After two days of misery, the 25th Anniversary Transformers Soundwave is mine. I can now go home, leaving McWhertor to cover the remainder of Comic-Con on his own.
While perhaps not as glamorous as the posh New York City Best Buy launch Jim attended last night, the other end of the US East Coast was representing last night at the Mansell GameStop in Roswell, Georgia for the World of Warcraft Wrath of the Lich King midnight launch. There were chicken wings, and pizza, and…more chicken wings. And the costumes! You should have seen the costumes! Okay, I was probably the most costumed person there, but I don’t think documentary director Roger Michael Moore is a race in WoW…yet.
Since this is my first time out of the country, McWhertor and I have been sticking pretty close for the past week, going out to eat together after the show (time permitting), leaving together from the hotel in the morning, etc. Last night, however, McMike had some stuff to do and I needed to grab a couple souvenirs for the folks back home, so I made my way to the main Leipzig train station all by myself. Despite being a big boy now, I was feeling a bit lost, a little homesick, and just the general nervousness you get when in unfamiliar territory – at least until I took a random escalator and came across this beacon of hope.
Yeah, good old GameStop made me feel right at home, and why shouldn’t it? 50% of my time out of my apartment is spent at the video game retailer, and this one is really no different from any mall-based GS in the states, except that there are a few more German words and the prices are in Euros. I almost bought a copy of Doodle Hex for the DS until I realised that with current currency values I would be spending approximately $US 10 million on it.
Behold my first attempt to get in touch with my German heritage. Aside from the whole Games Convention 2008 thing, I think the most exciting thing for me about being in Germany was the chance to try new food. Upon arriving at the Frankfurt airport this morning I eagerly sought out German culinary delights. This is all I could come up with. Note that a McCroissant is polygonal ham and bad cheese on hard bread. Yum.
I’ve managed to sample a few European exclusives in the first half of my 9-hour layover, including some coffee that has forever ruined American coffee for me and a Coke product I’ve never seen before that sublimely combines cola and orange – two of my favourite flavours – into a product that has me weighing my clothes to see what I have to leave behind in order to fill my suitcase with it. I suppose I could just visit the Coca-Cola Museum in my hometown to get my fix, but that would mean going outside, and outside is big and scary.
I’ve never been to Germany, but my father says it was nice.
Well, he said it was nice – he hasn’t said much since the cremation, but I suppose that sort of thing would leave anyone speechless. The fact that he spoke at all after being born in Germany immediately following a rather nasty war is a comforting fact. If an infant can survive post World War II Germany relatively unscathed, I should have no problem surviving really really-post WWII Germany, what with my being a completely grown man perfectly capable of taking an infant in unarmed combat.
As you read this I am nervously sitting in an airport, preparing to take my first steps outside of the continental United States in order to aid Kotaku’s Mike collective (McWhertor and I) in covering Games Convention 2008 in Leipzig. Soon my 6’6″ frame will be crammed into a tiny seat in a metal tube shooting across the Atlantic towards my father’s birth country, and while a great deal of this trip is for you people, I’m saving just a tiny bit of it for myself.
See you all in Germany!
