European Vacation Day 2 – Milan to Rome via Pisa

Today did not quite go to plan.

Got up a little hung over and had breakfast. Checked the train times to Pisa with reception who confirmed the only direct train would leave Milan at 1200 and get to Pisa at 1700. We had to get a train from Pisa to Rome at 1700. There was a train at 1100 that had one change and arrived at 1500, so we decided to go for that and took a tram then the Metro to Centrale Station. The station was amazing, massive and inside looked like it was all made of marble. J said it was just like Bayonetta. Waited ages in a queue only to be told that our train was full, but there was a fast train to Florence at 1100, where we would change for Pisa. It was about 60% more expensive than the other train but we had no choice. The train was packed so we had to sit in the corridor for 2 hours, not great with a hangover. We never left Florence station so I don’t think I can count it as a place I’ve visited! As it was a fast train we got in to Pisa by 1400.

The Duomo and the Tower

During my research I had noted that the leaning tower was just a couple of hundred metres from the train station. Arriving in Pisa I quickly discovered there were 2 stations in town, and the tower was near the other one. We took the leisurely ½ hour stroll across town to the tower. Despite having seen it on TV and in books, I was amazed at how much it leans! It felt quite surreal to be standing close to something so famous and it seemed a lot smaller than I expected. We did the obligatory “pretend to lean against/push the tower” pictures (along with everyone else!), then strolled back to the station. We went to McDonalds in Pisa keeping up our record of going to McDonalds in every country we have ever visited. [This record would soon be broken.]

Leaning on the Leaning Tower

Not in shot - 50 other people doing the same thing

Then on to Rome. The trains all day were excellent, and by the time we got to Rome, hangover was long gone. We found our accommodation, at the fantastically named Accommodation Planet 29 (I chose it because of the name) and then went out for dinner. The bruschetta was amazing, but both pizzas were pretty bland. We went to a convenience store for some supplies and were met by the bizarre sight of a shelf full of bottles of Tennents Super – I didn’t even know it came in bottles! Perhaps the Italians regard it as a delicacy.

So although things didn’t go to plan, it all worked out in the end. We’re meeting up with the tour tomorrow, which will be an interesting experience. It’s a shame we didn’t get a chance to see any sights in Milan (I had really wanted to visit the San Siro) so we’ll need to go back some time as it looked like a really nice city.

European Vacation Day 1 – Edinburgh to Milan

[Finally posting the first journal entry from our European odyssey]

Spent a fortune in Edinburgh airport!  Flight left on time but J and I were not sitting together, the first time that has happened.  I got to sit in the aisle seat beside a couple with a small child.  No problem, put my ipod on and went to sleep. Woke up when something brushed my face.  It was the guy’s backpack, and he was in the aisle!  No idea how he got there.  When I had put my headphones in one of the rubber ear buds was missing.  Half way through the flight I saw it rolling down the aisle, so picked it up before any of the children could eat it!  Toddlers were pretty much running amok on the flight, staggering down the aisle with there mother or father attentively following them, letting them do pretty much whatever they wanted.  The alternative was being in a plane full of crying children for two hours, so I guess it was the lesser of two evils.

No problems getting into Milan and to our hotel using the train and then a tram from the station.  The weather was hot and sunny when we got off the train, in a very nice looking part of Milan.  Wide tree-lined streets everywhere! The hotel was very impressive, considering we had just booked it along with our easyJet flight.  It was quite plush and even had a balcony.  The staff were also very friendly and helpful.

Our tour begins!

Found a place for dinner, an “Irish tavern” improbably named Stalingrado.  Had a really nice meal, gnocchi alla pomodoro for me and penne arrabiatta for J.   The waiter misunderstood and brought us a bottle of wine instead of a half bottle.  We drank it all.  Then we went back to the hotel, where we had 2 more big glasses each!  The barman in the hotel was very nice and taught us some useful Italian.  We stumbled off to bed about 12.

Stalingrado, as Irish as the Blarney Stone

[Addendum: It turns out that the fortune we spent in Edinburgh Airport was on some of the best purchases we made during the entire holiday.  We got the notebook that I used for this journal, a Rough Guide to Europe which would prove invaluable (for the maps alone) and a Gorillapod, which enabled us to get some great pictures with our ageing camera (I have no doubt there will be more on the camera later)]

My travel journal

European Vacation diary: Preamble

After a month of sitting on my hands, I think I'm about ready to start posting the journal I kept while we were on our holiday last month.

I'll post it on a daily basis, keeping as close to the original entries as possible adding any contextual comments as required (I'd never written a diary before, so a lot of it is in a kind of stream of consciousness style). I'll add some of the better pictures from the trip as well.

Veganism

Everything you ever wanted to know about Veganism but were afraid to ask:

http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Vegan

European Vacation

We’re going on holiday! After a lot of thought DW and I have decided to take a Topdeck coach tour of Europe, starting in Rome and going through a number of European countries finishing in London.

It feels like ages since our last proper holiday so we’re really looking forward to it, though it’s going to be pretty tiring. I might keep a diary and post it after we get back.

I’m hoping it'll be just like National Lampoon's European Vacation.

New Look

My new blog format is finally here. After playing about with the new Blogger Design Template tools I’ve now got a much more user friendly blog (from my perspective) which should be much easier to add functions to.

Now I just need to think of some more functions to add...and something to write...

statanomaly.blogspot.com

Difficulty Curve

Last week I completed Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks on the Nintendo DS, which is the 4th DS game I’ve completed recently, after both Professor Layton games and Jewel Quest: Expeditions. It got me to thinking about how games seem to be easier to complete these days than in the past.

I remember some excellent games on the old ZX Spectrum such as Exolon and Army Moves, where I rarely got further than a dozen screens in. My all time favourite game on the platform was Back to Skool, which was so incredibly hard I defy anyone to complete it. Despite this I never felt they were poor value for money, just a great challenge. Nowadays however I can stick Uncharted on Easy difficulty and sit back and enjoy the interactive cinematic experience right to the end. It’s not necessarily worse, just a different way to play, and reinforces gaming’s position as a peer in the entertainment industry to TV, music and movies.

Partially I think the change has come through improved technology. Previously it was only possible to save most games at the end of a level (if at all) due to memory restrictions, whereas now it is not a problem to be able to save whenever you need to. Also I think the modern gamer does not make the same allowances for games that previous generations did in terms of game length and difficulty. Previously a game could be relatively short but very difficult, whereas now less than 10 hours of game time is considered poor value for money. A game you can complete in one sitting of a couple of hours (like the Dizzy games) would be considered ridiculous now.

With the amount of development resource required now, it is important that the player gets to see more of the game. I can imagine the pitch if mainstream games still held to the old difficulty levels: “Ok, the game is going to cost $10m to develop, and around 5% of players will see the final 2 levels, of which 1% will actually see the end sequence.” It’s doubtful that such a game would be made now.

Part of the reason I complete so few games is that many of those that I play don’t have an ending. Games like The Sims, Fifa, Burnout, SARBC etc just carry on. The PS3 Trophy system (and the Achievement system on Xbox) somewhat mitigates this by providing tangible rewards for achieving specific goals in these games, but this is down to the drive within the player to get them, rather than a natural progression or requirement within the game itself. Recently I’ve been playing more completeable games as I don’t have the time to play open ended games (part of the reason why I’ve held off getting Dragon Age and probably wont get Final Fantasy 13), as the completeable ones lend themselves better to shorter bursts of gameplay.

Of course there is also the vast number of Football Management games I’ve played over the years. To my knowledge only the original Championship Manager had an end as your character aged through the game, but I can’t imagine anyone completing 40-odd seasons at the speed it ran on my Amiga. No, in each game you would continue until you got fired, at which point like a digital Graeme Souness you would be offered another job despite your glaring ineptitude.

Being both a geek and a nerd I have naturally compiled a list of all the games I have ever completed across all formats. It shows that despite playing hundreds of Spectrum games, I completed relatively few. The completion percentage is almost certainly highest on the DS, with PS3 coming next, though without knowing exactly how many games I’ve played I can’t be sure.

I’m currently playing GTA4 and The Bourne Conspiracy on the PS3, Secret Files: Tunguska on the DS and have just started Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass also on the DS. We’ll see how I get on with them!

I did read about a game which sounds like the hardest, most unforgiving game of all time. You got 1 life, any contact with enemies or bullets resulted in instant death, and the reward for clearing an entire screen of enemies: 1 point. Now that’s hardcore! Can't find the article though so the name escapes me.