Day Trip: Gamescom in Cologne, Germany

Yesterday, Greg and I took another road trip to Cologne, this time for Gamescom. I never thought in my life that I'd be going to a gaming convention, but it wasn't too horrible.

We didn't pre-order tickets since we decided to go pretty last minute, so instead we had to wait in line for close to 2 hours before actually getting inside. It started drizzling towards the end, but not so bad as to make it miserable. Once in, the Koelnmesse was filled to the brim with nerddom and angst and we were probably the oldest people there who weren't someone's parents, but it was an interesting experience. I was surprised there weren't more people dressed up. I've never been to Comicon or Dragoncon, but I know it's pretty typical for people to dress up like their favorite game/comic/TV characters.

We found the Nintendo area pretty quickly, which was the main thing Greg wanted to see. I wouldn't say my husband is an avid gamer, as he probably only plays video games for maybe a few hours a week and frequently falls out of interest with them for long periods of time. Also, unlike much of the male population, he's not so interested in fighting games. We don't own an Xbox or Play Station, but we do have a GameCube, WiiU and matching Nintendo 3DS XL's. Obviously, Greg is a big fan of Nintendo.

The layout was extremely confusing and we constantly ended up walking in circles. We missed probably 75% of the conference because we had no idea where we were going, but ultimately Greg was happy just seeing the Nintendo games and eating a wurst.

I'm going to be so over this by the time we leave Germany.

It's hard to come up with things that Greg enjoys doing around here because he isn't a fan of sight-seeing and doesn't enjoy traveling just to look at things. Most of the places that he would like to visit are too far for us to just take a short trip, so having one of the biggest gaming conventions in the world an hour and a half drive away every year is nice. The drive is very beautiful and scenic as well.


Today, it is cold, dreary and rainy, just like everyone told us it would be in Germany. It's the kind of weather that makes it difficult to get out of bed. In celebration of this wonderfully messy day, I finally replaced my camera! You may recall from my previous posts that my beloved Elph that I've had for years now started leaving white lines in my photos several months ago. I'm extremely money conscious and it's almost impossible for me to buy anything without thoroughly considering all of my options. I've spent months reading reviews of every camera in my price range, but was having a hard time making a decision. I had narrowed my options down to the Nikon D3100 or the Canon Rebel T3i. The PX was having a sale on Nikon cameras this weekend and offering the D3200 for $150 off, making it much less than the Rebel T3i with more features. I finally broke down and invested the money in it. Considering I've had Canons for years with no issues, I can only hope for the same from my Nikon! Now I just need a good trip to test it out!

Day Trip: Cologne, Germany

Today, we took our first real adventure outside of the comfort zone of our city or a neighboring military installation. We packed up the GTI and headed to Cologne!