{Tales of Regensburg} Adventures in Kosovo

This is the first post in a series of posts called Tales of Regensburg in English. I meant to post this in conjunction with my German post about Kosovo, but you English readers got to wait a while... I plan on writing several more posts about the adventures my friends and I had while I was studying at the University of Regensburg in Regensburg Germany.

While I was studying in Germany we had a two and a half month break between semesters. We were done with finals about mid-February and classes began again in May. My friend M decided it would be fun to go through eastern Europe with his brother and somehow four of us agreed this was an excellent idea and decided to join them. We started in Croatia, stayed a few days in Serbia, and then ended up in Pristina, Kosovo. This was last year in March 2011.

Beautiful smog filled Pristina

In case you don't know Kosovo was a war zone in the 90s. M is strongly interested in international political affairs, thus he felt going to Kosovo would be a great cultural experience. Before we left I told my aunt in Regensburg, Germany about our plans to go to Kosovo. The conversation went a little like this,

K: "So, you and your friends are going to eastern Europe, have you decided where you're going yet?"
Me: "Well I think we're starting in Croatia."
K: "Oh Croatia is lovely, are you going to the beaches?"
Me: "No, to the capital, Zagreb."
K: "Well you should really go to the beaches, but where else are you going?"
Me: "Belgrade Serbia."
K: "Oh, I haven't been there, but your grandparents have I think."
Me: "Then we're going to Kosovo."
K: She looked at me in shock, "You can't go to Kosovo."
Me: "Why not?"
K: "It's not a place for tourist, you really shouldn't go. It's dangerous."
Me: "Well we're going, so... thanks for the warning."
K: "No I'm serious, don't go to Kosovo, why would you ever want to go to Kosovo?"


My grandparents had about the same reaction. I don't think I told my parents we went until I got back to Germany. I ignored everyone's advice and went to Kosovo anyway. I was travelling with 5 guys, I wasn't terribly worried. In order to assuage any fears I might have about going to Kosovo my friends decided to post on my Facebook some of the lovely things that happen in Kosovo such as the sex trade, human trafficking, and organ trafficking. Great. Love my friends. /end sarcasm. As a warning, those articles are a bit haunting.

Our trip to Kosovo started with a bus from Belgrade, Serbia. The bus was an aged coach, think Greyhound, without air conditioning. The trip took a total of 6 hours. There was one stop for a bathroom break. In the women's bathroom there were toilets, the boys were not as lucky. They did have holes in the ground at least. We saw many fun things on this bus, my favorite is this sign.

Hey, tanks need speed limits too.

When we crossed the border from Serbia into Kosovo, border control came aboard to check passports and IDs. E and I were sitting ahead of our friends so E was the one to talk to the border control man. We gathered our 6 passports and handed them to him. He spoke English and the conversation was as follows:

BC: Americans? What are you doing here?
E: We're here as tourists.
BC: (shocked look) Tourists... How much money do you have?
Me: Um I think I have 5 euros.
Friends sitting behind us: I think we have around 20 euro in total.
BC: Ok... (takes our passports) Tourists.... (he muttered shaking his head as he walked away)

He returned shortly thereafter with our passports. It is safe to assume Kosovo does not see many tourists, let alone American ones.

We arrived at the bus station for Prisitina and decided to hail a cab to get us to our hostel. The trip was crazy, I'm pretty sure the only traffic law in Kosovo is don't get hit by another car. Our cab driver zipped around streets and got us to the hostel quickly. The folks at the hostel were friendly and we ended up with two three person rooms and split our group up. Each room had 3 beds, a TV, and a bathroom. This was certainly one of the nicer hostels we stayed in. We dropped off our stuff and decided to go find some food. The sun was starting to set so we wandered out to find a grocery store.

The store we found we're pretty sure was a front for illegal activities. There were two men talking when we walked in. They immediately stopped there conversations and asked in English, "What are you doing here?" One of the boys responded, "Um we're here to buy things." The men looked at each other and the first responded, "Well make it quick." The store had very little product. I found a Milka bar sitting alone covered in dust and figured that it would probably be safe to consume, I mean it was wrapped. We bought the few items we deemed edible, paid the man and left. My friend G as an afterthought asked how much a fresh orange would cost. The guy told him to just take it and leave.

We later found little restaurants that sold "hamburgers". It was a meat sandwich with veggies and some sort of weird sauce. The boys loved eating these, I thought they were pretty gross, but for only a euro you can't complain too much. The next day we found an expat restaurant that served a bunch of random food from various countries. I think I had a chicken teriyaki dish with a Fanta. One of the guys decided to get an "American" steak. The food wasn't bad, and the restaurant was pretty nice. The waiter came over to fill our drinks and wine any time our glasses got to half. Total cost of a full 4 course meal: 20 euro (per person), including wine.

Here are some pictures of our wanderings during the day in Prisinta, so you can get a feel for what it looks like.

A library

Hotel Victory, there was a strong American influence in many of the buildings of Pristina

A typical street

Our group, wandering around

 We ended the evening with a couple beers in a park. The highlight was watching a guy on a motorcycle make a couple rounds through the park.

Motorcycle man

The following morning G and I got back on the bus to Belgrade, Serbia, because we needed to get back to Regensburg sooner than our friends. I was heading back early to meet my best friend who visited for two weeks. G needed to go back earlier to meet his parents who were visiting.

I spent only two nights in Kosovo, but it honestly was enough for me. It was interesting to see Pristina, but I doubt I will go back any time soon. Belgrade on the other hand was a fascinating city and I hope to see it again. I suppose my next Tales of Regensburg story will be about Belgrade, Serbia! 

Help Colorado

I'm posting less about games and more about everything else. I should have named it Susi's Random Blog instead of Gaming Abroad, oh well.

Colorado is experiencing a series of wild fires. One is in my home town of Colorado Springs, the Waldo Canyon fire. 18,500 acres have burned but the fire is only 5% contained.

No home for you =(

Smoke cloud from a distance

Over 300 homes and business have been destroyed. 32,000 people have been forced to evacuate their homes.

I'm asking anyone with a kind heart to donate to one of these organizations. Even $5 can make a difference.

Pikes Peak Red Cross 
Care and Share A southern Colorado food bank
Wild Fire Tees A group of business owners who designed T-shirts for the relief effort. Buy a shirt and proceeds will split between the Colorado Red Cross and Care and Share
North Shore Animal League Help support pets displaced by fire. 

{Geschichten von Regensburg} Nach Kosovo!

(Post in English soon to follow)

Hallo! Das ist mein erster Post auf Deutsch. Ich werde ab heute mehr auf Deutsch schreiben, aber ihr koennt immer alles auch auf Englisch lesen.

So Kosovo. Warum wuerde jemand nach Kosovo reisen? Als ich in Regensburg war, hatten wir zwischen den Semestern zwei Monate frei. Meine Freunde wollten nach Osteuropa reisen und Kosovo war eins von den Laendern, die wir besucht haben. 

Meine Familie dachte es war eine total bloedeIdee. Meine Tante hat zu mir gesagt dass man nicht als Tourist nach Kosovo geht, wollten wir nicht lieber nach Griechenland oder in die Tuerkei? Ich habe zu ihr gesagt dass meine Freunde nach Kosovo wollen, also sind wir dahin gefahren. Ich habe nichts davon zu meinen Eltern gesagt bis ich zuruck in Deutschland war.

Wohin in Kosovo? Pristina! Die Hauptstadt sieht so aus...

Die Verschmutzung in Pristina

Wie faehrt man eigentlich nach Kosovo? Man kann es nicht mit dem Zug machen, so sind wir mit einem Bus gefahren. Sechs Stunden von Belgrad nach Pristina. Es war eine sehr lange Busfahrt... ohne Klimaanlage,
gut das wir im Maerz gereist sind.

Die Jugenherberge war schoen. Wir hatten Internet und einen Fernseher! Das Wasser war aber nicht immer warm... Was kann man in Pristina machen? Ich war fuer einen Tag da und wir sind  ein bisschen rum
gelaufen. Bilder sind dafuer gut, seh mal.

Eine Bibliothek

Hotel Victory

Eine Strasse, Taxifahrer hier sind verrueckt

Spazieren mit Freunden :)

 Am Abend haben wir Bier gekauft und einen Park gefunden. Da war ein Mann auf einem Motorrad. Er ist einfach durch den Park gefahren, fuer zehn Minuten oder so, immer im Kreis rum.

Motorrad Mann

Tschuss Kosovo, ich werde dich nie vergessen!

{Business Spotlight} Jimdo

Alright, so this isn't game related. I've decided to write about neat companies I come across. For this week we have Jimdo, a website creation service.


What is Jimdo?

Jimdo enables people to make their own professional or personal websites. This is done through an online interface that is easy to use. With a Jimdo website you can add and modify pages and pictures, add a blog, upload videos, and even have an online store for a business. The best part is you can do this all for free. Jimdo offers premium services for a fee (Pro members pay only $7.50 per month or $20 per month for Business members) which include extra features, a domain name, and an email account.

Why should I use Jimdo?
The Jimdo web creator interface is easy to use. It gives you a ton of options and flexibility to make a website. If you can imagine it you can build it. They offer support in multiple languages and have servers around the world. So if the server in your area goes down, your website it rerouted to the nearest server and should never be down.


So what are you waiting for? Head over to Jimdo.com and try making a website yourself! 

Borderlands First Impressions

I'm a bit behind on talking about the games I've been playing. The CEO of Gamestop is visiting our store this week, which has made things hectic to say the least. Onto Borderlands!

Lilith and her Robot Friend

Borderlands is a FPRPS (First Person Role Playing Shooter) for the PS3, Xbox360, and PC. You can co-op with up to four people, though only two on a console unless you're online. I played it on PS3 and since we have a plasma TV this made the split screen vertical as opposed to horizontal. Playing a vertical split screen was annoying at first, because when you open your menus you have to scroll around to see everything. Eventually I got used to this and it does make it easier to see things while in combat.

My favorite part of the game is your little robot friends. They've got cute little voices and dance randomly. I love those little dancing robots. I personally am not a huge fan of shooters, but they are starting to grow on me and Borderlands has helped with that. I find it satisfying to score a head shot. I'm getting better at aiming and ammo management as well, though still run out of ammo more frequently than I would like.

I blindly picked the female character Lilith and am glad I did. Lilith's phasewalk ability lets her get in close and personal, and also allows her to escape if things get hairy. I enjoy using the sniper rifle when I can. My boyfriend and I are playing through the campaign together and having fun doing it.

Initially I just checked this game out from work (think of it like a 3 day rental) but quickly turned around and bought the game of the year edition. If you are looking for an intro to shooters and have some buddies to play it with this is a good pick. We also pre-ordered Borderlands 2, which is set to release September 18th. Looking forward to spending more time in Pandora!

So what did I play next? Let's see. I beat Uncharted 2 and Mass Effect. Then I checked out Disgaea 3 and MLB the Show 2008. I'm still playing MMOs, will get some posts on those I promise. 

Quick Impression: Warhammer 40k Space Marine

Last week I checked out Warhammer 40k Space Marine for the PS3. I only played an hour or two, so this will be pretty quick.

Must kill Orks

Space Marine is a 3rd person shooter, where you kill Orks, lots and lots of Orks. Personally I prefer to kill non-humans, so I was entertained by killing Orks. My boyfriend said it felt like Gears of War and Shrek made a video game baby.

My favorite part of the game was the ability to do melee combat. I like going up to things and whacking them with a sword, chainsaw, you know whatever I happen to have in my hand. You could gain health back by doing melee combat by doing a gruesome killing blow.

For any parents out there who have a nagging child who wants to play M rated games, I would say this is a better choice than anything in the Call of Duty series. There is a lot of blood, but you're killing Orks, not people. It plays fairly similarly to Call of Duty, namely you have a gun, you get objective points, and you run around and kill everything green in sight. I'm noticing a repeating theme in games with guns... I guess it's not that different than killing everything that moves in an MMO.

Next up: Borderlands

Diablo 3 Hardcore Mode: Kicking Butts and Taking Names.

Some of you may remember from my previous Diablo 3 post that I am exclusively playing on hardcore mode. For anyone who doesn't know in hardcore mode you have permadeath. So if you die, that's it, game over on the character.

I am proud to announce that I have successfully made it through all 4 acts of the normal campaign on Cuddles my Barbarian and am now playing in Nightmare mode, Act I. He is currently alive and kicking.

Badass Barbarian

Cuddles is my solo char. I've come close to dying on him a handful of times, but mostly it's been smooth sailing to level 33. I can't say same for my ranged characters who I've been playing with my boyfriend's Monk.

First Death

Lillyann the Wizard

I was feeling good playing Lilyann. We made it through Act I without issue and I was excited about hitting 20. A lot of my real ID friends were online at the time, so I was hoping they would see my level 20 hardcore achievement pop up. I even said to my BF, "I'm really looking forward to hitting 20" I almost immediately died. We came across a new mob, Fallen Lunatics. Fun fact, they explode. About 4 exploded on poor Lilyann and that was the end of her. I was upset she was dead, mourned for a while... then moved onto Deathy.

Second Death

Deathy the Witch Doctor

When I started playing Deathy I was not terribly impressed with the Witch Doctor. I did not like the way she talked, and thought her spells were "meh" in comparison to the wizard I was just playing. Though, the more levels I earned the more attached I became to her. By the time we were in the early 20s I was thinking, "Man this class is pretty cool, I really like it". Her death was the only time my BFs Monk died with my character. We lagged out. Completely. In a room with a yellow, and blues, and tons and tons of other stuff. *sigh* Thank you Blizzard for making this online only, *glare glare glare*. Ok can't give up. What's next? Let's see I haven't tried a Demon Hunter yet.

Third Death

Vile the Demon Hunter

Vile was pretty cool. She leveled with Kyle's new monk and we sped through Act I and Act II. This was old hat to us now, plus we had lots of yellow items in our stashes thanks to our dead characters. I was stacking mostly Dex on her, so she was squishy, very squishy. Maybe in Hardcore that wasn't a good idea, but things died so fast to her! Also she could turn invisible and had two other escape moves on the bar. I wasn't worried. Oh then Belial just ROFL-stomped her. I made the mistake of going into the upper left corner, so his arm blocked the view of the little puddles of goo he dropped. My BF killed him and ran off into the sunset. Vile was left as a blood smear on the ground. 

Fourth Death

AnnaMarie the Wizard

This one is embarrassing. I was playing by myself trying to catch up to my BF and I died about halfway through in Act I. Got surrounded. Let's just move on.

Fifth Death

LiveLongTime the Witch Doctor

I didn't know what to name this character, so I jokingly thought, "LiveLongTime" should be good. Well she did live longer than all of my other characters. LiveLongTime was level 36 when she died. We completed the game on normal and were playing nightmare. She died in the cave where the spider queen lives. I was trying to run away from some spiders, but got surrounded, was out of mana, and already used my potion. It was a quick death, and now I know "don't run that way in caves". RIP LiveLongTime. I will miss you.

Don't look too close to my time played on those chars... 

So what's next? I told my BF the next time we died we could swap roles, I would play melee and he go could go ranged. So the plan is to reroll, me as a Monk and he will play a Wizard. This should be interesting. I bet I still end up dying and somehow he lives. Ah well, it's fun and an adventure! One day, I will make it to level 60 and beat Inferno, someday maybe. At least that's the end goal. For now I would like to make it through Nightmare. Wish me luck, and I'm sure I'll have more updates about dead characters! 

Is anyone else playing hardcore mode? The only person we know is our best friend back in Colorado. I haven't found anyone else... Though I give my assistant manager at GameStop a hard time for not playing hardcore =p.