I'm home now w00t!

From the first day I heard about the Blizzard WWI I knew I had to somehow find a way to get there. So I saved up money from my job and was able to gather some extra cash for graduating high school. I mustered enough and was able to get myself over to Europe. Once I slowly began realizing that this trip was no longer a joke, but in fact was possible I began to plan out my nearly month long trip to Europe.

This trip was too epic for words. First stop was Paris and the WWI. Next was Naruto’s house in Germany (another thanks to him for an awesome time). Next up was Amsterdam and after that Denmark. My entire side of my fathers family lives in Denmark in the small town of svenborg, after meeting up with a family friend there I would travel to Kobenhavn.

Arriving in Paris was crazy, my first thought was “Fuck, am I really in Paris? I’m halfway across the world from where I was just a moment ago, and I have no fucking idea what’s going to happen to me”. The first thing I had to do was find the hotel I was staying at, which was small, dirty and most importantly cheap. I noticed the streets in Paris were very confusing since in Paris the street signs are attached to the buildings which took me a while to figure out, they also have these weird roundabout circles that didn’t really make any sense to me. Anyway once I got to the hotel and checked in I dropped off my things and took a trip down to the Louvre which turned out to be really amazing and was probably the coolest thing I saw in Paris (other then the WWI of course).

The Louvre

A pretty damn epic wheel chair

The best piece of art in the damn place

The next day after much confusion I met up with Naruto and his friend Hot. It took us forever to find each other at the main rail station of Paris Gar de Nor. When trying to find a meeting place I told Naruto over the phone that I was at the relay store, and he instantly replied “me too!” but we didn’t see each other. I overheard him asking the store clerk, “How many relay stores are there in Gar de Nor?” sadly the answer was fourteen. After the confusing mishmash of random incorrect directions we finally met up and went out to dinner. After dinner we headed back to his hotel where we eagerly awaited the next day. We killed time playing games (Toho shoot em’ ups) on his friend’s laptop and watching SC as well as other random videos.

A toho screen shot

The next couple of days at the Invitational were incredible

I can’t hope to describe how good they were. All the TL folks were great people and we met up with them right away. Naruto and I headed over to the SC2 area, in which we had VIP access since we both played in the community tournament. We made sure to take a minute to laugh at the people standing in line; then enjoyed hours of un-interrupted SC2. Enjoying the matches with TL people was awesome as well as talking and getting pictures with the progamers. During the match between Mondragon and Sea I gave Tasteless a cheerful which I thought he really deserves. The best match of the day though was Kal vs Stork. It was sick and very entertaining. Even though my favorite of the two players is Kal I felt that Stork defiantly deserved those wins and overall victory at the WWI. Also while playing a SC2 game against a random person I got paired against the WGT admin Jaap, I lost but told him I was getting a rematch at Blizzcon. Jaap was a pretty cool guy and was very nice to talk to.

I was shocked to see how polished and complete SC2 felt. The only thing that seemed obviously new and out of place was the new gas mechanic. Other then that I have very few complaints about SC2, and those small complaints I’m sure will be worked out by the time beta comes around. The party after the first day was awesome, except for the pissed off French waiter who begrudgingly served us, but that was just hilarious. Not much in this world is funnier then a pissed of French dood.

The second day was equally as awesome. I talked to the art director of Blizzard, Samwise and he actually wrote down a piece of advice I gave him about the art direction of Battle.net.

Watching Idra and Savior play against each other in SC2 was awesome

stork

but watching Savior reveal who he was to his noob opponents was priceless. But the second party was unbelievable; I couldn’t believe both Sea and Savior were there! Not to mention all the other badass folks hanging around. Drinking shots with Savior and Tastless was defiantly the highlight of the night, as well as taking photos with sea’s camera. It was also great to talk to Idra and the War3 caster (I think that guy got really drunk because he was really just insulting everyone by the end of the night; it was hilarious). All in all it was a great night. I was surprised the hotel staff didn’t kick us out. After a bit of thinking I realized the Eurocup ended that night; and I think we all know it’s illegal to end a Eurocup party in Europe.