Ross Alexander 1/30/21 Ross Alexander 1/30/21

Caledonia, You're Calling Me

Now I’m Coming Home.

Hejdå Sverige!

Jeez, I guess it’s been a while since I last posted in here, huh?

So if the title didn’t give it away, I wanted to record my feelings around my decision to leave Stockholm, after almost 4 years in the land of fermented herring, Volvos and dill flavoured everything.

If I’m being honest, it’s hard to compile the last 4 years into a single post. I was a very different person when I moved over here. My life was totally different to what it is today, and this goes beyond the obvious differences. I doubt I’ll fully comprehend how my time here has changed me until I have a little distance on it.

When I moved here with Kara in 2017, we had next to nothing in our pockets and the first few months were quite nerve wracking as we came to terms with the costs associated with living in the middle of the hipster part of town, in a tiny flat that barely gave us any space to sit apart.

Avalanche took good care of me though, and have consistently walked the walk when it comes to their promise to take care of their people. I can think of no better example than their current willingness to let me leave Stockholm, move home and continue working remotely on an indefinite basis.

So that’s what I’ll be doing. Come the end of February / start of March, I’ll be returning home to my family home in Perth. Covid and Brexit obviously make things a little tricky, but if all goes to plan I’ll be back in my childhood bedroom once again, making videogames and making excuses for the posters on my pin-poked walls. There’ll be a couple of weeks where I can’t do anything due to Covid regulations, but after that I’ll be out looking for a new place to sleep and build a home office. I’ve grown quite fond of having my own space since I moved to my current flat in August.

There’s a few reasons why I’ve decided to come home, and considering them has made me confident that this was the right choice for me.

Living in Perth brings me closer to family and a community that I feel like I fit into.
I can afford a much higher quality of life in Perth.
I can begin planning the next stage of my life.
I get to keep my amazing job.

My friends and family will undoubtedly have rolled their eyes as I play the typical Brit abroad, complaining about the food options while simultaneously putting on weight. While part of me does want to add a “Reason 5: Food” to the list, it’s honestly not the biggest problem and I’ve learned to cook a lot of recipes from back home during the last year while I was unable to return home to stock up.

It honestly feels like the best of both worlds, to be able to keep working at Avalanche and to also be able to progress my own personal life goals. Back home, I can afford to save for a mortgage, live in a house bigger than a shoebox and hopefully learn to drive. From there, I am several steps closer to living in a cottage in the middle of nowhere with at least a dog for company.

Land Of Opportunity

Sweden has undoubtedly been full of positive experiences for me. I’ve encountered setbacks and things have definitely not been easy, but I am coming home as a much more mature person, a more self-reflective human and an objectively more experienced and capable game developer. When we moved over, we didn’t know how long we’d be staying, and given how much we struggled at first, it looked like a year would be a victory.

I think that for me personally, the welcome I got from my friends and colleagues at Avalanche was a huge part of what kept my morale afloat in those early days. I still vividly remember our first outing was going to see Guardians of the Galaxy 2 with my friend Alisa, who was like the Avalanche welcoming committee. Since then, I’ve developed an amazing group of friends within the studio that I will come back to visit as often as I can. The studio’s fondness for parties has also given me ample opportunities to develop friendships with people I’ve barely even worked with. The collaborative nature of game development and the open and friendly environment inside the Stockholm studio really has helped me to feel like part of the team.

As well as my wonderful friendships built at work, there’s my brothers and sisters that I have met during my time with the Stockholm Berserkers. I recall my first time approaching a Berserkers training session, the day after my 30th birthday in the (surprisingly, alarmingly) hot Stockholm summer sun. Stockholm empties during July, and so the first session I attended was a modestly attended affair, where I was reminded of every single one of the 13 years since I’d last pulled on some rugby boots. The session was painful and humbling, and to be honest, that’s a big part of the rugby experience! It wasn’t long after this that I was playing my first game as a Berserker, scoring my first try in my first game with them and running my first naked lap of the pitch as part of my forfeit.

In the intervening years, I’ve been proud to call myself not only a Berserker, but a coach as well. A lot of trust was put in me, and I got my first proper chance to coach at a ladies training camp on a soggy autumn weekend, where the Berserkers hosted women from Karlstad and Åland. From there, my experience and confidence grew, and with the support of a wonderful rugby family, I got to be a part of the Berserkers Men’s first league victory in 2019, both as a player and a coach.

The adventure of going to Amsterdam for the Bingham cup (see previous blog from 2018) is now pure gold in my memory. At the time it hurt and I was constantly tired, with allergies going insane, but I won’t ever forget the bonds that were forged during that tour.

Vi Ses

Like I said before, it’s really difficult to compress 4 years of living in Sweden down to a few pages. I am extremely sorry that due to Covid it’s not possible for me to host a going away party, but I hope you know that this isn’t goodbye forever. I will be back to visit when I can, and I will be just as keen as ever to hug and laugh and joke with you all. Don’t be strangers, and know that once I’m all set up, I will gladly accommodate guests that want to visit and explore the highlands with me.

To all my friends and family back home in Scotland, know that as soon as it’s safe to do so, I’ll be coming to hug all of you.

Ross Alexander 7/16/18 Ross Alexander 7/16/18

Bingham Cup 2018 - Amsterdam

I recap my time spent with the Berserkers during our trip to Amsterdam for the 2018 Bingham Cup. Includes quite a few match breakdowns, but also videos and pictures from our time on tour!

The Hermits Join The Pack

As I am sitting down to start writing this, it is the day after the Berserkers have returned home from Amsterdam, following a week of early starts, cramped and sweaty rides on public transport, injuries and allergies. Many of my team-mates have returned to work straight away, and I'm quite sure that a number of the ladies team will have had to explain what rugby is to their own horrified co-workers, given the number of black eyes I saw amongst them.

Of course, nobody gets into a sport for the injuries. This has also been a week of team-work, bonding, learning, improving, laughter and love. As someone who speaks often of my love for my fellow Berserkers, this tour was an amazing opportunity for both Kara and myself (two introverts who happily put themselves into social exile back in Scotland) to spend a lot of time surrounded by some of our favourite people.

Readers of this blog will recall that we Alexanders travel with some significant anxieties, with many of them brought about by our tendency to "eat from the kids menu" and our need for flexibility and calmness. I knew going in to planning this trip that I'd be uncomfortable and that I'd need to step outside of my comfort zone, but when Kara said that there was no way she was going to be alone in Stockholm on her birthday while I was in Amsterdam, I knew that we had to take steps to mitigate the discomfort that a strictly regimented training routine would place on us. Months ago, Kara and I organised an Air BnB, Kara planned to stay and relax in Amsterdam a little longer and we were going to make sure we had some control over our routine.

It wasn't to be, however. The week before we were due to travel, Kara found out that our Air BnB had been cancelled and that we had nowhere to stay. Understandably panicked, we started considering our options. This gave us our first instance of Berserker generosity on this trip, when Andrew and Danny invited us to sleep on the living room floor of their Air BnB, situated just around the corner from the "StayOkay" hostel that held the rest of the team. Cue a mad dash to Ikea and Rusta to find airbeds, travel blankets and the like, and we were ready to travel.

Day 1 - Raiding Party Sets Out For Amsterdam

Spirits were high as we spotted the cluster of Berserkers, gathered in Arlanda's terminal 5. Stockholm had been blisteringly hot for the past week, and temperatures were now just starting to settle back into the lower 20s. As Kara and I started hugging and greeting our friends, I smiled as I saw that almost all of us were decked out in our new Berserkers kit, which had just arrived the weekend before. A bold, brazen, boisterous bubble of red and black stood out amongst the suits and ties that filled the airport, and as we started our first "team manoeuvres", the bubble turned into the long procession of almost 40 people that wound its way through the airport.

As we passed through airport security, the mood seemed relaxed and happy. I discussed Hogwarts houses with my small group as we waited to put our stuff onto the conveyor belt. After a little bit of food, our head coach; Danny gathered us around to outline a few rules for the tour. Now, those of you have never traveled as part of a rugby tour may be unfamiliar with the traditions of cruel and unusual punishment that tend to accompany a trip to foreign soil. My favourite example of this is from the 2012 Lions tour, where one player was punished for an infraction by having to make a phone call to their club coach back home, demanding a shot at the captaincy.

A few rules were outlined to us:

"Buffalo Rules" for whenever we were out drinking.
A sparkly, glittery "hair clip" must be kept on your person and be visible at all times.
The team's two mascots "Bosse The Berserker" and "Pippi Longstockings (Långstrump)" were to be protected at all times by their guardians; Harald Petterson and Emma Kullberg. The other members of the team were tasked with stealing said mascots and taking selfies with them, uploading them to Instagram. Every successfully tagged picture would result in citations for the guardians.
Our 2018 Bingham tour shirt had to be worn at all times when not actively taking part in rugby. (This rule was actually instituted later on in the evening, when we were having dinner.)

Kullberg resorts to strapping Pippi to herself like some kind of perverse Kangaroo.

Harald's hand becomes a claw of sorts, gripped around poor Bosse.

As we lifted off, I settled in with a movie and relaxed, knowing that the next week was going to be an intense time. I wouldn't be in control of my schedule, my personal space and time would be limited and to top it all off, I'd be mentally and physically exhausted. This assessment was correct, but I also found a lot of comfort in knowing that I'd be in the company of some of the best people I know, playing the sport I love.

When we arrived in Amsterdam, we benefited directly from Kullberg's time living in the city, and getting around. We lined up to buy our train tickets, and I saw the first example of the facial expression I saw a lot on Dutch faces when our raiding party in red got in line for the train, tram or bus. The "Oh christ, never mind. I'll take the next one." look. We also ran in to a guy named Derek, who had traveled from Chicago to play in Bingham. These chance encounters with other Bingham players would go on throughout the week.

Luckily they have big buses in Amsterdam.

After a warm and busy train ride to "Murder Port", the procession of Berserkers rolled in to the StayOkay hostel, getting their first glimpse of their quarters for the next week. Andrew and I went ahead to scout out the Air BnB and I was pleasantly surprised to find that it had windows that opened wide, a high ceiling and a living room floor that would fit two air mattresses. It would be cosy for the 4 of us, but it wouldn't be too uncomfortable.

While the majority of the team was getting settled in: Maja, Matilda and Danny had left us to speak with the media about their participation in the Bingham Cup. This year would be the first year that women would have a tournament to take part in, and our ladies were one of only 4 teams that made up the inaugural women's competition. This was not the last time that our ladies would be interviewed.

After a late dinner at a Thai restaurant near the hostel, we all returned to our dorms, preparing ourselves for a long week of rugby ahead. Kara arrived on a later flight, and when we got to our apartment, we set about blowing them up, without a pump. This led to some stifled hilarity, as we didn't want to wake our gracious hosts, but seeing my wife blow up a giant airbed like a party balloon is going to stick with me for a while.

Day 2 - Even The Air Is Trying To Kill Me

After a shaky night's sleep, where Kara didn't enjoy the cooler temperature in our makeshift bedroom, we grabbed a bus and started making the long trip out to the training pitches that Bingham had set aside for us. Before we'd even left the apartment, I knew that it was going to be a rough day for me. My hayfever symptoms suddenly came to life, and I spent the start of the day in extreme discomfort, standing on a packed bus, raking in my bag for a packet of tissues and desperately hoping that I'd have enough to last the day.

After a 90 minute journey to get out to the pitches, we found a spot in the shade of some large trees and began warming up for our first time handling the rugby ball on tour. One of my favourite things about this tour was the change-up that was made to our warm-up schedule, so it now incorporated a lot more stretching and yoga, led by Maria (or "Face"). This sort of stretching was probably responsible for me surviving the tour, and hopefully we will use it more often in the future. This first training session was a good chance for us to shake the cobwebs from our team playbook, and we finally started using the call system that our coaching team had introduced back at camp a few months back. It was a bit iffy at first, but I am confident that by the end of our time in the Netherlands, we all knew what we were doing.

Not content with the discomfort caused by the heat and my hayfever, I made sure to spend plenty of time getting my knees and elbows nice and scratchy by placing them on the grass. It is a little bit ridiculous to be a rugby player that's allergic to all of the elements involved in rugby, but I guess that sums up my current approach to the game. "Perform, in spite of your current situation." (Maybe that sounds more poetic in latin?)

Clip check on the way back from training on day 2.

After this session, we got back on the bus and headed back into town. With a little refreshment and after a cold shower, we all went to the hotel Casa for player registration. The atmosphere in the hotel was very positive, with the lobby and exterior being filled with volunteers and other players. I got a little chance to say hello to the "Caledonian Thebans"; an IGR team representing Edinburgh at the tournament. After signing up, we got our Bingham "goodie bags" and went to grab some lunch.

The latter part of the afternoon was spent crossing Amsterdam with the team, piling on to public transport and wandering through the busy streets in the baking sunlight. As we left a metro station and ascended into the sun, I discovered that one of my team-mates has the photic sneeze reflex, which was something I'd heard of, but never actually seen. During this journey, I also discovered that a couple of my team-mates wanted nothing more than to go AWOL, so that they could hunt for KFC. This behaviour would manifest in a much more noticeable way later on in the tour. After a short stop, where the fairest skinned amongst the team sheltered from the sun, we walked on to our first "team building exercise" of the tour.

Simon was just one member of the "KFC Crew" in the team.

In a nutshell, we took part in a "CSI" style walking tour, where we were tasked with solving a murder while walking around some of the old parts of Amsterdam. Our group was split into smaller teams of around 6 people and we were given a briefcase with clues. After scattering into the city, we ran into each other quite often, taking pains not to talk too loudly about our findings and generally trying to work out just how in-depth we were meant to go into investigating. I genuinely walked in to one of the shops that were marked as a crime scene on our map and started taking pictures. The old boys outside seemed to be ok with it, though.

After a pleasant afternoon of walking around, solving puzzles and taking pictures, Kara's team ended up winning the prize of a bottle of sparkling wine. Our group got the right motive and murderer as well, but Kara's team had a more complete timeline. I was happy for Kara, and expected nothing less, as she has recently been binging on podcasts about murder and the macabre.

Following on from the CSI event, we walked a short distance to our first big team dinner, where we had yet more time to chatter amongst ourselves. While we were sat at our table, I couldn't help but smile as I got to know some of my ladies team players a little better. The conversation came to a triumphal climax as one of our newest, youngest players was accidentally able to make water shoot out of her nose, earning her the less than flattering nickname "Snotterfall". Once dinner was over, the men and ladies parted ways, with the ladies disappearing to a night at a local club, celebrating the ladies Bingham cup. The men's trip back to the hostel was uneventful right up to the point where all but one of us disembarked at the tram stop. Simon had been too slow in climbing off the tram, and had left himself open to the near-constant mockery that would follow him all the way up to the kangaroo court at the end of the week.

After a relaxing evening of buying groceries, relaxing in our apartment and chatting with my team-mates, I welcomed Kara back in to the apartment upon her return from the club. She told me stories of uplifting responses from the Bingham cup village as the ladies passed through it, with spontaneous applause and an outpouring of support and gratitude from the male Bingham players. Kara also told me that the night club they were partying at had featured some extremely graphic adult movies, which had been something of a surprise to one or two of our younger, more innocent players. (This innocence was rewarded appropriately with a lewd t-shirt prize at kangaroo court.) Suffice it to say that our ladies (and the ladies of the Ottawa Wolves, ARC All Blues and World Barbarians) felt a warm welcome from the male players, and came back to base feeling the love.

Day 3 - Bingham Officially Begins

Day 3 started with yet another early trip across the city to our practice area. Some of our female players were called away to speak with camera crews who were following the ladies team throughout the campaign. As Face led us through our warm-up, I spied a cameraman circling around the group, taking some sneaky shots as we groaned and winced through stiff joints and tired muscles. The training session was good fun though, and after a team run, I felt like we were ready for the following day.

Bosse's guardian finally loosens his grip, just long enough for some pictures.

Harald still has the shield for consolation, though.

After a relaxing afternoon, the team got suited and booted before heading to the Bingham village to begin our team parade that ended in a club called "Escape", where the opening ceremony was to be held. It was at this event that I saw the scale of the event we were to take part in. Hundreds of people filled the street, decked out in their club colours. Many were wearing something similar to our white shirt / club tie ensemble. The procession was quite short, but as we passed people on the street, many of them would turn to look. As we piled in to the venue, the stifling heat mixed with loud music to create an all-too-familiar nightmare scenario for me; the dreaded "club".

Definitely selfie time while we're all so dressed up.

After spending most of my teens and early twenties talking myself out of visits to clubs, it was refreshing to be at one that was filled with people I knew I had something in common with. The majority of my team quickly got to work, pushing the limits of the 2 drink limit and enjoying the company of their friends. Despite my dislike for clubs, I couldn't help but smile as I watched my friends bouncing around, laughing and joking with each other as we waited for the ceremony to begin.

The ceremony was hosted by a friend of the Amsterdam Lowlanders, an American man who was dressed like a lost member of the Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Every team was introduced, and while the tone of the show did swing dramatically at points (including a strange anecdote from Mark Bingham's mother about the persecution of puritans and Holland), most of the show featured somewhat predictable tongue-in-cheek jokes and double entendres. By the end of our time at the ceremony, most of us were sweaty and uncomfortable, wanting nothing more than to head back to base and unwind. Tomorrow was a game day.

Johan and Matilda enjoy the party atmosphere at the opening ceremony.

Day 4 - "Switch On, It's Game Time!"

Day 4 was an early start for the team; one that made me grateful that we had returned to our quarters to rest relatively early the night before. Our first kick-off was against the team that was touted as our group's favourites; the London King's Cross Steelers (C-Team) at 8:30. That meant traveling across the city to the match venue for around 7:30. When it came down to it, I was getting up at 5:30 in the morning. Bleary eyed and woozy, I was delighted to see that the start of the tournament had brought cooler weather and an easing of my allergies. Despite my tiredness, I started our first tournament day feeling better than I had done since we arrived.

Men - Game 1: KXS (C)

When we got on to the pitch, I had no idea what to expect from either us or the competition, but I was confident that we would make a good show of it. From the start, our gameplan had been to utilise our carrying forwards to roll the ball forwards, maintaining possession and hopefully grinding down the Steelers before passing it out to our backs. Fortunately, this gameplan worked, and we were rewarded with three trys that came from the back of close play, including a lovely contested finish from Evan after Jamie tried a sneaky blind-side dart around the maul that was formed from a lineout. Our scrum was stable and strong, and Jamie was able to set up yet another try, sending Danny in right next to where the forwards were untangling from the scrum. I got my head up just in time to see him go over. To top it off, I was able to take advantage of some strong rolling forward play and carried the last few meters with a pick & go that took me almost uncontested over the try line to score my second Berserkers try.

Ultimately, this was the game that settled my nerves and allowed me the confidence to play the kind of forwards game I like to play. Strong carries with reliable support play and rucking ensured that while it didn't look glamorous, we were able to see our work on the training grounds pay off. This style also set the tone for the rest of our tournament. Going in, we had a drastic shortage of back substitutes, and as the tournament started to take its toll on the players, we had to adapt our gameplan to make use of our strengths on the bench. The pressure on our forwards was only to intensify, as we lost two of our fastest players in the first game. Our fullback Harald had been nursing a hamstring injury that erupted again, and our openside flanker Johan injured his ankle, meaning that after just our first game, we were lacking speed in both our forwards and backs.

Result: Stockholm Berserkers: 19 - 5 :London King's Cross Steelers (C)

Evan opens scoring on day 1, capping off a team effort and a drive to the line.

Good pace and link up between Jamie and Danny send Danny over for try 2

I break through to score my first and only try of the tournament.

Ladies - Game 1: Ottawa Wolves

Our ladies team, including Kara, Kullberg and Rebecka, who couldn't play, but helped immeasurably.

Our ladies team is made of troopers. The Swedish ladies league pits the Berserkers against teams that have years more experience, more physically imposing players and much more in terms of resources and support. The result of this is that our ladies are often on the end of unflattering scorelines that fail to show the resilience, mental fortitude and bravery that they show every time they play. The ladies tournament at the Bingham cup was made up of two IGR teams and two non-IGR teams, including the local ARC All Blues. This first match-up against the Ottawa Wolves would be a much more evenly fought battle than our ladies were used to, and I was keen to see how it went. Much like our men's team, the Berserker ladies have had to hone their defensive capabilities, and while I had the utmost confidence that they could shut a team out, I wasn't sure how we would do in attack.

The game started with a bad omen. Our #8, Patrice went down early, clutching her knee and making sounds that scared the daylights out of me. Fortunately, the damage doesn't seem to be as bad as we'd originally guessed, and Patrice spent most of the rest of the tournament as a supporter, hobbling around or getting piggybacks from her fellow players. Just before half-time, another one of our players went down and didn't get back up. It turns out that our winger; Izzy had taken a big knock to the face. The next time we saw her, one cheek had swollen up to a ridiculous degree, making her already winsome face resemble a chipmunk's from the right angle. At half-time, with neither team having scored, I was forced to stop watching, as we had to prepare for our second game against the Newcastle Ravens. As we completed our warm-up, one of our rookies and rising star of the tournament; Alicia appeared at the edge of the pitch and caused spontaneous cheering as we discovered that the Berserkers had edged the Wolves out by a single converted try.

Patrice enjoys a bespoke ferrying service throughout the rest of the day.

Our extremely sophisticated medical facilities.

Result: Stockholm Berserkers: 7 - 0 :Ottawa Wolves

Men - Game 2: Newcastle Ravens

Our spirits buoyed by the first game, I felt a bit more settled against Newcastle. Our playstyle would likely match their own, as they had a more physical, aggressive pack that liked to carry the ball. I started the game by pissing off the opposition #8. He was lying on our side of a ruck, and feeling confident in my chances at rucking over, I planted my foot and began to drive forward. Little did I know that I was in fact raking over the Newcastle player's thigh. As the ruck was breaking apart, he was pretty vocal about his distaste for how the ruck had gone. As a fun twist to this story, it also turned out to be his birthday!

As with our first game, we utilised our forwards extensively, attempting to punch-up into the danger area and make use of our forwards-heavy bench. I felt a lot of pride as a forwards coach while we turned over almost every single scrum, which must have been a huge drain on morale for Newcastle; knowing that even if we knocked on, we'd have the ball back in no time. Physically, Newcastle had a big, beefy pack, but I think our work on scrumming technique paid off, and that's what won us that forwards battle.

No video footage exists in the Berserker archives, but I know from my own scattered memories and some asking around that Danny and Senior scored our tries in this game, with one being converted and Danny slotting over a penalty in the end to seal the deal. All of our pool-stage matches were played on the same pitch and so my memories start to blend together, making it difficult to tell which game they are from. I do recall that we left a couple of tries out there that day, with a few handling errors and mistakes in judgement leaving us with a less flattering score than we could have had.

Result: Stockholm Berserkers: 15 - 5 :Newcastle Ravens

Ladies - Game 2: ARC All Blues

The ladies had the men supporting them from the start to the end of their second game, with our work being done for the day. With 3 wins from 3, morale was high and we were hoping for a 100% success rate to cap off day 1.

The ARC All Blues were one of the two non-IGR teams in the ladies competition. Physically imposing, technically capable, experienced as a team and playing on home soil; they were always going to be the toughest team to beat. That morning, they had shut out the 4th team in the bracket; the World Barbarians had failed to score even a single point against them.

The game started disappointingly with our ladies showing hesitation in moving forwards to shut down the opposition. A lot of passion and frustration was being displayed, and our attacking play was consistently rolling forwards, but the intensity of the All Blues side was proving to be a challenge. As we rolled forwards, they would constantly be looking to disrupt our breakdown and turned us over quite effectively on a few occasions.

In the second half of the game, we came out with a fresh intensity that set a much better tone for the remainder of the match. Our forwards recognised the need to stabilise the rucks and our defensive line worked hard to put more pressure on the All Blues. Where they had run over us in the first half, they started to meet resistance that forced them to push the ball wide. Our attacking game also improved, and with a slow and gradual build up, we were able to keep punching the ball up, into the opposition half. Making it difficult for ourselves (as is the Berserker way) we spent a lot of time in the All Blues' 22 before we were able to commit enough of their defenders, opening up a gap for Face to slip through for some well-earned points. Unfortunately it was a consolation try, with the first half allowing the opposition to put some major points on the board.

Result: Stockholm Berserkers: 5 - 41 : ARC All Blues

Consistent pressure from the Berserkers opens up a gap for Face to spring over the line.

With some bumps, bruises and a concussed ladies scrum-half, we regrouped, taped what needed to be taped and headed back to base camp at the hostel. After a substantial wait at the edge of the sports fields for the bus back, it was nice to be able to eat some food and relax in our own space. The pitches that we were playing on were technically grass, but the conditions were extremely arid. Dust and grit seemed to underlay the topsoil, which was mostly torn apart by all of the games being played on top of it. This meant that every time you tackled or were tackled to the ground, you'd have to clamp your eyes shut to avoid the dust cloud. So much sand went up my nose during this tournament that had my hayfever struck, I would have caused a sandstorm.

I think Astrid was enjoying her first Bingham Cup experience!

Day 5 - "Didn't we do this yesterday?"

Ladies - Game 3: World Barbarians

Day 2 of the competition started just as early as the day before. We packed into the busy coach from the hostel and arrived at around 7:15 at our tent. The ladies had another warm-up and before we knew it, they were taking the field against their last unknown foe in the tournament; the World Barbarians.

For those unversed in rugby, a "Barbarians" team is a squad that do not normally play together as a team. At a professional level; they are made up from top-quality players who are not obligated to play for their club or country. The quality of the players goes a long way to making up for the fact that they will probably only have a week or two to practice together before they play against an experienced, co-ordinated side. In the case of this Bingham tournament, the ladies World Barbarians mostly seemed to be individuals or small groups from teams that weren't able to send 7 people, nevermind 23. That being said, the ladies Barbarians were a physically imposing side, with an inclination towards forwards. The game that followed showed that where the pros will gel and co-ordinate, these ladies decided to take advantage of their size and some sorely lacking refereeing.

This game was brutal and physically draining for our girls, who were already largely held together with tape and pluck. Our co-ordinated efforts to play our game were constantly dashed by dirty play from an opponent who seemed to be completely oblivious to the illegality of their own tactics. In a game of shocking referee oversight, two instances stand out. On one occasion, a Barbarian player knocked the ball on about 5m, in front of the linesman and at least 30 fans who lined the side of the pitch. It was so blatant that it looked liked a basketball bounce pass, and the referee missed it entirely. The second and most egregious occasion was when Matilda (acting as scrum-half) was hit late in the ruck by a player coming in offside, far too high and with no attempt to wrap her arms. The upshot of this was a shoulder-charge that broke Matilda's cheek-bone, ending her tournament. The Barbarian didn't even receive a yellow card for a tackle that would draw a red card in any professional arena.

After losing Jo-jo following another head-knock, it was increasingly clear that we weren't able to play the game we wanted to. Our phases looked solid, and had the opposition been forced to play by the rules, I'm convinced that we would have put at least two tries past the Barbarians. As it stood, we never took our chances against a team that looked sloppy and in disarray most of the time. The Barbarians scored 3 tries against us, consistently putting us under pressure around the breakdown. As with our last game, we stood-off from contact a little too much, and while we were able to put some phases together, we never moved forward with the same intensity and hunger that I've seen us play with at our best. On the plus side, we contested well at line-out time, and despite our smaller size, we dominated the scrums as well. In terms of technical abilities, I was very proud of how our forwards handled the pressure.

One of the most frustrating games of rugby that I have ever watched; game 3 was by far the worst refereeing that I have ever seen at any level. The women's tournament had been poorly served by Bingham's organisers, with trainee referees being used for all but the final 2 games, but this referee was almost comically inept. I know that it's gauche and unsporting to comment on the refereeing decisions made in a game in some effort to make excuses, but the conditions that our women were forced to play in were not only unfair, but extremely unsafe, resulting in our captain having to pull out of the tournament with a broken cheek-bone. Watching from the sidelines literally drove some spectators to tears.

With this result, the ladies team were now locked-in to play the Ottawa Wolves once again to decide the 3rd and 4th places in the inaugural ladies Bingham Cup tournament.

Result: Stockholm Berserkers: 0 - 15 World Barbarians

Men - Game 3: Northampton Outlaws

The last game in our pool stages, Northampton were by far the most physically imposing team we had in our group. With a center who was even bigger than me, and a large but slightly aged pack of forwards, I wondered how our direct forwards-heavy (pun not intended) approach would would against them.

As it turned out, it was nowhere near as effective. The Northampton boys hit us almost as hard as we hit them in the close game, and it became increasingly obvious to us that we needed to utilise our back line and try to stretch them. For the majority of the game we did just that, pulling them in and throwing the ball out to our backs who consistently made yards. Danny wasn't afraid to use the boot, and we often found ourselves chasing and making good yards.

Late in the first half, we went on a short emotional rollercoaster. After a beautifully weighted pass to the wing, Victor took the ball at pace and hit a gap in the Northampton defensive line. He broke through, and was brought down on the try line. The nature of his dive caused a cheer to erupt through the Berserkers and it was only after a few short seconds that I realised the referee had not blown his whistle. In his frenzy to score his first ever Berserkers try, Victor had misjudged his landing, causing him to brace his landing one on arm while being tackled. This had resulted in him putting too much pressure on the arm, causing his elbow to dislocate. Our fears of a knock-on had become concern for our team-mate. Maja was called from the sidelines as she nursed her ever-injured ankles to help Victor get his arm sorted, and he was clapped from the field.

Victor comes painfully close to scoring his first Berserker try.

Victor grabs some consolation time with Bosse.

Due to our heavy reliance on forwards, Matthew "Twinkletoes" Ritson was called up from the pack to fill in at inside center. Our switch to put the ball out wide paid off when Ritson burst through several tackles to touch down towards the end of the first half. The middle section of the game was ours, with constant pressure leading to Danny dotting down, and another try going begging after a misjudgement of the dead-ball line caused a try to be disallowed.

Moving Ritson to center has its benefits, as he tears through Northampton’s defense.

Northampton took their chances, though. And after I gave away a stupid penalty, we allowed them back into the game. Two tries came towards the end of the game, with their captain slotting a perfect dropgoal conversion at the death to tie us 12-12. The team's morale had taken a huge knock, and it was telling that after dominating for so much of the game, we felt like we'd lost it all, just by allowing the opposition to draw. We had won our group and were undefeated, but we knew that this was only the beginning.

Result: Stockholm Berserkers: 12 - 12 :Northampton Outlaws

Ladies - Game 4: Ottawa Wolves (3rd Place Decider)

Bruised, battered and bloody; the Berserker "Shieldmaidens" took to the field one last time to decide their placement at the end of the tournament. Unable to field a team of 15, we reduced our numbers to 10 and played a kind of rugby that is even more taxing and tiresome than 15s.

It was a scrappy start for us, with us giving away silly penalties around the ruck. At first I put it down to the fatigue that we were all feeling, but as I kept watching, I noticed that it was barely bridled aggression and determination that was causing us to leap in and make bad choices.

The ladies got a handle on that aggression, and in a display of forward momentum that was beautiful to behold, we carried, shoved and dragged the ball up the field. To cap off the move, Jo-jo shot the ball out to Face, who accelerated into the space and added to her tally, as she touched down with an excited flourish. We maintained the same pressure and looked good in attack throughout the game, with Julia making a bizarre and wonderful carry where she successfully convinced the Wolves not to tackle her, while she jogged forwards. We made about 40 metres, but sadly the offload didn't work out and we knocked on, just short of their line. Ottawa responded with their scrum-half sending a well judged kick deep into our half, followed by a great chase. With the game being close, I was a bag of nerves until Astrid came out of nowhere to throw herself down onto the ball, snuffing out the immediate threat and securing possession.

Face finishes off a period of strong, aggressive forward carries.

Astrid also put her skills to good use at the other end of the pitch, finding the line and scoring a try after a solid set of phases and carries from our back line. With the last 20 minutes being spent containing the Wolves in their own half, our ladies had stamped their authority onto the game, with Jo-jo and Astrid especially putting in some monster hits, causing Ottawa to spill the ball out of the tackle.

Astrid pushes through after a solid set of phases.

When the game ended, it was an emotional affair for everyone involved. The ladies had gone through two days of tough rugby and had come out with 2 wins and 2 losses. The floodgates opened as that last whistle blew, and the men rushed in to join the ladies in their victory. It was exactly the morale boost that the men needed as we immediately set off to mentally prepare for our next game.

Result: Stockholm Berserkers: 12 - 0 :Ottawa Wolves

Men - Game 4: Columbus Coyotes (Tier 2 Quarter Final)

After graduating out of our group undefeated, the Berserkers men's team discovered that due to our relatively low-scoring games and the draw against Northampton, we wouldn't be promoted into the competition in Tier 1. We would be staying in Tier 2 to fight for the top-spot. Morale had been lifted by the ladies victory, and spirits were generally quite high around the Berserkers camp, but as Danny and I took a moment to discuss the team-sheet for game 4, it was increasingly clear that we wouldn't be able to play with the style that we had trained for in the lead-up to the tournament. Between the players lost through injury, our forwards-heavy subs bench and the fact that we were all sporting an injury of some description, we had dulled our "cutting edge" in the back line. With players out of position and a gameplan that can only be summed up as "making the best of what we had", we were resolved to keep playing the physical, aggressive brand of rugby that had been wearing us down.

There was a lengthy period that afternoon where we didn't know where the game was going to be played, or who we were to be facing. When we finally found out, we had just an hour or so to quick-march the team about half a mile across the complex to find the "far-away" pitches. We'd never played out here before, but just like with the main pitches, they seemed to be lined with canals and thick, overgrown nettles. With a quick and slightly unfocused warm-up, we squared off against the Columbus Coyotes.

The first thing we noticed about the Coyotes was the size of their forwards pack. They had a lock that looked to be at least 6ft 8, and a big, gruff front row. It didn't take long for us to feel the pressure as the Coyotes did a great job of keeping the ball and gradually moving the ball up the field, forcing us to move our tired bones to cover. We gave a good account of ourselves, though, and it was the Berserkers who eventually drew first blood, with Danny taking the ball standing still, yet being able to find the pace to dive over the line. After a relatively easy conversion, we went back to soaking up pressure. This culminated in possibly my most vital action of the whole tournament; anticipating their number 10's dive for the line off the back of a ruck. Instead of targeting him, I went straight for the ball and as he fell for the line, I was able to get just my hands underneath the ball. All credit to the referee, as he called it straight away. No try, the ball was held up.

Danny scores the deciding try against Columbus.

I took myself off for the second half. Limping and struggling to chase the ball around, I stalked the sideline and cheered on the team. The second half was spent mostly trading blows, much as the first half had been. The Coyotes came perilously close to scoring on a few occasions, with our back line doing a fantastic job of pulling them down before they could equalise. A lot of last-ditch, hail mary tackles were made and we were clinging on by the end of the game. Just before the final whistle, Danny went down. With both myself and Danny unable to steer the game, our more experienced players stepped up and were able to shut out the Coyotes just long enough. When the final whistle blew, we were ahead by a narrow margin that we were very lucky to have.

Result: Stockholm Berserkers: 7 - 0 :Columbus Coyotes

We make a little break in open play.

Day 2 of the competition had been grueling, without a doubt. Injuries were whittling us down, and our last game had been played in very hot conditions. We were exhausted, but we were also happy to have made it to the last day undefeated. We knew how close we had just come to defeat, but it felt good to know that we had a night to rest and recover. We boarded the bus and headed back to basecamp for some dinner. The ladies had a party that they were invited to attend, now that their tournament play was complete. I laughed when I saw how upset the ladies were at the prospect of being invited to a party, when all they wanted to do was relax and sleep. "Welcome to my world" I thought, but I sympathised.

That night, I had a lengthy chat with one of the coaches from the Swansea Vikings team. They were staying at the same hostel as most of the team and we just sparked up a conversation when I asked how they'd performed that day. This was one of my favourite things about the tournament; just how friendly and familiar people were. I think the fact that we all knew that we were there for the same reason and shared a passion made people very open and affable. Knowing I'd need to be up late to let Kara back in, I stuck around the hostel for a while, chatting with the team and taking a little time to de-compress. It was one of the few moments of real relaxation that I had during the entire trip.

At the end of day 5, the team pulls together to save Astrid from a swamp, after she goes in looking to rescue a beachball.

"Boobs to the sky!"

Day 6 - "A Shot At Glory"

As the last day of the competition dawned, the team reveled in the slightly delayed start to proceedings. With the first game being played after 11, we enjoyed our first day of tournament play that didn't begin with waking up at 6 or earlier. With a breakfast to see us through, we packed on to the bus and made our way out to the pitches.

Our warm up was unusually unfocused for us on this trip. We had been doing a good job of doing the same basic drills for so long on this trip, and we were seeing a lot of dropped balls and mistakes being made. Unsure if it was the pressure of the upcoming game, the injuries that were scattered throughout the team or the morning sun's heat, we pushed on until we had to make our way to the pitch to play our 5th game against the Dallas Lost Souls.

Men - Game 5: Dallas Lost Souls (Tier 2 Semi Final)

As we made our way to the pitch, I overhead some chatter that suggested the Lost Souls were a team that didn't enjoy having forwards run at them, and much preferred a more protracted backs battle. I quickly began to doubt this as we caught our first glimpse of the opposition in their white and green strips. Their forward back looked tough, and I got the feeling instantly that this was going to be just as physical a confrontation as any other we had that weekend. I wasn't to be disappointed.

As the first half got underway, we learned that not only do the Lost Souls deal well with establishing a solid close-game defense, they are also very capable ball carriers. They had several players who carried well and brought them over the gain line almost every time. During this game, I put a tackle in on one of them, bringing him to ground in a manner that made both of my arms go numb for a moment. As I attempted to place my weight on my right arm to get up from the ground, I realised that it wasn't capable of taking my weight. Unable to understand what had just happened, I rejoined the defensive line in time to make a tackle as we had conceded a penalty very close to our own try line. Unable to get my arms into a good position, I tackled far to high and was bounced. Within a phase or two, the Lost Souls had broken our defensive line and scored a try. With a conversion to match, I left the pitch unable to lift my arms above my head and the Lost Souls up 7-0.

Watching from the sidelines, I observed us soaking up a huge amount of pressure, in a way that reminded me a great deal of how our games often go back home in Sweden. Our defensive game was good, as we adapted to cover the wings, with both Fredrik and Fuego putting in massive shifts to bring ball carriers down. Closer to the ruck, Evan was also showing his true quality as a rugby player, making massive tackles, getting up and making another straight after. I was immensely proud of how the team performed in this game. Despite this defensive display, we conceded a second unconverted try, putting us 12-0 behind.

With some instances of solid progression up the field, we ended some solid pressure on the Dallas 5m line with a knock-on that sadly allowed them to clear the danger before we could turn the pressure into points. Once again, this was an instance of us missing the back line speed and cutting edge that a team normally relies on to break that line. The majority of the game was played in the central part of the pitch, but our heads never went down. Knowing that there wasn't much in the contest kept us going, and we were rewarded after Danny sent a clearing kick long down the field, with Fredrik and Fuego in hot pursuit. With Fuego closing down the wide run for the winger who had dropped back to receive the kick, he was forced to pass back inside. What he didn't realise was that Fredrik hadn't slowed his run, and came charging through the gap to intercept the pass. With the sidelines screaming, Fredrik touched down to put us back in the game.

Despite this late score, we never found the second try that we needed. With all of the hard work we had put into shutting Dallas out, we had absolutely exhausted ourselves. As the final whistle blew, the Berserkers tournament ended and we lined up to congratulate and shake the hands of the Dallas boys who had played the best game of rugby I'd been a part of that weekend.

We expressed the sentiment that Dallas had better win now, because we don't want to lose to the losers of the final. They went on to face the team we played right at the very start of the tournament; The King's Cross Steelers C side. It still stings slightly to know that our biggest victory of the tournament was against a team that ended up competing in the final, but it still felt good when comparing our little team, from a nation that is still very early in its love affair with rugby, to the British and American teams we played on the way to the semi-final. As it turned out, Dallas did indeed go on to win the tier 2 tournament, and we cheered them on throughout.

Result: Stockholm Berserkers: 7 - 12 :Dallas Lost Souls

We steal a lineout and come painfully close to scoring a try after a valiant charge upfield.

Fredrik reads the game incredibly well, while Fuego puts their winger under pressure.

The rest of the day was spent in the stands, watching the finals. We had chosen a good spot, right in the grandstand, with plenty of space for both our men and ladies. As mentioned, we cheered on the Dallas players as they took down KXS (C) and as players continually arrived with beers to share around, a real party atmosphere began to permeate the team. The weight of the competition gone from my shoulders, I stopped stressing about my injuries or the upcoming games and was able to relax and hang out with some of my favourite people on a beautiful day in Amsterdam.

With the games over, the team forms a huddle of red, drinks beer and cheers on our chosen teams.

After Dallas won tier 2, we settled in for the Bingham Cup final, the tier 1 match between Sydney Convicts (multiple-time cup winners) and the Gotham Knights from New York, who were going in as underdogs. With the heat really climbing, it was a true display in athleticism and sporting prowess to watch these two teams really going for it. After playing the same amount of rugby as us, these guys were still on-point, sprinting full pace and hitting hard. I couldn't comprehend playing at this level as an amateur player for even a single 80 minute game, but these guys had managed it for 3 days straight. I was even able to cheer on a fellow Avalancher and former Berserker who I never got a chance to meet during the competition, but we had a little chat online where I was able to express my support for the Gotham Knights. Sadly it wasn't to be the Gotham Knight's day, and Sydney ended up winning the cup.

With the games now over, I had time to reflect and really consider just how special the Bingham Cup is. The fact that the event is an inclusive tournament for people who want a chance to not only enjoy their favourite sport, but to do it without fear of ugly encounters and ignorance is a massive factor of course, but all I could take away from the contest was the overwhelming feel of community, friendship and pride. I am still very new to the gay community and its inbuilt politics, having only been playing with the Berserkers for less than a year at this point, but I was lucky to be able to take part in an event that welcomes all. On multiple occasions, I'd just start chatting with people about how their games had gone, commiserate when it had gone badly and compliment when it had gone well. During my time as a young rugby player in my teens, I had attended tournaments, but nothing on this scale and certainly nothing with such a positive atmosphere.

The closing ceremony was a hot, sweaty affair, but with a great party atmosphere.

Apparently a wig started doing the rounds.

At the closing ceremony, the atmosphere was similarly triumphant and jovial, and while being trapped in a space with hundreds of other people and insufficient air-con was a personal nightmare of mine, it was very nice to see the teams receive their prizes and watch my team-mates dance away. The music left a lot to be desired, but I do recall laughing heartily at a music video on the screen that depicted a romance between men on the rugby pitch. It looked like the most ridiculously contrived porn movie set-up I've ever seen. I recall reading the phrase "Rugby is my sexy time" and I would love to share some of the comical but SFW video, but I am only willing to google it and when I couldn't find a reference to it, I refused to dig any deeper. Suffice it to say that it was ridiculous, hilarious and I don't recall the video actually involving much rugby at all.

The Stockholm Berserkers Enjoy A Little Dancing

Day 7 - "Oh yeah, we're on holiday, aren't we?"

I have often joked with Kara that when we go on holiday, I am not a good person to go with if you want to relax. Ever conscious of time constraints, opening hours and Kara's tendency to wilt in hot weather, I become a timekeeper. Some kind of militant tour-guide, dragging Kara onto public transport in 30 degree heat, so that we can visit a historic site or a museum. On our last proper day in Amsterdam, I was so very glad to not be steering our particular ship. Our Bingham events committee had arranged a nice little outing later in the afternoon.

Back on the bus, we headed into town and piled off next to one of Amsterdam's quaysides. Nursing our injured players down the steep steps, we all climbed aboard one of the tour-boats and I made sure I found myself next to an open window to keep me cool. As we took off down the waterways, I was soothed by the happy, cheerful chatter of my teammates and friends as we took in the sights. Between the many bridges, slanted houses and lavish looking townhouses, I enjoyed a historical tour of Amsterdam. I even saw the site of the Guerilla Games studio, from the boat, but I was too slow to snap a photo.

Johan approves of this bridge! Or maybe it was just the cold breeze.

Andrew's face suggests "Oh yeah, this happens all the time!

Before the drinking started. The smiles would remain, but my belief in their ability to stand next to the canal without falling in was tested afterwards.

After our peaceful drift through Amsterdam's waterways, we disembarked and travelled onwards until we found ourselves at "De Biertuin Prinsengracht"; our venue for the Kangaroo court that evening. As we entered, I was very confident that the beer connoisseurs in the team would enjoy what was on offer. I bought myself an Old Mout passion fruit cider, if for no other reason than it was the only alcoholic thing in the place that I would drink that didn't cost 9 euros. Hanging out with the entire team for so long in peaceful conditions felt very strange, after almost a week of shouting commands at training, screaming support from the touchlines and marshaling people for buses. This surreal peace and quiet was not to last, though.

After our dinner, Andrew, Ritson and myself looked over the charges that were to be brought for the Kangaroo court while Danny disappeared to get into character (and costume). Despite being one of the more vocal and confident rugby players out on the field and at training, Mr Ritson has a fear of public speaking. This meant that he was our best pick for defense lawyer. As with most kangaroo courts, the charges listed varied drastically in scope and severity. They included but were by no means limited to...

Fashion faux-pais. (Especially harsh, considering the judge's taste for socks and sandals.)
Showing off knowledge of the Dutch language.
Having the gall to leave early to attend a graduation.
For being injured. (Some of these injuries were received months in advance of the tour.)
Mentioning football at any time.
Phoning loved ones back home at any time.
Drinking daiquiries.

Yours truly was given the role of prosecution, and as nervous as Ritson was about being a defense lawyer, I had to point at people with game-ending injuries and tell them they were selfish assholes for getting themselves injured. Fortunately, I think I found just the right level of sass, and was able to keep it jovial without letting anyone off the hook. Oddly enough, I think I was the one who got away with the most, especially after having given Kara my hair-clip on her birthday, as she had lost hers.

Fuego looks to be a labcoat away from playing a mad scientist in a cartoon.

Izzy is delighted to grab some Pippi-time

Most of the punishments involved drinking copious amounts of beer and shots, but some of the non-drinkers received forfeits of ridiculous costumes, including a purply pink plastic wig for Kara, a clown mask for Linnéa with her clown phobia, and a fetching "cock-nose" pair of novelty glasses for Izzy. As the night went on and people drank their forfeits, the pantomime began to take hold, and the volume rose to a point where the bar staff had to ask us to keep it down. A task that we didn't really do a great job with.

Kara makes me wear her forfeit wig as it was irritating her, and Ezther tells me to look "fabulous". I don't disappoint.

After the Kangaroo court was settled, we spread throughout the bar, forming pockets of Berserkers, chatting away and challenging each other to drinking competitions. In another moment of reflection, I looked around the bar and noticed that there wasn't a single group that I wouldn't happily join in with. Once again, I was struck by the realisation that the Berserkers are truly something special. A team that once started as a gay men's team back in 2011, I was lucky to have joined a group of friends who are truly accepting of everyone. Regardless of sexual orientation, race or gender, everyone is welcome to play rugby with us. Hell, you don't even need to have played a sport before. It was in this mindset of merry wonder that I spent the night, surrounded by friends I've known for less than a year, but have a bond with that was forged in teamwork, making us close in a way that is difficult to find amongst most social groups, even within sport.

The team take the tram home after our final night in Amsterdam.

As the night went on and people got more chatty, I was lucky enough to get an opportunity to sit and chat some of our players. I found myself letting them know how happy I was to see them perform on the field, as well as expressing my excitement at the prospect of where their rugby careers might go. We have some tremendous talent in the team, and I was keen to point out individual moments of skill, determination or bravery amongst the players I've been coaching. I was also far too sober to be receiving any sort of kind remark in return, but that didn't stop some of my teammates who seemed to be oblivious or actively delight in how uncomfortable it made me. All in all, I really felt the love in the room that night, and it's a set of memories that I hope will never leave me.

It was a trip that was both physically and mentally draining, but I'm already excited to do it again with this amazing group of people.

Astrid's elusive beachball still haunts her.

Ross Alexander 4/1/18 Ross Alexander 4/1/18

Ett år i Sverige

It's been a year in Sweden! What's been happening? Have I learned anything?

Jag trivs i Sverige

Today; the first of April, 2018 marks the first anniversary of Kara and I setting out to live in Stockholm. In fact, on this particular anniversary, Kara is traveling home from Scotland. Making an almost identical trip as she returns from seeing friends and working at the Scottish tattoo convention.

Our little apartment on the island of Södermalm has been a base of operations for beautiful walks around the city in summer and the site of a couple of dinner parties, which was something we so rarely did before, being the self-imposed hermits that we were. The proximity of our workplaces to our apartment has been truly appreciated through our first winter in Stockholm, as we realised just how deep and treacherous the snow gets here. Of course, my closeness to work didn't stop me from slipping on ice and opening up my knee on the sharp stones that Stockholm city council uses instead of grit. In true Ross fashion, it was just while I was checking to make sure that everyone in my group had shoes equipped for the detour I had just decided to take. Suffice it to say that despite my allergies and general distaste for warm weather, I am looking forward to the weather clearing slightly.

Getting this off the ground has taken a lot of work, but it's fun!

My little table in the corner of the living room has also been the place where I've done most of the work for my new podcast which is slow-going, but for all the best reasons. First of all, researching for a Podcast isn't something I've ever had to do before. The effort involved is a part-time job in of itself. A full-time job if I'd planned to get one out weekly. This is a good thing, as it's giving me a lot of satisfaction to make sure I'm researching properly, even if I know it's all for nought if I never get around to recording and releasing the bloody thing.

Teambuilding at work involved silver-smithing a set of rings for the team.

The second thing holding me back from releasing a regular podcast is the fact that I actually leave the house in the evenings these days. Between hanging out with Kara, going to our nearby cinema or just hanging out on a Sunday afternoon to watch a Ghibli movie, it's really nice to have options that involve going for walks around an old city or seeing friends. Speaking of friends, this past year has introduced me to some of the most lovely, charming, interesting and caring people I've ever had the luck to meet. As a couple who don't go out drinking, living in a city where 3 rum and cokes in a pub cost roughly the same as a nice bottle of rum back home didn't seem like the best set-up for making friends. That prediction failed to account for the wonderful colleagues that I have become close to in the last year, and the team-mates from the Stockholm Berserkers who have welcomed me into their fold.

I've never trained for rugby indoors before, but these guys make it fun!

When I first considered the move to Stockholm, the first thing I did was look at rugby teams and the possibility that I could jump back into the sport after 13 years away. While I had considered that my years spent playing 4 days a week would make me an asset to a team who needed a 19st packhorse, I hadn't pictured that within 6 months, I'd be helping to coach the team. In the past few months, I've been attempting to up my game, both literally and figuratively, as I come to terms with being expected to know what I'm doing on the pitch. This has involved late nights, poring over videos of rugby drills, playbook moves & the basic laws of the game, which have changed a bit since I played at 18. It's a challenge that I'm enjoying, and I'm looking forward to a camp next weekend, where hopefully we can put it all into practice.

So things are going well in Stockholm, but like everywhere, it has its downsides. It's incredibly expensive to live here, which was the only downside I had when we moved. In my first year, I also learned that Brits shouldn't have to be mocked for the blandness of British cuisine. Admittedly, our love of curry comes from horrific imperialist colonialisation, but if you want a good curry in Stockholm, it's probably best to learn how to make it yourself. We live next door to a curry house that tends to be quite busy at the weekends, but having sampled some, I just don't think that Swedes have the same standards for curry that a Brit might be expected to have. On top of the aversion to strong spices, Swedes are also obsessed with some of the worst flavours in existence; especially when it comes to sweets. I already knew about licorice and cinnamon being dramatically over-represented in Swedish cuisine, and I was aware of the horror that is Surströmming, but I've also discovered that they love food in tubes. Caviar, prawn mayonnaise & cat vomit all seem to be popular options. I assume that this is a diet choice that makes it easier to transition onto pureed food in later years.

The other thing I've learned about Stockholm that is unfortunate, is that it has a communal mentality that reminds me a little bit of London. While Swedes love their friends and are certainly bigger huggers than Kara and myself, (anyone who knows Kara's stance on hugs will probably laugh at that bit) the general feeling as you walk around Stockholm is a bit more cold, with people pushing in front of you, not even smiling if you hold a door open for them or glaring at you for wearing shorts in the winter months. Ok, that last one might be very specific to me, but I think it's still a poor show.

All things considered, Sweden is working out really well for me, and I am determined to make the most of my time in this wonderful country. The rugby team will have some games out of town this season, and I'm looking forward to seeing more than just the little towns and villages that used to be distinct, but are now just outer suburbs of Stockholm. Will year 2 match or even beat year 1? With Kara and I planning some holidays and a new group of wonderful friends, I look forward to finding out!

From the day we visited the Aquarium in Stockholm. It was too cold for smiles.

Farväl för nu mina vänner!

Ross Alexander 9/11/17 Ross Alexander 9/11/17

Education Through Youtube (Part 2)

In my long-postponed "Education Through Youtube - Part 2", I highlight my favourite resources for learning about games. From experienced designer talks to guys like me who just happen to know how to put a great video together; this blog should have something for all fans of gaming.

Making Up For Lost Time

Most of the people who know me are very much aware that I am passionate about video games, and many of these people also know that I dropped out of a nursing course at University over a decade ago. My year-and-a-bit foray into nursing is the only taste of higher learning that I've had, having finished high school and not really being inspired to do anything afterwards. I knew that I liked to take care of people, and I am from a family of brilliant nurses (and a trained midwife) so it seemed like a sensible thing to do. The thought of actually working in the games industry felt unattainable, like being a rock star or an a-list actor.

Looking back, I wish I could have drilled it into my teenage self that the cliché of "you can do anything you want, if you try hard enough" has its foundations in reality. Instead, I found myself spending my teens and early twenties doing bar work and retail; both of which have resulted in some great life lessons and friends that I am so proud to have. These jobs never gave me much opportunity to learn, though, and that was why I reached out to "Train2Game"; an open-learning course that turned out to be a bit of a joke. Despite the course's dubious credentials, it allowed me to put together the portfolio you see on this site, as well as giving me the confidence to apply for work in my chosen industry. I was willing to be vice-sub-assistant deputy teaboy, but luckily I was rewarded for my tenacity with a QA role and this crazy ride began.

Every moment in my professional life since then has been a somewhat scattered ascent up the steep rock-face of "learning on the job". I love my current job, and if there's anyone who's thinking "I can't do <X> for a living", I want to let you know that if you care enough, you'll make it happen. My lack of formal education means relatively little in my current role, as does my growing up without a PC in the house for most of my childhood, as I've learned the role of QA tester over the past 4 and a half years. Despite this, I am constantly tripping myself up with imposter syndrome and the belief that my lack of technical or academic knowledge is going to define my whole career. It's a stupid insecurity, given that the games industry is already full of inspiring characters who have defeated much greater odds to achieve their goals.

Anyway, the upshot of all of this is that I have been lucky enough to pick up some good habits from colleagues and fellow game developers who have shown me that especially in the tech world, nobody is ever finished learning. Books and seminars can be useful, but people go to great lengths to make learning the trade of game development more entertaining. This brings us to the whole point of this blog post (apologies for the introspective opening), the amazing channels that are out there that I feel have helped me to become a better game developer. I want to start with one that I've been following for quite a long time now, and has been a gateway to much wider sources of analysis.

As before, all titles will double as links to the appropriate Patreon pages.

Mark Brown & The Game Maker's Toolkit

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Mark Brown is the first youtube channel I ever supported on Patreon, and this was largely because his Game Maker's Toolkit series was the first instance I had seen of critical analysis on specific gameplay mechanics and themes. Before this, I could see when a game had a problem with its mechanics or level design, but I couldn't ever convey it succinctly. I am not a trained level or mechanics designer, but GMT provided a lens through which to see the core tenets of modern game development and almost overnight, I became better at identifying a game's shortcomings and conveying them to other people. Some might think that this would be useful for a QA tester, and technically it is, but this insight is more useful when giving feedback, as opposed to writing bugs. Fortunately, I'm lucky enough to work somewhere that QA feedback is not only acknowledged, but actively encouraged, so I feel like this channel has equipped me well.

Mark puts a great deal of work into his roughly 10-15 minute pieces, and not only is his voice a calming and well paced guide through the subjects he's discussing, but he also rewards his Patreon backers with a generous amount of "behind the scenes" content, video critiques of the games he's played that month and most valuable of all (to me): his reading list.

The GMT reading list is Mark's favourite articles, videos and essays about all sorts of subjects that can conceivably apply to gaming. Every month, he posts some solid gold that has led me to follow some of the video makers I'll mention later. Many of the articles he cherry picks are related to specific game mechanics, some are indie blogs that describe the process of making a game with a small team, there's a small selection of choice interviews with game developers great and small and some are really gratifying deep-dives into classic games from my childhood and teens.

Whatever your chosen genre or area of expertise, I can almost guarantee you that Mark has made a video to suit your interests. I've never regretted kicking him a few quid for the work he does, and he always seems grateful. His work only continues to improve, and I look forward to the next series he makes.

Recommended Videos:

Extra Credits

The Extra Credits guys have been making educational videos for years now. They started as a channel solely dedicated to helping people understand how games are made and why developers often make choices that seem wrong or ill thought out. At this point, I doubt there's a part of game development that they haven't touched on. They've covered all genres, some more in depth than others, and while some of the lessons they convey may seem obvious, it's a great place to look for a video about getting started on your own game, why some games have stories that work while others fail, and even career advice for someone who wants to break into the industry.

They've also branched out into teaching history, which was a treat for me. For those looking for the "game design" nuance in there, I'm afraid to say that it's 100% historical storytelling. That being said, a good designer reads fiction & non-fiction, takes trips and brings life experience to their project, so give some cutely drawn history a shot. Episodes are short and concise, with a distinctive and mostly consistent art style.

Recommended Videos:

Tommy Thompson's AI & Games

My countryman Tommy Thompson is a senior lecturer in computer science and researcher in AI. He also develops his own games. His knowledge of the driving forces behind AI makes for a very interesting insight into what makes game non-playable characters (NPCs) compelling to interact with. From the undeniably brilliant (albeit slightly inconsistent) Xenomorph AI in Alien Isolation, to the much lauded "game director" functionality of Left 4 Dead, AI & Games is a thought-provoking and never too technical insight into what makes our games more challenging and creative.

His breakdowns of classic games known for their AI is the reason I keep coming back to watch his work. He is a prime example of an educator who can take a feature and boil it down to what makes it work and why sometimes it doesn't. Computers aren't as smart as humans...yet.

Recommended Videos:

Hamish Black's Writing On Games

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Another fellow Scot (as if the name didn't give it away); Hamish Black has been recording a podcast about games for quite a while now, and has been making videos about writing in video games for a couple of years. Sometimes these take the form of critiques of specific games, while other times, they can focus on an aspect of interactive storytelling that Hamish finds especially valuable or troubling.

As someone who enjoys writing blogs, fiction and interactive fiction, it's no surprise that the topics found on this channel often resonate strongly with me. I've always found Hamish's videos to be quite even-handed, and while I don't always agree with the points he's making, I feel like he always backs up his opinion, so I can at least see where he's coming from. With the game industry's long running "What's More Important: Story vs Mechanics" debate as strongly contested as ever, it's good to know that there's someone who cares enough about interactive narrative to keep putting out consistently solid content, which only seems to be getting better.

Recommended Videos:

Danny O'Dwyer's noclip Documentaries

My first time hearing Danny O' Dwyer was during my phase of listening to the GiantBombCast's ridiculous 3-hour long podcasts. I have since stopped listening to them as who has that sort of time to listen to a podcast every week? I digress. Danny is an extremely competent, well connected player (ho-ho!) in the games industry. His career has allowed him to make friends and interact with people that some might describe as the "rock stars" of modern game development. His channel "noclip" was set up in 2016, and the name refers to a type of video game cheat that allows players to walk through walls. This alludes to his ability to get inside the walls of big game studios to interview the people who make our favourite games.

His first documentary was a behind-the-scenes of my favourite game of 2016, the great DOOM! He has since gone on to interview Marcin Iwinski of CD Projekt: one of the people behind my favourite game of 2015, The Witcher 3. He has a candid interview process that seems to get the best out of the people he's speaking with. I am really hoping that noclip's success allows Danny to bring the insides of great studios into the light.

Recommended Videos:

Double Fine Adventure

Ok, I admit it. I love Tim Schafer to the extent that I have played through and loved most of his games, despite not actually enjoying the format of the typical adventure game. His inimitable writing style and sense of humour have pushed me through Grim Fandango, Monkey Island 1 & 2, as well as causing me to have Broken Age in my Steam list (I'm yet to get around to playing it.)

I don't really do Kickstarters, but Double Fine's campaign to fund Broken Age was brilliantly marketed, to the extent that they went dramatically over budget. $3million over budget, actually. I may love Tim Schafer but I have no illusions about his slight...inexperience with managing a budget. The "Double Fine Adventure" showcased the process of pitching the idea of Broken Age to the general public, all the way through to release via highs, lows and E3 press conferences. Highlights include when the campaign was so successful that they broke Kickstarter as they broke $1m, sitting down with Peter Chan to look through his old art work and composing with Peter McConnell. With cameos from voice actors like Jack Black and Elijah wood, and interviews with Ron Gilbert and Tim Schafer, this is a must-watch for fans of Double Fine.

For anyone who's curious about what it's like to develop a game, there's few examples better than 2 Player Productions' coverage of Broken Age's development.

You can find the first video here.

GDC Talks

I couldn't talk about using Youtube to learn game design without referencing possibly the greatest resource out there. The huge range of talks and presentations made at the Games Developers Conference (GDC).

This catalogue of post-mortems, feature breakdowns, new development proposals and groundbreaking new ideas are an invaluable insight into how the best people in the industry are pushing us forward. From game design to AI programming, composing scores to compositing images; this is the place to find what you're looking for.

I have put this last, as most casual fans of videogames are less likely to be interested in an hour-long talk about a single feature in their favourite game, but some might. I know that as someone who wants to learn all he can about game development, this is a resource that I dip into regularly. I encourage anyone who's interested to have a look around the youtube vaults. There'll be something there for you.

Recommended Videos:

And that's it from me this time! If you made it to the bottom of the page, thank you for reading! I find that doing these blogs is a really good exercise for me, as I learn more about why I enjoy these channels. It also serves to highlight the benefits of thinking back on what you learned from watching a youtube video in your lunch break.

This is just a select few of my favourite resources. I hope that maybe in the future, I'll be able to add more. For now, these are the highlights.

Next time I blog, I will have probably celebrated 6 months in Sweden. So far, things are going great and I hope this continues for a long time. Avalanche has been a wonderful experience so far, and Stockholm is treating me well. I'll probably talk a bit about what I've been playing (including some rugby) and maybe throw in some movie or TV chat as well. Thanks again for reading!

Ross Alexander 8/6/17 Ross Alexander 8/6/17

Pick Up The Ball & Run

We take part in our first pride march, with a bunch of new and awesome friends.

Crouch - Bind - Engage!

So it's been roughly a month since my last post on here, but I've actually had quite an eventful month. I have turned 30, joined a rugby team, hosted friends and family in our new city and taken my first summer holiday since high school.

So in my last blog, I mentioned that I had gone along to watch a pair of local teams play at Årsta Rugby Center. It was my intention to approach one of them and say "Hey, I may be fat and haven't run for anything but the ice cream van in 12 years, but I used to play rugby 4 days out of 7. Can I come and train with you guys?"

Well things ended up going a little differently, but in a really cool way. When I showed up to train with my chosen team of "Hammarby" (The guys wearing Celtic colours) I found a group of ten people getting changed into rugby kit, practicing their drop-kicks and generally just catching up after the weekend. It turned out this this group of guys and girls were the "Stockholm Berserkers."

“Sthlm Berserkers Rugby was founded in January 2011

In the beginning it was a rugby team motivating gay and bisexual guys to venture into one of the toughest and challenging sports there are.
Berserkers built up an environment without prejudice and homophobia
where players could feel comfortable and relaxed.

Berserkers welcome everyone no matter sexual orientation or ethnic origin.

... OUR MOTIVATION Is to be as open and welcoming as the world we want to live in.”

— Stockholm Berserkers' "Story"

After chatting with some of the guys and finding out about the club, I joined in with the training session and immediately found out how right I was about my current state of fitness. Since that day, exactly a month from when I've been writing this, I've been working on my fitness in the gym, on walks with Kara after work and of course, during training sessions out at Årsta. While I feel like I'm getting back into the swing of things, I am a totally different shape to when I was 17. I've morphed from second row into a prop, and while I feel like I'm still strong, I know my stamina isn't where it needs to be. It's ok though, because the team are so nice and welcoming that you always feel that the support is there when you're puffing and wheezing to get over the line.

On top of my fitness level, there's those aches and pains that I spoke about last time. On top of the rugby, I've also joined some friends in trying to increase my strength with a regimen of weights. It's totally new to me, and I'm a bit of a liability, but I can see and feel my shoulders and arms regain their strength, and I'm really hoping to become a valuable asset to the team.

Heliophobic Hermit Hosts

So Kara and I have been living in Stockholm for 4 months now. It feels like it's been much longer, as we've done so much and spent entire days exploring the city, but Stockholm continues to unfold in front of us, and we are enjoying visiting corners that we haven't seen yet.

Avalanche has a standard two week holiday period at the end of July. This seemed weird to us, as this doesn't really happen in the UK. People only tend to take time off around Christmas to go home and see their family. We discovered that the Swedes like to take advantage of the summer by taking stints of 3 to 4 weeks off, which sounds incredible, but completely alien to us.

I spent my first week trying to stick to a healthy regimen and of course I succeeded in hurting my neck at the gym, with my poor form on the squat racks. I also set myself a task of working on a Twine game, that I'd hoped to finish. Of course, there are challenges to non-linear storytelling, and I am still early in my process of learning how to build a story that accounts for player choice. This is all part of my attempts at forming something - anything that I can put on this site and say "lookie here, I can do a good writings!" Anyway, I was able to hammer out the outlines of each "cell", but the actual prose will need to come later. I'm hoping that as I flesh out the story, the cells will begin to flow, but it's weird to look at a story and see a flow-chart, even though I know that's a basic component of interactive storytelling.

Our second week was spent in the company of friends & family who had come to see Stockholm. Well, all except from our first day where I took Kara to the gym to get her baseline weight limits and ended up sort-of breaking her. She'll be well placed for working on her strength now, though.

At the start of the week, our friends Kevin and Penny arrived in town and we went out to Stockholm's amusement park; Gröna Lund.

It was great to see our friends, who we hadn't caught up with since our wedding, a year and a half ago. Since we last saw them, they've become jet-setting superstars in the world of piercings and body modifications, with Kevin piercing his childhood celebrity crush, amongst many other high profile celebrities. It was great to catch up with them both as they discussed their travels. Like me, Kevin had also just had his thirtieth celebrations, and this trip had followed time spent in Gruyere, Switzerland.

As a pair of borderline hermits who don't venture out into direct sunlight, Kara and I may not be the best tour guides in town. Kara can't drink, and I can't afford to drink, so we don't visit many bars, and while we do enjoy finding nice places to eat, readers of previous blogs will note that we pick from the "kids menu" of international cuisine. That being said, we have discovered that it's possible to get delicious pizza from two places nearby. Both "Bananas" at the end of our street, and "Galina's Pizza" at Ringen are fantastic, and if you keep it basic, Galina's is under £10 for a delicious log-fired pizza.

Because the weather was so nice, we took our visitors out to Gröna Lund. This involved climbing aboard one of the ferries that we'd been wanting to set out on, and it was really cool to have the sea breeze in your face as you approach the sound of loud music, excited chattering and *sigh* children (and adults) screaming on rollercoasters. It was after disembarking and looking around that I remembered "Shit. It's the school holidays." It was an ironic observation, much like my "Rome is ruined by all the visiting tourists." from a few years ago.

We bought an all-day pass for the rides and set off to wait in our first queue of the day. It actually worked out ok, as it gave us a chance to catch up with our friends while we waited. We went on all the rollercoasters that we wanted to, and the longest queue was for some chicken nuggets. Of course, this was all accompanied by the scorching heat and the sound of screaming and crying kids. Personal highlights from the day include:

Realising that by sitting in the same row as me, my friends had doomed themselves when the bar was pushed down as hard as I could on my thighs, still leaving a hearty 2 inch gap between their legs and the bar for them to bounce around in.
Hearing the sounds Penny made as we went around the "scary" ride. Especially when the chairs are rigged to poke you in the back.
The "toilet monster" on the scary ride. That was great.
Seeing Kara get to go on her first "proper" rollercoasters. It was a little dampened by Kara's screams as she clutched onto her only pair of glasses for dear life.

In the last couple of days during their visit, we also met up with a couple of native Swedish friends and got to play at being tourists in our own city. We took a boat ride under the bridges, listening to an extremely passive-aggressive tour that discussed how Sweden is well known for developing weapons. It struck me as a "so don't mess with us, okay buddy?" We also got to go out eating in our neighbourhood, and try some places that we'd been considering. All-in-all, a great few days.

As soon as we got off the boat, we waved goodbye to our friends and went to meet my mum and her partner Bob, who had arrived that afternoon. It was really nice to see them, especially as I'd been getting used to seeing more of my mum, just before we moved to Sweden.

Kara and I felt like bad tour guides, as most of our experiences of Stockholm involved going on nice long walks and taking in the scenery. We walked around Gamla Stan, taking in the beauty of the old city, showing mum the shops we like and the one's we think she'd like. We toured a large section of Södermalm, culminating in a rain-drenched walk to Sofia Kyrka, where I got a nice but drizzly view of the island.

We also got to visit the Vasa Museum, which houses the ill-fated "Vasa" ship. A cautionary tale against letting an unqualified leader make rash decisions (no subtext); the upside of the Vasa's story is that it leaves modern historians with an incredible relic of the past. While being busy, the museum is climate controlled to keep the wood from rotting away. This made for a very comfortable and cool atmosphere.

Too soon, it was time to say goodbye to mum and Bob, and we ended our holiday by watching movies and taking a deep breath before getting back into the swing of our usual working week.

Berserker Pride

I don't talk about my personal politics online very much, and while I rarely shy away from engaging in conversation in person, I like to think that anyone who knows me will be aware that I am for equal-rights and inclusion across all groups of people. While I've always considered myself an "ally" to the LGBT community, I've never really done much beyond the occasional reactionary post to something I've read about out of touch politicians trying to score points with bigots.

Joining a rugby team with its roots in the gay community gave rise to a unique opportunity to actually do something visible, even if it was as simple as walking in a parade. Kara and I were lucky enough to join in the Stockholm pride march, wearing Berserkers colours. Despite still being very new (today marks a month of meeting some of these guys) everyone has been super welcoming and friendly. It also helps that some of them are fellow nerds, and the march was a great opportunity to get to know them better.

Of course, Stockholm is the bohemian capital of Sweden; the hub of a very progressive and mature society. It would be naive to think that people don't face bigotry in Sweden, but it was really eye-opening to me to see the enormous numbers that lined the streets as the parade passed by. Some open spaces showed hundreds of people, just waving and cheering. My imposter syndrome was in overdrive, as not only have I not actually played a game for the Berserkers yet (stay tuned for the fallout), but I haven't had to go through the sort of issues that pride stands against. It was such a nice environment, I am looking forward to doing it again next year.

The march itself was an extraordinary experience, as the group in front of us represented a Jiu Jitsu martial arts school, and they would intermittently drop their bags and two of them would spar on the cold wet concrete. Some were even performing holds that had them spinning upside down, their heads scant inches from the ground. For the Berserkers part, my teammates took every opportunity to demonstrate line-outs and scrums. The crowd often went crazy as we hoisted people into the air or wrestled for the ball. I didn't see any skinned knees, so I think it all went to plan. I also learned the Berserkers chant, which we yelled every 50 meters or so, it seems.

We ended the day with a little picnic up by the observatory. It was great to just relax in the company of some welcoming new friends. I think that I'd have a hard time feeling as satisfied with joining another team, knowing that a crew as great as the Berserkers were out there. I look forward to getting to know you all better.

“Bira, bira bira!

Berserkers!”

— Stockholm Berserkers Chant

Next Time:

I really ought to get back to talking about games, but life has gone from a dreary slow pace to an exciting and frenetic time after we moved to Stockholm. The summer has been quite draining and my hayfever has finally reared it's ugly head. My grass allergies don't make it easy to enjoy rugby, but I'll find a way to make it work. My first game will hopefully be in a week's time, so here's hoping it all goes to plan and I end with all my teeth.

Until next time!

Ross Alexander 7/3/17 Ross Alexander 7/3/17

Settling In

I take a look back on three months in Sweden, as well as waxing lyrical about summer in Söder.

A view of the meditation area at Skogskyrkogården.

It's been a little while since I checked in, and figured that passing the 3 month mark was as good an occasion as any to give an update regarding how things are going with Kara and I. It's incredible to think that we've already spent a quarter of a year over here, and we're still uncovering the secret little treats of just our little island of Södermalm.

The last month or so has been brilliant for showcasing how the Swedes react to summer. They embrace it and make sure to go out, taking advantage of Stockholm's beautiful open spaces. My theory is that this is to make up for the notoriously dark winters that Scandinavia is known for. Personally, this has been a great summer for me, as my hayfever has been held at bay so far. Most people who know me will wince as they recall the creature I transform into during the spring and summer months. I often describe myself during these seasons as a "human snot volcano", which is an evocative phrase, even if you don't believe me. The fact that I only have Sweden's warm summer days to complain about may cause some of you to roll your eyes, but I feel like while many older people move to southern Spain for their arthritis, I can see me permanently settling in Sweden for my sinuses. Still, that's a decision for another day.

We found a Tri-force on one of our recent walks. It was fitting that Kara was wearing Zelda shoes at the time!

Kara and I have been taking advantage of living in the center of Stockholm's trendy (is it untrendy to use the word "trendy"?) part of town. Södermalm is hipster heaven, covered in tattoo studios, unironic ugly shoe shops, technology companies (such as Avalanche, Paradox & DICE) and barbers that purport to be all Victorian aesthetic, but have a PS4 in the corner. It's also covered in very cool bars that we will probably never go to, but that hasn't stopped us from appreciating the beautiful traditional spots that we've found around the island. We have been working our way around the island's edge, visiting it by quadrant and taking in the atmosphere.

Söder has many of these wonderful red brick buildings, especially along the waterfront.

These wanderings have shown us old boats from all over the world, turned into quirky, beautiful and often luxurious-looking house boats. They bob gently next to docks that see regular maintenance and usage. Many of the older ones come with plaques, denoting the origins and original function of the boat. Some of them are former American military boats that were used in the D-Day landings. There are also a few larger boats that have been converted into restaurants, hotels and even a delightfully tacky pirate-themed one, featuring a fiberglass shark dangling from a rope, and some weather beaten pirates with unconvincing comb-overs. It's a little bit like if Madame Tussauds was an attraction in Blackpool that someone had fished out of the sea.

Stockholm continues to delight pretty much every time we go walking, with so many little streets and hidden surprises. On one of the nights when summer was beginning to really blossom, we rounded a corner to find a large open square, roughly 300 square feet, that had been allocated for dancing. And it was packed. People lazed on the grass, waiting on their turn to dance, watching the cyclists, joggers and walkers passing by. I've never been summer's biggest fan, but seeing how much it meant to the Swedes to go out and claim their city was something I found really endearing.

Kara and I have also ventured outside of our immediate neighbourhood, most memorably travelling out to Skogskyrkogarden; a UNESCO world heritage sight and by far the largest cemetery I've ever visited. While Kara normally enjoys looking for the more elaborate or macabre headstones, I think we both enjoyed the peace and tranquility that permeated the area on the beautiful day that we visited. It was eye-opening to see just how many people are buried there, but the trees and landscape are something to behold.

I have been attempting to get "back on it" at the gym. This is hopefully the beginning of me getting back into rugby, which is a hobby I haven't indulged in for over 12 years now. I miss the game, and while I'm out of shape, I'd like to think that I still have some of the old instincts. That doesn't count for much if I can't run the length of the pitch without collapsing afterwards, so I'm hoping to get in a decent state in anticipation of the next year's season. Kara and I went to watch the two teams I'm considering play against each other, and I am yet to make up my mind. One team is made up of ex-pats, while the other is a more Swedish team, but both extol an ethos of inclusivity and friendship. One of them plays in green and white hoops, which is a colour scheme that makes me wonder what my dad would say if he was to see me wearing it.

Arsta Rugby Center in Stockholm is a surprising find, given Scandinavia only recently taking up the sport.

As we enter July, it becomes startlingly clear that I am about to exit my twenties. Age has never really been a significant worry for me before, but since my Dad's passing and my further analysis of my progenitor's related health issues, I do find myself with a more healthy awareness of my own body reacting to the passage of time. I don't know how much of this is exiting the normal teens and twenties "I am invincible" mentality and realising that the aches and pains you've felt the last six months aren't necessarily going away. That being said, I am very well placed for someone in their thirties. I have a beautiful wife who I just accompanied into her thirties, I work in the industry I want to make a career in, surrounded by talented and supportive colleagues, living an adventure in a city that doesn't look likely to run out of excitement in the next few years. It's a good time to be in Sweden.

Some awesome pixel art at Thormildsplan.

Walking up to the meditation area at Skogskyrkogarden

A small part of Skogskyrkogarden, with Greta Garbo's grave at the far end.

Ross Alexander 5/4/17 Ross Alexander 5/4/17

Our First Month of Nordic Living

A little update about how things have been going in Stockholm. Spoilers: I am enjoying Swedish living!

From Rain to Snow

At the time of writing this, I am sat at my desk in our little flat in central Södermalm, enjoying the feeling that comes after the first warm day of the year. Today (May 1st) also marks the end of the first month that Kara and I have spent in Sweden. My sense of time is distorted, as I feel like we've done a lot in the past month. We have been tourists, I have been acclimating to my new job at Avalanche, and we've both been working to find the daily routine in our lives. While we have lived in the west-end of Edinburgh before, we've never lived in a city as big as Stockholm, and the options for things to do can be a little bit overwhelming. This is a good thing though, as it's allowing us to go out and explore the city piece-by-piece.

My "Welcome Package" that was awaiting me on my first day at Avalanche. Look at that fancy embossed notebook!

Our first week here, it seemed that the weather was much the same as it had been in Scotland. Of course, it would be churlish to complain about cold weather after moving to Sweden, but even the locals were upset that spring was taking its time to show up. In-fact, we had numerous snow showers in the first fortnight here, which made for a nice setting, even if the snow didn't stick around for long. But I digress; nobody is interested in the Swedish weather.

Out & About in Stockholm

During our first month here, we have done our fair share of exploring, with most of our recent adventures all being done on foot. Stockholm is a busy city with a lot going on and an expansive metro system, but Kara and I have found ourselves wandering across Slussen and into Gamla Stan to explore the sights, sounds and even the tastes of the old town before walking back home. One major source of concern is the shop "Science-Fiction Bokhandeln" which contains pretty much everything we want in our home. Fortunately we are behaving ourselves until we have a steady two-person income. Our neighbourhood is very well placed, with numerous supermarkets and public amenities close-by, and during a recent timed exercise, I was door-to-desk in 6 minutes. My recent commute from Perth to Dundee involved over an hour each way of commuting, so it's really nice to have so little wasted time making my way to work. That being said, I am really struggling to fit in all of my podcasts, now that I've lost my commute!

One of the beautiful shop fronts in Gamla Stan. This is a sweet shop!

I don't even want to know how long it took to arrange it...

Our first "day out" was of course; the trip to Ikea to supply ourselves with all the essentials a Scottish couple needs. Naturally, this involved me buying a £12 potato masher, which is expensive, even by Swedish standards. It does appear to be the king of all potato mashers, but still, if it wasn't for Kara's pleading, I don't know if I would have buckled. Our apartment in the city is small, so I know we don't need to worry about buying a lot of furniture. Truth be told, it's quite refreshing to know that our next house move won't involve begging family members (sorry Doug) to help. Both Ikea trips that we've taken so far have involved utilising Stockholm's expansive (and a little expensive) transit system. We've been to cities with Metro systems before, but that was as tourists. It felt utterly bizarre to be sweating under the weight of two flat-packed chest of drawers as we sat in a busy carriage home.

That's right, kids. This masher has a spring action and two layers! That means twice as much "lolly" at the end of mashing.

On the 14th of April, Kara and I decided to take a walk out of our way to explore the western side of Södermalm. We ventured out and discovered "Tantolunden"; a large park with an impressive open-air sports area, including a couple of football pitches and a basketball court which has a surface that doesn't look conducive to the bouncing of a ball. It was impressive to see such wonderful facilities were wide open the public, with a distinct lack of vandalism that one might expect elsewhere. If Kara and I wanted to play a quick game of football (I'm sure that me thinking it just sent a shiver up her spine) then we easily could have. We walked onwards and up quite a large hill to find a "light" blizzard, and allotments that put any I've seen before to shame. Almost all of them looked like they'd fit in The Shire, with quirky designs and paint schemes. Bearing in mind that only the daffodils appeared to be blooming at this point, it's impressive that most of the allotments looked like someone was still tending to them at least every week. Despite the weather, I have pleasant memories of the trip, seeing how well respected the public spaces seem to be, even if there was a little graffiti on some of the bins.

A nice little arrangement on a Tantolunden allotment.

As luck would have it, Kara entertained some friends as they visited Stockholm, leading to her having visited the Vasa Museum without me! This was the utmost betrayal, as I was fascinated with the concept of a warship that was designed by the king and sank before even leaving the harbour. Still, Kara made it up to me by proposing a trip to "Skansen"; the world's first open-air museum. We took advantage of one of my three bank holidays (or "red days" as they're known in Sweden) that I've had in the past month to travel into the city and visit this amazing arrangement of preserved farmer's cottages, shacks from the Norwegian wilderness and an impressive range of animals, including brown bears, grey wolves and a pair of lynx. We visited on a day where a "master folk musician" married couple were putting on a show which involved an impressive range of instruments and a small history lesson. Kara took advantage of Facebook's "LIVE" functionality to transmit a short concert to some of her friends, which was cool. As we wandered around some of the more modern buildings, we decided that if we buy a house, we'd like to paint the outside to look in the colourful traditional Swedish way. There were numerous old farmsteads that were honestly like going back to the world of the Witcher or something. It did occur to me that as much as I refer to Kara's home town as being like Skyrim, I'm now living in one of the countries that inspired the setting of Skyrim itself. I can't wait to get outside the city.

One of the MANY impressive buildings that are part of Skansen.

On Saturday 29th, we decided to head out into the city for "Kulturnatt"; or "Culture Night" where the city's museums open their doors to the public for an evening of exhibitions, including some of the royal family's personal collections. I spent a couple of hours planning the most efficient route for us to see everything and in the end, I forgot about one of the exhibits I really wanted to see, but in the end, we did see some cool stuff. Unfortunately, my love of history and museums was overcome by my dislike for crowds, and of course on the night when everything is open for free, the crowds are crazy. After a wander around a floor of the royal palace, a tour of their armoury museum and tagging onto the tour at the Medieval museum, we called it a night. I'd come to the conclusion that I'd rather pay some money to wander around at my own pace, instead of being unable to read the plaques due to a constant stream of people. I'm not entirely sure what part of that last sentence makes me sound more like an old man...

The design for some kind of cyber-horse...probably.

Old Swedish kings loved guns like modern American nutters do.

Since we got here, Kara has been giving me not-so-subtle hints about the boat tours that tourists can go on, allowing for quite a great deal of sightseeing, as Stockholm is built across a series of islands. Because today was so warm and sunny, I decided to relent and we went on the Stockholm "Ocean Bus". Kara was giddy as the bus pulled up to the stop and after the last tour disembarked, we clambered aboard. The experience of driving around in a bright blue truck that has been sealed at the bottom and converted into a bus on top must be like the experience of driving around in a limo with loud music blaring. As we looked out of the window, people stopped and stared, some even took photos. The fact that the front of the bus had been painted to look like a shark's mouth probably didn't help. The stares and picture taking was only amplified when we approached the side of the water and the driver charged in (to the theme from Pirates of the Caribbean). Kara had such a massive smile on her face as the bus transformed into a boat and we powered on into the water. The tour itself was pretty good, due in no small part to the tour guide; Paul. His playful snipes about certain aspects of Swedish culture and Stockholm itself were nicely interspersed with interesting facts about the sights as we passed by. Facts such as "Södermalm is composed of 90% hipsters. Does anyone here live on Södermalm?" of course, as I sheepishly raised my hand, he said that my beard was a dead giveaway. I thought that was a little unfair, as I wasn't even wearing a plaid shirt...at that very moment.

His tour did briefly mention "Kungsträdgården" with its many cherry trees, which Kara and I arrived in time to see blooming. It's a beautiful open space, with water fountains and on a hot day, it's packed with people just chilling out and enjoying their city. We actually walked through it a few days beforehand, after we had taken a trip to the "Skatterverket" or the Swedish tax agency, so that we could begin the process of getting our personal numbers that will allow us to settle in the country on an indefinite basis. Despite our worries about the time-dragging power of bureaucracy, we were in and out again within an hour or so.

Adopting Hygge

Ok, so technically "Hygge" is a Danish concept, but it's a big thing throughout Scandinavia, where the concepts of being professional and being comfortable are not mutually exclusive. The boss wears jeans and a polo shirt to the office, shoes are often swapped with sandals or birkenstocks, or (and I have genuinely seen this at my work) some people wear big fluffy socks and jogger bottoms to work. Now I'm not saying that I'm going to be showing up to work in my PJs, but Sweden has definitely got things going in the right direction. Between the flexible and fair timekeeping schedule, a generous supply of hot drinks including a range of teabags that's making me wish I liked tea, free (and encouraged) massages, after-work social events, and a workplace full of friendly, happy people; I've definitely got a workplace Hygge going on.

Of course, it helps a lot that I only have a little five minute wander home, ensuring that I'm not in a bad mood from dealing with delayed trains, rude commuters or the simple act of hanging around train stations for longer than is absolutely necessary. I am glad to say that Hygge has also followed me home. We're both "nesters" you could say, so we always make a special effort to make our living space more enjoyable and practical. We have an absolutely massive couch, so we can enjoy movies or tv shows together while being super comfortable. We also now have our own little work spaces on each side of the living room, so as I am typing away here, Kara is doing the same behind me. We haven't been here long, but I feel like we're already making this the kind of place we want to be.

Another incredible contribution to our living arrangement is the discovery of the Scandinavian Double Duvet System which is wonderful for Kara and me, as I am normally a furnace at all hours and will end up kicking off covers as I sleep. This is no longer a problem, now that we sleep with two duvets. I would heartily recommend it to anyone else.

That's all for now. It's most definitely bedtime for me. I am looking forward to getting back to updating my blog, and hopefully playing some games that I can talk about in the next installment. I've been on a bit of an indie rampage of late, so I have some games to talk about, including Jazzpunk, This War of Mine and Oxenfree.

All that and more, coming soon.

Ross Alexander 3/15/17 Ross Alexander 3/15/17

Education Through Youtube (Part 1)

I discuss my favourite educational video creators on Youtube, and outline why their work is so important.

Getting With The Times

On a recent episode of Brashcast; the podcast I host with my good friend Liam, we were discussing the recent "PewDiePie" racism scandal. This brought us around to the topic of whether or not we are simply too old to watch these youtube "personalities", as we both expressed the opinion that neither of us were fans of PewDiePie, but being guys who enjoy gaming and with an ear to the ground for gaming news, we were both aware of him and his particular schtick. The issue of his credibility as an entertainer came up, and while I acknowledged that his latest scandal was made worse by his inarticulate attempt at "being real for a second, guys", I did appreciate that it must be tough to evolve his channel from the sort of loud, whacky, pandering nonsense that made him a multi-millionaire to something that really tries to say something important. The tonal shift between what his fans expect from him and the stunt that he pulled (which I won't go into, as it's not strictly relevant) is more than most people were ready for, and he's paid the price for it. He has lost sponsors, who were happy for him to shout into his microphone while playing bad games, with a fanbase of tweens looking on in adulation.

PewDiePie misjudged his audience and how his sponsors would react to his change in content.

The whole conversation on Brashcast caused me to consider the evolution of Youtube as an entertainment and educational medium. Every once in a while, youtube celebrates its milestones by recounting its most famous videos. Sneezing pandas, Charlie biting his brother's finger and every iteration of the bunker scene from "Downfall" with misspelled comedy subtitles have been entertaining us in short chunks for over a decade now. While I am still as prone to watching cat videos or shows about videogame news, I have in recent years started to accumulate a catalogue of youtube creators who are dedicated to improving the world, one viewer at a time. These people are scattered throughout youtube, and regardless of what your chosen passions may be, there's almost certainly a professional that has decided to start a channel where you can learn how to improve yourself.

I've heard people speak about how they would have killed for the free information that circulates on the internet these days, and that "kids these days" don't realise the resources that they have now. There are channels dedicated to fitness, yoga, composing and performing music, make-up tutorials and even some candid discussions on mental health from people who are going through or have gone through tough times. Personally, I have used youtube tutorials and a bit of "google-fu" to perform the following tasks:

Build a Raspberry Pi emulation machine
Fix my bike when it was broken
Build a PC
Start a blog
Record a podcast
Make chiptunes
Create very simple games in Unity
Figure out where to go on Holiday, and what to do when I'm there
Work out what backpack to buy

And the list goes on. I feel like many people don't give youtube the acknowledgement it deserves as an educational tool, and while guides to performing relatively simple tasks like burying your waterlogged phone in rice are useful for some, I'd like to take the time to acknowledge the youtube creators who are committing themselves to educating people. These are the men and women who have redeemed youtube in my eyes, raising it above a casual source for videos of dogs greeting their estranged owners, cats being rescued from highway embankments and short comedic skits (all styles that I have personally enjoyed).

Being the colossal nerd that I am, I have chosen some shows that follow the theme of dissecting pop-culture and teaching us about why we enjoy the movies, books and of course; the video games that we love so much. I've also chosen some shows that are straight-up educational tools to assist an aspiring writer and game designer. This will read a little bit like my blog about the podcasts that I love, and hopefully it will inspire some people to check them out. Many of you have probably already figured out that youtube is an awesome resource for self-improvement, but I felt like after bashing PewDiePie and by extension, youtube "personalities", I should acknowledge that there's way more to it than that. Here is a list of the Youtube channels that have been inspiring me lately. Please note that each title header comes with a link to the relevant creator's Patreon Page, where you can support them in their work and even get rewards.

Crash Course

Hank and John Green are internet superstars at this point, having started the "Brotherhood 2.0" project back in 2007, with the ambition of forming a tighter bond between two brothers who live in different parts of the USA. As someone who is soon to be living in a different country from both of his brothers, I can understand the calling to maintain regular contact. John is an accomplished author, who has given TED talks and is at this point, if not an authority; then at least a competent conversationalist on the topic of almost everything. Hank is a trained Biochemist, climate change activist and entrepreneur who also speaks across a huge range of subjects.

The two brothers created the channel "Crash Course" in 2012. This channel was designed as a primer of sorts, for the different subjects that were available on the American High School curriculum. While the show is child-friendly, it teaches about subjects that I knew little or nothing about. I don't recall how I stumbled across it, but I have thoroughly enjoyed learning about a range of subjects thanks to the Green brothers. Subjects such as:

Literature
Computer Science
Physics
World History
American History
"Big" History (History of the Universe, etc)
Psychology
Anatomy & Physiology
Economics
Philosophy and even more...

While the brothers used to host the shows, when they started getting increasingly busy, they reached out to specialists to help them. They are always interesting, even if the subject itself isn't your cup of tea, and they always have cute little interstitial videos that are sprinkled throughout the shows. The Green brothers created the group "Nerd-fighters" with the slogan "Don't Forget To Be Awesome!" (or DFTBA) and they are seemingly one of the internet age's true forces for good. It's just lucky that they're entertaining as well.

Recommended Videos:

Crash Course US History #1
Crash Course World History #1 (yes, I am a history nerd)
Crash Course Literature: The Odyssey

The Nerdwriter

The Nerdwriter channel is essentially a series of short video essays, dissecting elements of modern society, with a particular emphasis on movies and TV. Its creator Evan Puschak is a former film student and has been making videos as the Nerdwriter since 2011. He describes the channel's aim as "cultivating worldview", and while his Patreon blurb comes across as a little bit high-minded and pretentious, his videos are genuinely insightful and intelligently written essays on whatever he wants to discuss. As mentioned, he has a particular predeliction for cinema, but he has also covered topics such as social media, video games and even political discourse. His breakdown of how Trump speaks has left me unable to un-hear it.

His dissection of films cover the full range of disciplines, from acknowledgement of the pacing of a particular scene, what makes an actor like Anthony Hopkins special and why he believes that "Passable Movies" need to become a thing of the past if innovation is to have its place. While not explicitly educational, his videos offer insight into not only the imaginary worlds of movies and TV, but also the way human beings are manipulated by what they see.

Recommended Videos:

History Buffs

Nick Hodges' "History Buffs" is a show for those of us who can't help but feel uncomfortable watching a movie, knowing that it's rife with historical inaccuracies. Maybe it's part of being Scottish and having sat through Braveheart on multiple occasions, but it's always troubling for a history nerd like me to watch a movie without the opportunity to express my frustration at the seemingly simple mistakes that studios make in the name of mass-market appeal, simplification or simple ignorance.

In the show, Nick dissects a well known movie that is based on true historical events. He doesn't pay specific attention to a particular era, and so his shows cover World War 2 (Saving Private Ryan) to Ancient Rome and Greece (Gladiator & 300). Maybe it's because I myself am an insufferable know-it-all, but I really enjoy learning little bits of history as I see movies (some being good, others not so much) being discussed on screen.

His shows do vary in length, though. I quite like the 10-25 minute long episodes, but I can understand if some people wouldn't want to sit and watch his episodes on Apollo 13 or Dances With Wolves, which are almost an hour long. If nothing else, his show might inspire you to go back and watch a favourite old movie with an eye for the little things you might have missed.

Knowledge Hub/Alternate History Hub

So this channel isn't strictly educational, as much as it is an artful use of geography, history and anthropology to create science-fiction stories of the "what if?" varieties. From the now cliche question of "what if the Nazis had won?" to the somewhat ironic "what if YouTube destroyed us all?", Cody has steered his channel in a way that crosses fan-service with genuine research and goes some ways to settling those geeky arguments that friends have about both real-life history and their favourite movies and TV shows.

The show always points out that this is just speculation, and that realistically, it's almost impossible to predict what would have happened had things gone differently. He does always back up his ideas with well researched study of the subject, often projecting the ramifications of these alternate timelines outwards to their final conclusions. The result is really a series of short-form sci-fi stories that are well presented and professionally made. Eat your heart out, Phillip K. Dick!

Coming in Part 2

So that's it for part 1. I hope that anyone reading might be inspired to try out one or maybe more of these channels. Their creators are constantly working to make the world a better place, and to spread a message that it's cool and fun to learn. I know that makes me sound like a high school school teacher who's just "trying to reach the keedz" but I think that these shows are doing a good job of supplanting a lot of the crap that America passes off as "documentaries". While the "History Channel" and "Discovery" take the 4 minutes between adverts to show us obese racists who made a fortune on duck whistles, or people raking through defaulted storage lockers, this content is educating and entertaining us at the same time. (Although I did have to sit through a short advert about car insurance that had James Corden in it, which was a trial).

In part 2, I will focus my beam of praise on the video creators who are educating me in my career as a videogame developer and helping me to understand what makes a videogame worth playing, and how the industry can push forwards. I know this is a more niche topic, which is why I covered my more "pop culture" themed shows in part 1. The next part will cover videos about game design, storytelling and narrative design, game development as a business, AI & behaviour models, as well as some slightly drier lectures from the legends of the games industry.

Until then, thanks for reading!

Ross Alexander 2/15/17 Ross Alexander 2/15/17

We're Going On An Adventure!

Months of effort pay off, and Kara and I begin to plan our route north. Excitement and terror await!

I will admit that I have been neglecting this blog of late. I have been quite preoccupied since Christmas, due to a mixture of several issues, including an upsetting and prolonged family loss, my fragmented living arrangements and a seemingly never-ending stream of rejections from studios that I had hoped would open their doors. Believe it or not, I've been in a single continuous job hunt since July 18th 2016. My head has been all over the place, and it's made it very difficult to focus on my own personal projects, as many evenings have been spent refining cover letters, applying to companies across Europe and scouring corporate websites.

Back In The Saddle

I am so very relieved to say that my time spent hunting has been rewarded, and that Kara and I are moving to Stockholm in Sweden, so that I can continue to pursue a career in game development as a QA Technician at Avalanche Studios. We are planning on a late March/ early April move so that Kara can attend her very first Scottish Tattoo Convention as an artist, and to give us time to prepare for a move of this magnitude. I've never lived abroad before, and Kara had never so much as set foot outside the UK until we visited Italy in 2014. We are both excited and terrified.

This news comes less than a year after discovering that Reloaded was not only failing to send us to the USA, which we had been planning for since 2015; but I was losing my job. To describe the past 8 months or so as "tumultuous" seems to be an understatement. The paralysis of not being able to plan more than a month in advance had been banished and it was quite freeing, after more than a year of worrying about the move. Of course, it left me jobless and I set myself the task of getting back into the industry. After numerous rejections, I was finally able to get myself a job at eeGeo in Dundee, where I was lucky to be surrounded by a dedicated, considerate and friendly group of guys. While 3D mapping software was not the area of development that I wanted to progress, it did allow me to gain an understanding of a totally alien process, as well as refining and sharpening my QA skills. They came along at a time where I was really flagging and it gave me the confidence boost I needed to keep going with my hunt for a permanent games industry job.

While Kara and I were on holiday in Girona, I received a missed call from a girl called Emma who worked at OPM recruitment, and she was wondering how my job hunt was getting on, asking me to get back in touch with her. I had previously not had much joy with recruiters, having only received one Skype interview that resulted in a "no". After our first phone call, Emma came back with two potential roles, one of which I am only now taking. She has been a positive force that played a pivotal role in not only helping me to secure this position, but she has counselled and generally steered my crazy paranoia out of the way so that we could focus on being the best candidate available. The entire process has lasted about 3 months, some of which has included long bouts of self-deprecation and doubt, as well as returning the stress of not being able to plan beyond a month in advance, as we waited to hear back from them. It is immensely satisfying to have that uncertainty lifted and to be free to plan for the future again.

So now the plans are starting to form. It's going to be a tough month and a half, but with any luck, this new job is going to be the payoff after what I am personally calling "The Harshest Winter in Memory". I'd like to thank everyone who offered words of encouragement and hope. While it's often seen as the polite thing to do, the positivity has truly helped when I was feeling beaten down.

Ross Alexander 12/21/16 Ross Alexander 12/21/16

Ross & Kara's Catalan Adventure - Days 7, 8 & 9 : Celebrating a Year Together

A somewhat abridged version of what Kara and I got up to during our last few days in Catalonia. We visit an impressive pair of Cathedrals, eat some good food (and some not-so-good) and I recap on our second trip abroad together.

Tuesday 1st November, 2016 - Girona

It's been a hell of a year for Kara and me, with a wedding that was quickly followed by us getting back to work, then Kara's career really coming into its own, followed by my career hitting a major bump in the road, along with the end of the plan to move to the USA. To add to it all, just before we went on holiday. I was able to find a good QA job that paid well and allows me to continue learning new skills, but unfortunately it meant moving away from my home and the woman I love. It's been a tough time so far, but I feel like I may be starting to settle into a routine. With all of these factors at play, it meant that little bit more to wake up in a warm country with Kara next to me. The old adage of absence making the heart grow fonder may be true, as I miss Kara every day, to the point where I feel like I text her as frequently as I used to when we first started dating.

With the setting of our nice comfortable flat, Kara and I spent almost all the daylight hours just lazing around the place for the most part. We got some laundry done, but we mostly relaxed and ate food. While I did step out of the house to get supplies, we didn't properly leave until around 4pm.

Girona's streets were packed (and I mean packed) with trestle tables covered in art, sculptures, hand-crafted good such as wooden spoons and even little whittled characters. We couldn't even get out of our front door quickly, as a sculptor had set up his pottery wheel just beside it. Kara and I wandered the streets, expecting the stalls to eventually end, but the entire district seemed to be given over to this market, where local artists and creators came together to sell their works of art. It was really beautiful, as there was such a variety of work on display, with the crowds stopping to look over work while the artists chatted amongst themselves. I immediately thought of my mum, who is an artist and would likely appreciate to be in an environment where artists can meet and relax in a warm and beautiful urban space, with the chance of selling some art or maybe picking up a commission.

As we wandered, lost in the city's winding narrow streets, made narrower by all of the stalls, we realised that it was getting dark. After a bit of a climb, we came to the courtyard at the bottom of the stairs that lead to Girona's Cathedral. It was quite a beautiful space, and although Kara couldn't find a good way to get a picture of the Cathedral on our old-fashioned polaroid style camera (which is meant to be our anniversary tradition) we did get a few nice shots of it at night. We made a mental note to come back the next day, where we could visit and get some better light.

We Both Loved Girona's Narrow Old Streets

By this point in the trip, I think we both felt a little guilty that we'd come to a new country and eaten burgers & pizza. We decided to go to Girona's premier (possibly Girona's sole) Indian restaurant; Taj. I think we've probably been spoiled by the quality of the Indian food we get in Britain, but Taj was certainly passable. We enjoyed our curries in a pretty quiet atmosphere, across the narrow restaurant from another couple. Kara and I have celebrated previous auspicious dates with Indian or Chinese takeaway before, so it almost seemed appropriate to spend our first anniversary dinner eating Indian food. Afterwards, we had a nice relaxing walk back to the flat, as the stalls were being packed away into vans and taken out of the streets.

As I fell asleep that night, I was once again warmed with the reassuring feeling that I'd married the right girl.

Wednesday 2nd November, 2016 - Girona

We started the next day by making good on our plan to visit the Cathedral. We wandered up the old cobbled streets to the foot of the stairs, where fans of the TV show "Game Of Thrones" may recognise elements from the show in the architecture. Of course, there's a lot of set dressing and CG that goes into making Girona into King's Landing, but it was very cool to be able to spot the landmarks.

An old villa at the opposite end of the courtyard has been converted into a museum, where there was a showcase of the many movies and TV shows that have filmed in and around Girona. It seems to be a bit of a favourite, due to its narrow, old gothic design; with winding streets and faint air of mystery. The courtyard on the bottom floor was displaying numerous canvas depictions of scenes from Game of Thrones that were shot in Girona. They included some pretty hefty spoilers, so I won't post any pictures. It was very cool to wander around a pretty old building, admiring the lengths they'd gone to in making a varied and interesting document of Girona's cinematic contributions over the years. They even had some cool (in a pretty naff way) props and replicas, including a sickly "White Walker" from GoT, which are already supposed to look pretty emaciated.

We ascended the enormous staircase to reach the Cathedral and went inside. While the streets were full of tourists, we had a pretty relaxing and quiet time inside. The building itself is impressive in its own right, with the second widest nave of any Church (22m). Construction originally began in the 11th century, and due to its geographical location, it's swapped hands between Catholics and Muslims over the last thousand years or so. The courtyards tell the stories of genesis through carvings in the stone pillars that mark the boundary of the cloister. There are a range of heraldic seals that are etched into the stone floors, and the whole building has a real feeling of "history", much like one would expect from a church that's so old.

On the way back down into town, we had a little stop-off at the post office to mail our postcards and visited "La Bombonera" in Independence Plaza. We walked slowly back to our side of town, via Pont Ferro; a bridge that was designed by Gustave Eiffel, eating our ice cream and taking in the beautiful old city. We wandered into a record shop called "Moby Disc", where the records are sold alongside an impressive array of nerdy statues, collectibles, clothing & games. It was much the same experience as visiting Forbidden Planet over here in the UK; mostly it made me feel sad and only served to remind me that I needed to start considering christmas presents for others upon my return.

It was our last evening in Girona, so we decided to follow our hearts when it came to dinner. Of course, this led us to a pizzeria on the old town's main street. "L'arcada" made me a great pizza, which I would heartily recommend to anyone. The restaurant was quiet as we visited quite early. I got the feeling that they keep the place open for tourists and the locals don't show up until later on. Suffice it to say, we enjoyed our dinner!

When we got back to the apartment and finished packing up everything we wouldn't need the next day, I had a feeling of melancholy. I had enjoyed Girona immensely, mainly for the rest and relaxation that we got while we were there. We're not "beach" people, and sitting around for too long tends to make me feel really bored, but with the beautiful surroundings and perfect company, I knew that I'd remember Girona fondly.

Thursday 3rd November, 2016 - Girona to Barcelona

Our return to Barcelona was a much more peaceful affair, with the two of us leaving with an hour to catch our train. By the time we wheeled our clicking, rumbling luggage across town, we still had half an hour to wait before we boarded. Kara pinched my 3DS again and I was satisfied with reading my book and glancing out the window at the Catalonian countryside as the train shot towards Barcelona. We arrived into the city and stowed our luggage before grabbing the Metro towards our last proper stop on the holiday: The Sagrada Familia.

It's with the utmost shame that I admit that it was my influence that pushed us to eat at a KFC that sat at one of the corners of the square that the church dominates. I had come to the realisation that due to the region's propensity for making all of their food from beef or pork, I hadn't had chicken in over a week. This meant that I hankered after chicken more than anything else, so we ordered at the busy counter and went to eat up the stairs. My already "hangry" wife didn't account for the weight of the tray that she was carrying and proceeded to soak a massive part of the upstairs restaurant with orange juice. My concerns faded away as I ate and looked out of the window at the imposing cathedral across the road. The only worry I had was the massive throng of people that wandered around the outside.

I don't think I'll ever forget approaching the Sagrada Familia, walking purposefully across the road to join the queue of people waiting to get in, craning my neck to look upwards at the most impressive cathedral facade I've ever laid eyes on. During the trip, I'd become quite enamored with Gaudi's works, with his unique aesthetic vision and the ergonomics that blended seamlessly with it. The other works of his that we'd visited are unique and beautiful in their own way, but the Sagrada Familia is grand in a manner that defied my own expectations of catholic architecture.

In short, I feel like Gaudi has made no compromises in his design and construction. The building itself is a masterpiece of modern architecture and engineering, with choices that seem utterly at odds with the stuffy, sometimes creepy or macabre nature of catholic adornment. While I've always felt that christian places of worship have a tendency to only celebrate the life of their venerated saints; Sagrada Familia seems to me like a celebration of the concept of life. This is despite some very traditional stories that are told through the sculptures that tell the story of "La Sagrada Familia" or "The Sacred Family".

The first thing that the guides tell you about the building is that it's been under construction for over 130 years, and it's still got a few years to go. Estimates place the completion at around 2026, with more towers and adornment to be added to the outside, further symbolising aspects of Jesus and his life. Despite its status as "work in progress", the building is stunning from the base of its heavy metal doors, adorned with leaves and insects, cast in bronze, to the tips of its 170m tall towers. This height is capped by Gaudi's belief that no work of man should exceed the works of God. I think I just internally rolled my eyes at that when I heard it.

Kara was as impressed as I while we took in the impressive sculptures and marveled at the worksmanship on display. The bronze doors were designed by Etsuro Sotoo, and were only added in the last year or so, but they fit so well into the building's aesthetic that they didn't seem out of place at all, despite the anachronistic nature of building a cathedral over 140 years. It wasn't until we stepped inside that Kara became truly enthralled. The audioguide directed us to consider the supporting columns, designed to look like trees in a forest, giving the impression of being amidst nature, and at one with God. It's not my thing, but moreso than any other place I've visited, this seems like a place worthy of pilgrimage.

We arrived at the Sagrada Familia just as the sun was beginning to dip, hanging low in the sky. This caused the most incredible cascade of multi-coloured light to fill the nave of the church, bathing the sandy coloured stone and everyone inside in a kaleidoscope of colours. Kara's pictures are impressive, but I don't know if anything can do it justice. The glass in the windows is sublime, with incredible clarity and definition that is largely due to its age, but the choice and variation of colour leads to the most amazing patterns that make the place seem truly magical. Kara and I just sat at one of the many benches lining the nave and stared up at the windows while the sun traced lazily downwards.

The rest of the tour is a bit of a blur, really. We saw a glimpse of the crypt underneath the main floor of the cathedral, and I personally enjoyed the modern angular designs of the sculptures on the opposite side of the building, but the light show had really been dazzling. I stood there and recalled it while Kara wandered around the gift shop, picking gifts for folks back home. My reverie was broken quite often by pushy tourists and my own inability to find a peaceful place to stand. Kara seemed upset that I didn't buy anything for myself on the trip, so I got myself a nice magnetic bookmark of one of the cool sculptures outside.

We departed Barcelona's city centre with night falling upon us. We got the train out to the airport and after a little bit of a scare and a couple of phone-calls to the hotel, we boarded the shuttle to our hotel for the night. After accidentally wandering into the gourmet restaurant, dressed like typical tourists, we fled to the "cafeteria" and had a somewhat disappointing dinner, tormented by some persistent flies. It was the most stark installation of a class system I'd seen outside of the UK and it added to the melancholy that we were flying out in the morning. Fortunately, we had a nice evening after pushing our two single beds together to watch "Silver Lining's Playbook" on my little tablet and eat snacks in bed.

We flew out early the next morning, so we wandered around the terminal for only a short while, spent the last of our euros on our travel card by buying an industrial sized box of Lindt and Kinder chocolate. It was a satisfying end to the trip, and although it was grey and cold when we touched back down in Edinburgh, the thought of going back to work or not being on holiday any more wasn't the thought weighing most heavily on my heart. I just wanted to spend another week with Kara, as although absence makes the heart grow fonder, I find that spending time with Kara only serves to reinforce how she is the one person I want to spend (almost) all of my time with.

Ross Alexander 11/26/16 Ross Alexander 11/26/16

Ross & Kara's Catalan Adventure - Day 6: Accidental Discoveries

We spend our first day in Girona relaxing, but also going on a long walk without even meaning to.

Tuesday 1st November, 2016 - Girona

Eesh! We have gotten so lazy since we got to Girona. It's been great, sat on the couch in our cozy little flat, playing 3DS and watching Brooklyn 9-9 before going out for tea. It does mean that I am now two days in arrears for the journal, but it's been nice to relax a bit.

The first day we had in Girona started with the usual morning ritual; Kara stayed in bed while I went out hunting for food. I followed the instructions that the local guy gave me the night before. After a bit of an extended outing where I overshot my target and found myself wandering in alleyways, I brought home more bread and chocolate croissants. I also had spent a long time attempting to track down a can on Heinz beans for Kara, fearing that a croissant wasn't going to cut it, but with no joy. I had a nice breakfast with my fresh cheeses and sausage along with the fresh bread I'd bought.

Breakfast of champions! (We split these, I should state for the record.)

Girona is full of quirky little places like this creperie with a van parked inside it.

Once we were ready to go out, it was past noon, so we ventured out into the old city part of Girona. Our first stop was at a church hall on the cobbled streets leading up to the cathedral that has been featured in Game of Thrones. Inside the hall was an exhibition of model soldiers, but the strangest thing was that alongside the brilliantly pained miniatures of Napoleon and Spanish soldiers, there were Star Wars dolls, models of Asterix & Obelix, as well as an entire Warhammer fantasy Skaven army. It was quite surreal to find them in a church hall. It turns out that this exhibition was our first glimpse at the festival that takes place in Girona at this time of year.

It was utterly bizarre to find this collection inside a 12th century church.

As we proceeded through the old town, we found ourselves at the start of the wall that enclosed the medieval town. Without meaning to, we'd set out on quite a long walk, surrounded by other tourists on a very warm afternoon. The view from the wall gave us some spectacular shots of the town and the surrounding area. Girona is way bigger than I thought it was!

Views of Girona from the wall are brilliant!

After a quick descent through the University area, we found some snacks for lunch and spent the rest of the afternoon chilling out in the flat. While the food we've had in Barcelona was very good, our reluctance to try Tapas has hurt our options in Girona. We've been "playing it safe", sticking to Italian and western cuisine, and Girona has an understandably thin range of decent eateries that cater to our "child's menu" palates. We set out to go to "Marylin's Diner" and when we arrived, I was already getting the feeling that the food wasn't going to be great. It was basically a burger van where you go in and sit down, but at least we didn't have to pay too much.

The night picked up on the way home, as we walked back via and enormous fun fair that was set up for the festival. I had noticed a giant ferris wheel from the wall in the morning, but the trees had covered the rest of the amusements. The fair was set up along boulevards, with a police presence to deal with traffic. Besides the (often copyright infringing) rides, there were weird lottery or bingo stalls that had the tackiest crap for prizes. There were also shooting galleries, pizzarias and churro stands. To make up for a disappointing dinner, we shared a pizza and tried churros for the first time. They taste quite bland, but they have a nice and crispy texture. I think we'll stick to crepes.

As we chilled out in the flat that night, we heard bands nearby, saw drumming processions and just before bed, a horde of cyclists flew past, ringing their bells and singing. It looked like Girona wasn't such a quiet little place to visit after all.

Girona really was the turning point of the holiday, with Kara and I just deciding that we'd still see all the cool things we could in Girona, but the pace could slow, allowing us to relax and not do very much at all, relatively guilt-free. Of course, this meant sleeping in, watching Netflix & generally just lounging around, but on our first day, we really just wanted to "get a feel" for Girona.

It seemed that we were on the right side of the river, as we were close to the "old parts" of town, with the modern shops and things being across the river. Kara was still quite exhausted from the previous day, and I was at the mercy of my stomach, so I went out for quite a long time to explore the narrow, cobbled streets of the eastern side of the river Onyar. It was a nice sensation to be able to wander around, not looking to buy anything but breakfast (and maybe some Heinz beans) and just get to know the area. While Barcelona is a metropolis, the area we were living in was conveniently placed next to some little shopping marts, as well as little bespoke shops, owned by local artists etc. It was nice to walk along a high street that didn't make me think of the homogenised high streets I've seen so much of on my travels. Girona has personality in spades, and that made the act of just randomly wandering seem much more enjoyable. I know I would have spent longer walking around if it wasn't for the language barrier that stopped me looking in book shops, as Girona has some lovely ones!

I had read quite a few tourist guides that had recommended the city walls as a good thing to view while you visit Girona, and with me being a fan of nice walks and historic sites, it seemed like a no-brainer, but Kara was wearing footwear that wasn't cutting it, and by the time we realised we were on a long walk, as opposed to just a recce around the town, it was too late. It's probably just as well as we saw the wall when we did, as the weather was nice, and although it was quite busy with lots of people milling around, it was never that uncomfortable. The pictures above really speak for themselves in how beautiful and well maintained the wall is around the town. We got very close to parts of the cathedral, including the other side of a curious door half way up a wall, which we eventually got to see the other side of when we visited the cathedral itself a few days later.

The evening was a great experience, with us being quite ill-prepared for the festivities that Girona was putting on. We wandered over to the other side of the river to find food, and discovered that the market stalls extended way past the Placa dei Indepencia, with so much foot and road traffic present just outside the immediate centre of the city. We continued walking towards a loud and well-lit area to discover that there was an enormous fun-fair that had set up across a considerable patch of land. It was much the same sort of thing that you'd get at "the shows" in Scotland, with naff teacup rides, dodgems, haunted-houses & quite a large number of air-rifle and darts-based games.

Prizes at the fun-fair were suitably naff.

Despite a rubbish dinner, we enjoyed wandering around the fair. It actually made me think of American teen movies, where the guy and the girl eat at a diner and then go and do something free and cheap. I don't know if it's the weird hormones they pump into whatever animal I'd just had a burger made from, but I recall being profoundly satisfied with things, just wandering round a strange town with its traditions that I didn't know with the woman I love. When the time arose, Kara decided to try churros, and I decided to buy a pizza from what was presumably a band of travelling folk who set up a three-sided booth where you can see them roll out the dough and make the pizza in a wood-fired oven. It was quite a unique sight, so I decided to give it a go, having my second dinner and firmly underlining how much I was eating on this trip. Still, it didn't matter, as long as I was spending time like this with Kara, I was happy.

Ross Alexander 11/22/16 Ross Alexander 11/22/16

Ross & Kara's Catalan Adventure - Day 5: Home Away From Home

A frantic morning and afternoon in Barcelona gives way to a relaxing and peaceful evening in Girona.

Monday 31st October, 2016 - Girona

So I missed a day, but I was so tired last night that there was no way I would be able to stay awake and write. Yesterday was a bit of a mess, all-in-all, so it explains why I was so damn exhausted by the time I made the mistake of lying down on the bed last night.

My back pain woke me up at around 6:30am, and I could tell that my constant turning to relieve it was disturbing Kara's sleep, so I was fully awake in our apartment, with nowhere to comfortably sit and relax as I didn't want to disturb her any further.

With an early start and shower, I headed out into a grey Sunday morning in Barcelona, looking for a bit of breakfast. It was very quiet, and so I had to hunt for a short while before I could find a place that was open, so that I could buy some pastries. So far, I've started every day in Spain with a chocolate pastry, and I'm pretty happy with that. We've done so much walking that I don't feel bad about how well (un-healthily) we've eaten on this trip. While most people on holiday will spoil themselves by drinking beer or wine, I've been enjoying drinking proper Coca Cola without guilt. I'm sure the guilt will kick in once I get home, but for now, it's all good! Kara is still really enjoying the peach iced tea that seems to be popular in mainland Europe.

Because yesterday was our last morning in Barcelona, we took care to pre-pack as much as we could before we left to see the Barri Gotic's sights. Our suitcase and bags were good-to-go by the time we stepped out, and it's just as well this was the case.

On the Cathedral steps, a Catalan folk band.

As we wandered down "Laietana", we noticed that the police had blocked off the whole street. We knew that something important must have been going on, as the street had previously been super-busy. When we entered the plaza that holds the main entryway to the Cathedral, we noticed that a small crowd had gathered around a little band of musicians. They were playing what sounded like traditional Catalonian folk music. After a few minutes of watching them play, we followed the crowd into Barcelona's Cathedral.

Some lovely old fountains in the courtyard.

Just got to fight through the crowd to get in

Ever since visiting Rome in 2014, I've found most churches to be a bit of a let down. The only exception to that rule is the "Sagrada Familia" in Barcelona, but we're hoping to see the building properly on our last afternoon in Barcelona on Thursday. The Cathedral was just finishing mass as we entered, and as it was a Sunday, there seemed to be a large number of the faithful, but the horde of tourists easily outnumbered them. The courtyards around the building were especially lovely, with working water fountains and geese wandering about. One odd thing we spotted was that instead of "lighting" a candle, visitors put money into a machine that would turn on a light in a box of LED candles. While it's more energy efficient than real candles, I found it odd that an institution that relies so much on theatricality would do this.

After a short ramble around the courtyards, we went in search of "Manna Gelats", an ice-cream parlour in the old city that I'd read about for its great flavours and catering to allergy sufferers. We found it and Kara fell in love with their dairy-free chocolate sorbet. I had an ice-cream that tasted like a Kinder Bueno, as well as a scoop of a somewhat disappointing milk chocolate. I love milk chocolate, so I was quite surprised to find myself not enjoying it as much.

Our next stop was the museum of the history of Barcelona. This place was fantastic, with most of the museum being an audio-guide tour through walkways that overlook the remains of the old Roman colony of "Barcino", telling the story of the city's development and evolution from Roman to Visigothic culture and the introduction to Christianity. In traditional Kara style, she told me that her favourite part was a spot where excavators had found a pair of bodies. I was not surprised to hear this.

After our trip to the museum, we visited "Dunne's Irish Pub" so that Kara could get her "fix" of gravy and potatoes. Food service was a bit slow, so we had to sit through quite a lot of an English crowd shouting at the Premiership football on the TV. That showed Kara's devotion to gravy and mash! After lunch, we went to pick up some gifts for family back home. I had read about "Cageners" after hearing the guys on The Comedy Button talk about them. These extremely tacky and poorly made figures are a take on traditional Catalan nativity sculptures that depict a shepherd with his trousers down, taking a dump. The shop we went into had a wide range, from Donald Trump, Lionel Messi and Fernando Alonso to R2-D2, Mario and Darth Vader. We picked some out and I almost had a heart attack at the price. If you ever receive one, count yourself lucky, as they are super expensive for a joke gift.

Between our long wait for lunch and the grumpy guy in the Cagener shop taking ages to serve us, we were running late when we returned to the flat to grab our stuff. Kara's been suffering already after all the walking and daily trips up and down the stairs. I carried a bunch of stuff, as well as our large suitcase as we set out for the train to Girona; the town where we'd be spending our actual anniversary. Between our slight lateness, our slow pace and the labyrinth of "Catalunya" and "Sants" metro stations, we arrived at our platform gate bang-on when we were supposed to depart, only to find an enormous queue of people. I was disgustingly sweaty, having carried our luggage at a marching pace as soon as we got off the metro. As we stepped into the line, our train disappeared from the board, leaving us stressed, standing at the back of a long line of people who didn't speak fluent English, making it hard to listen in to see if they were having the same problem. Despite all the stress, when the guy took our tickets, he just waved us through, allowing us to board a train I'm fairly certain we weren't meant to be on! Despite someone else being sat in the seats that our ticket indicated, we found some seats and nervously glanced around, hoping we'd just get this one as a freebie. Girona was the next stop, so we knew we didn't have to hold on for too long, but I was anxious about being hit with some kind of fee or fine. Fortunately, we made it to Girona without any troubles; in fact I played Zelda OoT almost the entire journey!

After another luggage-laden march through Girona, we met "laura" in front of our apartment in a busy street, teeming with tourists. She led us up a mercifully small number of steps and opened the door to our home away from home for the next week.

What a lovely surprise we got! Arriving just before the sun went down, we found the flat warmly lit, clean and with a gift of a bottle of red wine waiting on us. The bed was soft, with extra pillows and a desk beside it. The place is so tastefully decorated that it feels so wonderfully cosy compared to the functional but bare setting we had in Barcelona. It really feels like the kind of place you want to just settle in and relax, which is the change of pace that we'd been looking for.

After a quick and refreshing shower, we headed into the part of Girona where there's a large number of restaurants; just across the river in the "Placa dei Indepencia". We had a pretty mediocre meal at a place called "Dolce Vita" which was a surprisingly large Italian restaurant. The food was reasonably priced, but not great. Kara's bolognese was mostly tomato, while I made the mistake of trying Roquefort cheese for the first time. The pungent cheese totally overpowered any other flavours, so it was hard to tell if my pizza was any good or not.

On our way home, we walked through a pop-up market, full of stalls selling cheese, meats, breads and jams. I bought a pepper-crusted sausage and some cheeses to enjoy for my breakfast. One cheese is a "Bufala" much like mozzarella, while the other is a goat's cheese. Both are really creamy and mild, but they're both very tasty and distinct.

It was dangerous to have a Creperie across the street. We behaved...mostly.

As we returned to our flat, we stopped off at the creperie across the street; "Crepdeque?" While we waited to be served, we spoke with a local about the local festival and where to get the best food. He recommended some places, one of which I visited this morning and was very pleased with his recommendation. Upon my return home, I ate my nutella and coconut crepe, before collapsing onto the bed, putting it beyond all doubt that I was going to sleep before I even considered opening my journal.

There was definitely no way I was going to stay awake for long after day 5. Between the early start, stressful journey to the train station and time spent hauling a suitcase around, I was so pleased to find that our accommodation was a: only up two flights of stairs and b: cosy and comfortable.

It's weird that we waited until our last day to visit Barcelona's Barri Gotic, but I guess that ties into what I've said about me stressing out about "not seeing enough" while we were there. The Gothic Quarter is full of old buildings, some are beautiful old churches and cathedrals with impressive facades and wonderful artwork inside, while many are simply old residential buildings with the ground floor given over to tacky tourist shops. I can only imagine that living in those buildings must be like to living in the flats at the top of the Royal Mile, with constant streams of noisy tourists coming and going through the day. While I was sad that we only had half a day to see this part of town, I feel like we made the right choice in the end, as we saw just how busy the streets get and how much of the area is just shops selling "hand-made" shawls, hemp bags. beads and earrings. While it wasn't quite as "copy-paste" as Milan was, I was happy to skip right past them to look at some old stuff!

The Museum of the City of Barcelona was more focused on the Roman history of the city than I'd expected it to be, but that was fine. It was very cool to wander around the largely underground complex, with the audioguide telling me about what each room was used for. The brickwork was surprisingly well maintained, and didn't look like it had been tampered with much. Speaking of audioguides, this was the first holiday I've taken where I've spent a lot of time (and a fair whack of cash when you add it all up) on the audioguides for places. Casa Batllo, La Pedrera & Sagrada Familia all use them, and I was happy to be educated as I walked around. As someone who always "reads the plaque", it suited me to just listen to someone tell me the history behind a certain area or object. It can throw off your pacing a little bit, though. I found myself moving faster than I was intending to, then cutting back to look at something again once the voice had stopped telling me about the room.

Once we left the museum, it really was a bit of a stressful afternoon. From a long and football-filled wait for (an admittedly satisfying) lunch to being fleeced by the grumpy Cagener selling guy and sweating like a pig to get to the train (just) on time, it was definitely one of the low moments of the trip. Fortunately, it didn't last long as we got onto the next train and after sitting in what I assumed were someone else's seats, we relaxed once the train set off for Girona. I took advantage of the time to play some Zelda, which Kara had become interested in on the trip. I think the combination of an N64 game (on my 3DS) and having some spare time with few distractions was the perfect set-up for Kara, so I happily let her play for a while.

The sound of our suitcase wheels rolling along cobbled streets and pavement was definitely one of the themes for the holiday, and while at first I was a bit embarrassed to be disturbing so many people with the noise, I was so glad that I didn't have to carry or drag it in the same way I had to in Italy. It was also bright blue and yellow, making it as conspicuous as hell, but it did help both of our AirBnB hosts find us, so I guess that's a positive! Once we'd met Laura and set up in the place, I was so relieved to discover that we had a comfortable place to stay that wasn't just somewhere to sleep and eat. With all its toys and doo-dads tastefully presented around the place, it felt like our home (which is absolutely full of toys and doo-dads. In the end, we did spend a lot of time just chilling out in Girona, which was exactly the change of pace that we needed.

The market in the Placa dei Indepencia was just our first experience of what Girona was going to show us during our time there. It felt like a farmers market, much like we have in Perth or Edinburgh, with local producers coming from nearby farms to sell their cheese, wine, cured meats etc. I spotted that some of them had some from France, which made sense as Girona is quite close to the border with France. I was already feeling guilty that our culinary experience in Spain was limited to "burgers and pizza" which was largely due to us not wanting to spend a bunch of cash on a meal we might not like, so it felt like buying local cheese, sausage and bread was a good way to dip a toe into the local cuisine. Even Kara said she'd try some of the Bufala cheese.

Judging from the line of tourists and locals outside Crepdeque?, it was a sure sign that we'd be visiting them for some after-dinner treats. The art of the crepe seems to be going strong in Girona, with many places offering sweet and savoury pancakes. Our flat had two creperies right outside it, and while I felt sorry for the other one, which was mostly empty, I felt pretty good when we tucked into our pudding. Flakes of coconut and nutella are a great combo!

In the next blog, my timing is a bit all over the place. Kara and I committed to vegging out, which included not keeping a journal as regularly as I did in Barcelona, so it's going to get a little bit all-over-the-place from here, but I will do my best to recap when it comes to it. Suffice to say that we love Girona and want to go back. Read the next blog to find out why!

Ross Alexander 11/20/16 Ross Alexander 11/20/16

Ross & Kara's Catalan Adventure - Day 4: Multidisciplinary Nerd-dom

I get an early start to go look at comic books and games (surprising, I know) before we have a day of wandering around Barcelona's amazing Gaudi exhibits.

Saturday 29th October, 2016 - Barcelona's Old Town

So it's our last night in the center of Barcelona, and we've been celebrating with burgers, as has been our tradition so far. We called in an order to La Central once again, so I got to skip the queue and ran home to enjoy my "Iberico". Kara was not as impressed with her "El Tona" burger, made with mozzarella, pesto and sun-dried tomatoes. We have both sat down to let our creative juices flow while "The Dark Knight Rises" plays on my new tablet. It's been very nice to set up our little home away from home, with a little TV and a table to sit and eat our meals.

The two of us started at a different pace this morning, with Kara hanging out in the flat while I took a couple of hours to do some exploring on my own, knowing that we wouldn't get a chance to go otherwise. The plan was to visit the "Nerd Triangle" near to the Arc de Triomph, where I quickly found that "Norma Comics" and its many nearby comic shops don't open until at least 10:30am. It was yet another example of the strange cultural asynchronicity that exists on the continent. Getting up early doesn't really mean that you'll be able to do more, it just means that you will be waiting outside, staring in at awesome collectors items and books you can't read as they're in Espanyol! I used my extra time to visit the Triumphal Arch, which was certainly impressive, but there was a distinct lack of information to let me know why it was built, or by whom. It had some very cool bat gargoyles, but not much else going on.

When I finally got back to Norma Comics, I spent about ten minutes just gazing at the expensive collectibles in the entryway. They had some very impressive stuff, but ultimately, I felt quite depressed about not being able to afford the cost or suitcase required. I did make a mental note to look up "3rd Edition" when I get home. These guys make books about famous games and their development process, and they're working on translating some of their books on FF7, Zelda & Dark Souls. They're lovely looking hardbacks, so they'll be nice collector's items.

After a little bit of browsing, but not spending any money, I made it back to the flat with some bread and croissants. We enjoyed some lunch before we set out to enjoy some more culture. We started with "La Pedrera" or "The Quarry"; the block-sized apartment building designed by Antoni Gaudi. We had deliberated over the idea of pre-booking a slot to visit, as all of the online reviews had recommended that we do so. We were worried that by booking timeslots, we'd have no flexibility to our daily plan. We got pretty lucky, only having to wait for about half an hour or so to get in, but I read anecdotes about two-hour long waits. Maybe visiting in October was a really good plan!

One of Kara's panoramic shots from the roof of La Pedrera

Some of the impressive chimneys on La Pedrera's roof

The attic museum was cozy, but full of interesting displays about the building.

La Pedrera was great, with ornate styles that are such integral parts of the building, it seems that the building would be unique, even without the vibrant colours that cover so much of Gaudi's work. His design is so multi-faceted, it's amazing. From how light is distributed to the hand-sculpted door handles and incredibly stained-glass windows, he had an aesthetic and practical reason for everything he did. Of course, this trip wouldn't be complete without a trip to an old-fashioned museum, and I was lucky enough to visit the museum of Egyptology. It was a little odd to discover that one of the best collections of Egyptian artifacts are housed in a Spanish museum, but we were pleasantly surprised by a relatively cheap, quiet and peaceful museum with a myriad of wonderful and truly ancient artifacts, including mummies, 4,000 year old stone tablet and even some mummified animals, such as crocodiles and cats. I didn't discover anything new, but it was all still super-cool!

From there, we wandered over to "Casa Batllo", where I expected to have some time before we got to the front of the line. This expectation led me to order a hot sandwich with two pork chops, bacon and cheese. I returned to the line to find us almost at the front of the queue, forcing me to inhalte a hot sandwich in about 4 minutes, right in front of a bunch of people. I must have looked like some kind of pig/man hybrid.

Even the stained glass is designed to balance light, depending on time of day.

The tiles of the lightwells are darker at the top and brighter at the bottom, balancing the light as it gets dimmer further down.

Ceramic mosaic is another theme that Gaudi uses extensively throughout his work.

We left to see the building lit up. The balconies remind me of eye sockets on skulls. That may be Kara's influence, though.

The Casa Batllo is similar in a lot of ways to La Pedrera, with Gaudi's distinctive elements of natural influences and amazing practical and ergonomic embellishments. The unique design comes more from the way each building feels like an entire entity, with the design being consistent across every floor.

This was a good day. It felt a bit strange leaving the house in the morning without Kara, but it was also nice to spend some time wandering the Borne district's narrow streets with very few people out and about, given that it was very early by Spanish reckoning. Kara got a bit frustrated with me on this holiday, as I was stressing over the fact that we weren't squeezing the most out of our time there, trying to see everything we could, waking up really early and being productive. I know that's something that a lot of people want from their holiday, but I also knew that we should be relaxing and that I should stop trying to control how our days went. I think that part of it was that I'd become quite tired of our no-oven, top of a building, mattress on the floor apartment, and I just wanted to be out and about. By the time we got settled in Girona, I certainly felt a lot better about just lazing around like a proper holiday.

Norma Comics is really very impressive, much like the big flagship Forbidden Planet stores over here in the UK. There were lots of cool collectibles in the cabinet, including Metal Gear Solid V statues and some very cool feudal Japanese/Star Wars cross-overs, but by this point, we'd blasted through so much money, just in the course of seeing all the cool stuff, so I was hesitant to spend any more on myself. The comic books were just a tease, though. Some very cool stuff that I couldn't read and I just took notes of so I could look them up back home. One thing I noticed is that the comic book shops in Barcelona all share a deep love of TinTin. I was always more of an Asterix & Obelix fan, growing up, but there were some really nice (and expensive) TinTin models in pretty much every nerdy shop I entered.

The two Gaudi museums we visited were incredible, and I am not one to gush over architecture, especially when it's from the last century, but his work is out of this world. The first thing I noticed was that for every visually striking feature that you see (such as the strangely shaped windows, doors or chimneys), there's always a practical reason to compliment the beautiful design. The second thing I noticed is that the buildings contain a consistency that never breaks you out of the reverie that you feel as you admire the futuristic designs that feel as ingenious today as any modern piece of architecture. I guess Gaudi's idea of starting with the designs found in nature and extrapolating them out into architecture makes sense, when you consider that so much of natural evolution is based on efficiently performing essential tasks. Even the door handles were incredibly ergonomic, looking like half-finished sculptures, easily cradling the thumb and fingers as you open the doors.

The Museum of Egyptology was a real treat for me, as this day had been spent surrounded by tourists in warm buildings, trying to read a sign over the shoulders of people who were stood in front of you. The museum was quiet and cool, with a few people roaming around, and a very small cover charge at the door. While it wasn't the reason to come to Barcelona, I'm a fan of learning about ancient cultures, and the chance to be inches away from a real mummy that's thousands of years old is an enticing prospect.

This entry into the journal ends a little abruptly, but I think it was because I was starting to mentally prepare for leaving Barcelona behind. Much like Rome in 2014, I enjoyed my time in Barcelona, enjoying the sights, seeing unique and enchanting works of art and sculpture, but I am a person who like seclusion and privacy, making the crowds and constant noise a bit of a frustration for me. Combine it with my own awareness that it was silly to be frustrated about crowds in a major city, and I was ready to head off to somewhere more "peaceful". Girona beckoned.

Ross Alexander 11/19/16 Ross Alexander 11/19/16

Ross & Kara's Catalan Adventure - Day 3: Sleeping Cats & Circling Sharks

We spend the day looking at wildlife, from a sleepy cheetah to happy looking stingrays and a sad white rhino.

Friday 28th October, 2016 - Barcelona's Old Town

So we started off today with a plan and it actually seemed to pay off. Despite getting out the door around 11, we got a full day of being stereotypical tourists and it was a great day!

I started with one of my new favourite pastries; a "Caracola" which resembles an ice cream cone with chocolate and sprinkles at the top. It is a great way to start the day with two types of chocolate!

A chocolate "Caracola" ie: part of a "nutritious" breakfast for me in Barcelona.

Kara was falling apart almost as soon as we started today, so we got the Barcelona Metro a couple of stops to reach the Zoo. It was an inauspicious start, as we took a wrong turn and ended up walking all the way around the Zoo itself. We saw some really good graffiti, as well as some that was bloody awful.

It was a bit strange to see political graffiti in English.

Some very cool artwork, with an almost polygonal style.

The Zoo in Barcelona is a very impressive arrangement of buildings, covered areas and enclosures, with a very diverse range of animals. As soon as we entered the Zoo, we spotted a bunch of Zebras, just hanging out, eating hay and poopin'. I immediately recalled that at Edinburgh Zoo, you have to climb a giant hill to get a glimpse at a Zebra. It only got better from then onwards, with a sea world - style show where Sealions performed tricks for bucket-loads of fish. We watched a Komodo Dragon sun itself, a brown bear snoozing, a sleeping tiger...ok so there was a lot of sleeping animals, but we also got to see an elephant get a grooming, a family of gorillas playing, orang-utans swinging around and a Chimpanzee couple having a very intimate grooming session while another ate its own poop. It was..."unpleasant". The range of animals we saw today must have rivalled the likes of San Diego. We even got to see a sad and lonely white rhino, which just made me wonder what it would be like to be a member of a species on the brink of extinction.

This komodo dragon was completely unfazed by our presence.

The orangutans had 4 or 5 adorable adolescents and babies.

It was great to see a white rhino, but he looked so sad.

We also ate our worst meal of the holiday so far at the Zoo. They were able to screw up something as simple as a hot-dog and fries, but the worst bit about it all was the flocks of pigeons and pea-hens that milled around, making us nervous about what kind of animals had walked across the table or what was about to brush against my legs.

As we wandered around, we noticed that there were a bunch of families driving around in golf karts. We found out at the end of the visit that you could rent a kart to get around the whole Zoo. It's unfortunate that we hadn't considered this before, as it would have saved Kara a lot of walking. On the other hand, we were very happy to discover that Barcelona has the same system of fountains in public spaces that Italy had. It makes sense, as "Barcino" was an old Roman settlement, so it shares some cultural origins with the Italian cities that we visited in 2014. The Zoo was peppered with the small fountains, and I took full advantage.

I haven't seen elephants for years. It was nice to see the keepers looking after them, checking their feet for sores etc.

One of the zoo highlights had to be seeing the family of gorillas playing together. We stood and watched for 15 minutes.

After we finished up at the Zoo, we took a trip back to Port Vell, the quayside where the Barcelona Aquarium is located. We decided to make today all about Zoology, so we finished off the day with a trip to the Aquarium, which was in the midst of decorating for Halloween. Kara enjoyed the slightly mesmerising view of Sand Tiger Sharks and Stingrays lazily drifting around in their giant tank.After a day at the amazing Zoo, I was a little bit underwhelmed by the Aquarium, but it was still very cool to see.

This seahorse was the most amazing colour. It looked like it was electrified.

Obligatory tourist selfie by the massive tank, containing scores of sharks and rays.

Kara was very excited to see the sand tiger sharks as they patrolled their tank.

After a busy day on our feet, we walked back towards the old town, towards the restaurant I'd planned on going to yesterday for some top-notch Italian food. The name "Sports Bar" was a bit worrying, but I will overlook a bar's aesthetic if they have a proper wood-burning pizza oven.

"Sports Bar" do fantastic pizzas. Even the plain dough of the crusts was delicious on its own.

Fortunately, there was no football on the TV, and we were rewarded for our long walk with the best pizza I've had in a long time. From what I could tell, the place is owned by a family from Naples, and all the staff are native Italians. This gave me a chance to swap my non-existent Spanish for my conspicuously absent Italian. The pizza was a great combo of slightly burnt dough, wood fired and misshapen, with a light but flavoursome sauce that gave me a meal so tasty that I even ate Kara's crusts without a second thought. That means we've eaten great food every day since we arrived, and that makes me supremely happy. Tomorrow, the plan is to head North to Sagrada Familia, but it's the weekend, so God only knows what sort of crowds we'll be dealing with.

This was a great day for us. It was so exciting to see all the rare and exotic animals that live at Barcelona Zoo. We were a little bit dubious to hear about a "sea-lion show" given the "Seaworld" vibe the name had. I haven't seen Blackfish, but I would rather never be able to see an animal outside of documentaries than know that the animal is suffering just so I can see it through a pane of glass for five minutes. Because of this, Kara and I spent a bit of time googling to see what Barcelona Zoo's reputation was for this kind of stuff, and we were pleased to see that (like most modern western zoos) they take conservation and animal welfare very seriously, beyond the need to keep animals healthy for entertainment purposes. The sea-lions were very entertaining, performing tricks, diving into the water and moving so fast, it's incredible to think of how slow and lumbering they could be on land. Their trainer also had a pair of boxes, filled with small fish, that she used to treat the sea-lions when they'd performed well.

The layout of the Zoo was pretty good, too. A lot of the more "impressive" animals (sorry birds) were in the central area of the park, but there was always something cool to see, just around the corner. I think my personal highlight was the great apes. Seeing chimps, orangutans and gorillas was such a treat, as they behave in such a familiar way, and unlike many of the other animals in the park, they were active and interacting with each other, as opposed to sleeping!

The reptile house was also very cool, with snakes, turtles, caymans & even some small crocodiles to look at. There were some carp swimming around in with the crocodiles and I found myself thinking "they must be on constant lookout" because there was nothing between them and a hungry croc.

The Aquarium was good fun, but Kara was beginning to get quite sore and tired from all of the walking around. She hung around in the gift shop while I went to find the ticket kiosk and buy our way in. It was already getting fairly late by the time we got in, but it was still quite busy, especially as the staff were busy putting together some decidedly amateur but well considered halloween decorations, including a creepy corridor with a flickering TV showing static reminiscent of Poltergeist (which was the movie Kara and I had a late-night feast to the night we got married).

Of course, I end the journal by gushing about how much I enjoyed my pizza. The "Sports Bar" may have a very different vibe at a time when they're showing sports, but from what I could tell, their evening crowd is couples who want to drink wine (or in our case - fizzy juice) and eat amazing Italian food. The staff are lovely and friendly and the food is reasonably priced. I'd definitely recommend it to anyone who wants Italian food in Barcelona.

Ross Alexander 11/17/16 Ross Alexander 11/17/16

Ross & Kara's Catalan Adventure - Day 2: On The Buses

We get out and see Barcelona from the top deck of a bus. A reconnaissance mission, you could say!

Getting Our Bearings

Thursday 27th October, 2016 - 21:00 - Barcelona's Old Town

So today felt a bit more like a "holiday". We started the day at a respectable hour, waking up at 9 or so and getting some food before our first proper day of "adventure". I tried my best to have what I recalled was a "proper European breakfast". This basically means "bread, cheese, sausage and something with chocolate in it." Upon trying to warm up my pain au chocolat, I discovered that our oven doesn't bloody work! This somewhat diminishes the good feelings I had about our "home-base". It feels like this place with its 6 flights of stairs, bed on a stack of wooden pallets, broken oven and the smallest shower I've ever turned off with my back, may be a bit of a disappointment. That being said, it has air-con and wifi, so it's swings and roundabouts!

A curious pigeon, and the narrow streets criss-crossing the old town.

We started today with a trip to a small bakery, so that Kara could eat a little "Tarte Poma" before we boarded the bus. We perched on a bench in Placa de Catalunya so that Kara could eat in comfort. I took in the open square with its many statues and pillars. Barcelona's open spaces often seem to be saturated with beautiful embellishments that make the most of the space and exist in a widely diverse range of styles. When we got to the bus stop to board the "Bus Turistic", we realised just how popular the service was going to be. It took us about 30 minutes to get to the front of the line, but once we were aboard, it was a very pleasant experience, as we cruised down Passeig de Gracia, the audioguide speaking about the incredible "Modernisme" inspired buildings, as well as the marvellous lamp-posts, which were designed by Antoni Gaudi. Gaudi's influence is undoubtedly prominent throughout the whole city. Our first bus trip took us along a street with many Gaudi-designed buildings and features, past his magnum opus; La Sagrada Familia, which is the biggest church I have ever seen. I am very much looking forward to seeing it in more detail, but I'm not sure what day that'll be.

A strange and upsetting tradition of throwing your tour headphone away.

Gaudi's Lamp-posts lining the Passeig de Gracia.

We finally stepped off the bus and ascended the hill to "Park Guell", originally designed by Gaudi as a residential area set amidst a British styled garden complex, the park is quite a striking feat. It's a maze of criss-crossing stone paths, set amidst palm trees, cacti and numerous other exotic plants. We didn't end up going into the Gaudi museum there, as we had started quite late and wanted to get as much done as possible while we had the bus ticket.

Gaudi's designs seem natural and unnatural at the same time.

Park Guell is as surreal in its design as any other Gaudi creation.

On the way down the hill, we stopped to get an ice-lolly. There are small stalls and cafes that sell these fantastic lollies, made from 100% fresh fruit juice. I had a multi-coloured lolly, made with kiwi and mango. The kiwi segment still had the black pips in it! Fresh fruit and veg seems to be a prominent part of the cuisine in Spain, with markets and stalls all over. I have read that the supermarkets are seen as an expensive alternative to eating fresh produce. This is something I'd love to see making it across to the UK.

We rejoined the bus tour after a short wander around Park Guell and continued on to "Monestir Pedralbes", but unfortunately it was closed for the afternoon. After a quick tour of the 14th century facade, we rejoined the bus tour and finished up at the bottom of the Barri Gothic, where we left to go and seek our dinner. We are most definitely still getting used to the schedule that Spanish shops and restaurants keep, especially when it comes to feeding time. Since we'd eaten out at a burger place yesterday, we had set out to eat at a place in the Barri Gothic. The place is somewhat ominously called "Sports Bar". Our timing was off by at least 2 hours, it seems, as we arrived at 5.30 and found the staff cleaning up in preparation for the late shift. We decided to take a wander around the old town for a while, and I was disappointed to find that it's often the same copy and paste design, with places selling tacky souvenirs, overpriced hippy clothing, shoes, belts and handbags.

After a somewhat disappointing ramble, we decided to stop at a bakery that had been calling to us for a while, called "Macxipa". According to the paper bag that the food came in, the company has been baking since 1903, and our experience suggested that they've put the time to good use. The food was very cheap compared to the other bakeries that we'd seen, and it's super tasty. I brought a chocolate croissant style pastry called a "Caracola" home for breakfast, and it's tough to resist it. I feel like it will become a frequent stop as it's virtually on our doorstep.

Kara's burger from "Little Bacoa". Her favourite burger of all time.

Kara didn't feel like walking to Sports Bar, so we decided to go to "Bacoa"; a burger bar that I had read loads of reviews for, and I was quite happy for a chance to compare it to La Central. We bought it and brought it back up to enjoy. We are 2 for 2 when it comes to tasty burgers! I can definitely recommend anywhere that makes a burger that Kara will finish without ketchup.

Tomorrow will possibly involve a trip to the Aquarium and one or more of the museums in the Barri Gothic. With any luck and a bit of planning, we'll have another exciting day and lots of great food.

Yes, yes. I know I talk about food a lot, but as someone who doesn't really drink, I find myself enjoying the simple things, instead of local wines and beers. The food in Barcelona is great, especially the burgers we had. It wasn't all good eatin' on this trip, but the first two times we went out for food were great. It really is a big deal for Kara to eat an entire burger sans ketchup, so we'd both really recommend Little Bacoa. La Central was still my top-pick from Barcelona, but that's enough talking about burgers for now.

The bus might be a stereotypically touristy thing to do, but Barcelona is a big city, spread out over a large area. The bus helped us realise where major streets meet, and how we were placed in relation to a lot of the places we'd planned to visit anyway. At 28 Euros for a ticket, it's not cheap, but if you're smarter than we were and get up early enough to make the most of your day ticket, you can take in a lot of sights without worrying about the time slipping away. I was quite sad to have missed out on seeing the Monestir Pedralbes, but the outer building was still gorgeous, and it was nice to have a little bit of peace and quiet at the edge of the city before we boarded the bus back in.

I'm glad we had the respite, because on our bus that took us around the hills, we had to share a confined space with a little English kid who was yelling questions back to his parents who were sat three rows behind us. At first it was kind of endearing, but it quickly became so irritating that I just wanted to get off the bus and wait for the next one!

This day was also our first experience of Gaudi's work, with a drive-by of Casa Batllo, La Pedrera, La Sagrada Familia and a trip to Park Guell. I was impressed by the surrealist visions that jumped out of his work, but this was just a taster of what was to come, later in the trip.

Ross Alexander 11/17/16 Ross Alexander 11/17/16

Ross & Kara's Catalan Adventure - Day 1: Mucho Gusto Barcelona!

Kara and I set off on our anni-moon, or is it our honey-versary? Either way, we are excited to escape together for a while.

Pausing For Breath

So anyone who's read the last blog or has spoken to me in the last few months probably knows that the latter half of 2016 has been a real kick in the butt for me. I have been able to get a toe-hold on life by grabbing a job that I am still learning the ropes at, but beginning to enjoy. The downside being that I am only seeing Kara for around a day or so per week. This really sucks, but it meant so much to me (and hopefully Kara too) that we got time to escape things for a while. All the money that we had been putting aside for our trip the USA suddenly became our honeymoon/1st wedding anniversary fund, so we decided to book Barcelona and the small city of Girona in Catalonia as our destination.

Anyone who read my travel blog for Rome will be familiar with the format. I kept a journal of our time in Barcelona (and most of Girona) so I could put together a travel blog that was an accurate and timely representation of our time over there. I will post what I wrote at the time, then add some notes or thoughts that I had while I reflected on our time abroad.

Wednesday 26th October, 2016 22:00 - Barcelona's Old Town

"So we're on the road again! We've planned this trip months ago, and given the amount of stuff going on at home, I'm so pleased that I've had the chance to escape with Kara. Between feeling like the world is slipping away fro me as I hunt for a job and not being able to live with Kara, I've felt so out of my comfort zone that being away from home seems like the last thing I want to do. Fortunately, it seems that it's more important to be with Kara than in our own home, so I am looking forward to leaving my concerns behind as we explore Catalonia.

It was a super-early start this morning, but everything ran very smoothly, and after a taxi, train and tram; we were at Wetherspoons, eating a big breakfast in preparation for a day of travel. We flew out with Norwegian Airlines, who had a plane at about 35% capacity. This left Kara and I with a row to ourselves, and we were also given the "emergency exit" row, meaning that I had the space to stretch out, lean my chair back and play Ocarina of Time on my 3DS. I doubt I'll ever have such a comfortable and relaxing plane ride ever again, unless I become a millionaire or we get bumped up into first class. I was playing my game all the way up until the wheels touched tarmac!

Barcelona was pretty grey when we touched down, and I got the feeling that we'd be dealing with moderate heat and high humidity. It actually feels like a cloudy summer's day in Edinburgh. I feel clammy (what else is new?) and I'm not even getting the benefit of some sunshine. But it's us! We don't travel for the weather anyway, we like spending our time in nice restaurants, museums, galleries and cool pieces of architecture. Today has been a little bit slow in terms of excitement and exploration, but unlike our first day in Rome, we have eaten and we have food in the flat. I'll take a slow first day with food over a tumultuous welcome to a city on an empty stomach. Of course, the holiday tradition of carrying the suitcase everywhere is being honoured, but at least we have a "home-base" that's a bit closer to the city centre than we did in Rome!

We got the train from the airport to the middle of the city; a stop called "Passeig de Gracia". As soon as we stepped out of the station, we spotted one of the many Gaudi buildings; "Casa Batllo". We didn't get a great look at it, as we wanted to meet our host, Rosa. We had a short walk along the busy streets of Barcelona and were happy to see that despite the suitcases, we weren't the most obvious tourists! The number of overweight Americans with "sport team" t-shirts was surprising, but it was great to feel just a little bit less like the big fat "gringo" that I am.

We met Rosa by another architectural hot-spot; the "Palau de la Musica Catalana". I hope to get a better look at it later, when I'm not heaving luggage around. Rosa seems to be super-friendly, talking about the local area's attractions, complimenting my (piss-poor) Spanish and apologising for her English. This is a theme we found in Italy too, with us being apologised to for not speaking the local language. It mostly just makes me feel guilty for not being a font of Spanish-speaking knowledge. Kara has delegated all social interaction to me, which is actually something I thought she might start trying to do while we were just hanging out in the UK!

With our "home-base" established, we took stock of our surroundings. I had to recover from hauling our 18kg suitcase up 6 flights of stairs in the narrowest old stairwell imaginable. With a quick refresh, we headed out to find a market and a place to eat. Of course, the market closed twenty minutes before we arrived, so we went on a mission to feed ourselves. We ended up at a burger place called "La Central", where the staff and the menus are bilingual. Holy cow, the burgers are good! Kara got a bit of chicken so big that it was bigger than the bun! I get the feeling we'll be visiting there again. It's nice to have a bit of a budget for this trip, as it means we can have nice meals. Unfortunately, the € is now almost at parity with the £, making everything seem hella' 'spensive. Still, it's our "anni-moon", so we've got license to spoil ourselves.

Tonight, we are just chilling out. I am writing while Kara draws and Netflix is on. There's a surprising amount of English content in Spanish Netflix. With any luck, we'll be catching the "Bus Turistic" in the morning, giving us a good view of Barcelona and inspiring our travels over the next couple of days."

Reading it back, it's comforting to know how comfortable Kara and I are with just a peaceful night in, having seen a little bit of the neighbourhood and getting excited for what the next few days will bring. I only briefly allude to it in my journal, but the building we were staying in was renovated/rebuilt in the late 1700s, so our flat was at the very top floor of the skinniest stairwell. It was like an old castle's stairwell, winding round and round with barely any room to swing...well...I didn't need to swing a blade on this trip, but I did have to lug a giant suitcase up the steps. The stairs were so narrow that I actually felt a bit dizzy after coming down them at speed, as it felt like I'd been spinning around so fast. Having our location be so central was great of course, and despite the group of "youths" that hung around at the junction beside our "close" door, I was convinced that nobody was making that climb to rob someone.

I know I've been dwelling on it a lot recently, but my head was still a little bit all over the place for most of the trip, but I found the experience of being with my lovely wife in a pair of beautiful cities suitably distracting and comforting, enough to let me enjoy myself. Don't worry, this isn't a downer of a holiday.

Also, given how heavy the focus on gluten-free dining was in my Rome journals, the eagle-eyed among you will notice that Kara is back on gluten. Our eating habits become more of an issue later on, but at least we knew that in a pinch, we'd be able to get Kara burgers and pizzas if needed.

Ross Alexander 10/11/16 Ross Alexander 10/11/16

Grabbing The Wheel

I wax lyrical about my last few months, but I promise there's a happy ending.

This picture of Fernando Alonso flying upside down through the air at 150kmph is how I've felt in recent months.

Getting Back In Control

It's been a month since I last posted anything on my blog, and I know that while I don't have readers to "keep happy" with updates, I am disappointed in myself for not keeping up to date with my writing. It's been a bit topsy-turvy this last few months, and I think that it's important for me to log my thoughts on how things have been, considering unemployment and general misery are hurdles that most people face in their adult life at some point, and I'd like to take some net positives out of the experience.

Finding the "silver lining" has definitely been difficult since I was made redundant. I suppose the changes I've had to make to my lifestyle have been felt more accutely due to how happy and contented I was in my previous job. I was working in the games sector, I'd recently been promoted and I worked next to one of my now closest friends. Every day felt like I was moving (sometimes slowly) forwards on a career path that I set for myself while I casually worked on putting pieces of my novel together, listening to podcasts like Writing Excuses and reading "Slay The Dragon" while I worked on getting to the gym as regularly as possible and convincing myself that I was making the most of my day, which was tightly packed for maximum efficiency.

When I lost the job, not only did my financial situation suddenly become extremely tenuous, I found myself unable to focus on writing my novel, mainly due to a mixture of guilt for not having immediately found another games industry job and a general dread at the thought of "going backwards". Before this experience, losing a job hadn't felt so bad because I'd always been around the bottom rung on the ladder, but now it felt as if I'd actually lost something real and tangible, as opposed to just another low paying retail or hospitality job. It turns out that while I did end up "going backwards", it did remind me that it's incredibly important to have a goal in life, and that knowing what's worth chasing adds colour to an otherwise grey and drab working life.

I was lucky enough to be able to find some work in Bathgate, which isn't as easy as you might think. It's a relatively small town, with a few shops and bars, but the size of Bathgate makes opportunities harder to find. My morale and self-worth were in tatters at this point, as I'd been turned down for jobs that I felt I was bound to be qualified for, but at this stage I feel I maybe just wasn't right for; there's no point in sour grapes. Knowing that I'd be hammered with tax, I picked up a full-time retail job in a pawn shop and some part-time work in a bar & restaurant. I was really lucky to have been able to inform both employers that I would be actively seeking work in an environment that would help my career (ie- nerd stuff) and still receive a job offer. Most employers want a little more commitment than "I'll work here until I find something better." but they must have appreciated my honesty and within a day of handing out CVs, I had 1.5 jobs. It relieved some of the stress that was hanging over me, knowing that I'd at least be able to pay the bills, but I was more determined than ever to keep pushing for games industry jobs. I applied to agencies, I sent emails to recruitment departments at studios with speculative applications. I even built the site you're reading this blog on with the intention of finding a good job and getting back on track.

For a long time nothing came through, and while I never felt like I "gave up", I definitely allowed myself to slide into a funk which only made me feel worse. I wasn't going to the gym and I wasn't sleeping well at all (which is still the case, actually) and I made up for it by eating pretty much whatever I wanted, but with the added guilt of knowing I shouldn't. I was grumpy and lethargic, unhappy and sick. I have actually been ill more in the last three months than in the last two years, and it makes me wonder if the cause is working with the public and handling money again, or if it's my poor mental state and physical discipline that's crushing me. I kept looking and applying, sending off speculative applications and even applying to "dream jobs" with the conceit that after having had such a crappy couple of months, maybe CD Projekt Red would address the karmic balance with a writing position. Of course, this didn't happen, but I am pleased to say that I have been super lucky in finding a short contract role that is going to allow me to improve my skills, widen my experience and work in a software development studio that has a few very cool projects going that I am excited to be a part of. I have taken this job and made it the turning point for my life. I am grabbing the wheel and taking control.

I really hope to have more moments like this in the next three months

Finding The Silver Lining

So with all of the "woe is me", "regular jobs are torture" self pitying stuff out of the way, I am genuinely excited to be starting the next phase in my career. Reloaded gave me my start in game development, and my new employer "eeGeo" are working on some really cool 3D mapping technology that I am excited to learn about. On top of a new job, I'll be moving back to Perth for at least 6 months, as my new job is in Dundee; commuting distance away from my family home in "The Bronx" of Perth - Letham. Anyone who's moved away from their home town will probably have a similar mixture of feelings about the prospect of moving back. The memories of why you moved away in the first place will probably crop up, alongside a rush of nostalgia about the people and places you remember fondly. I left Perth largely because I was bored and all of my friends lived in Edinburgh or Glasgow. I currently live in Armadale in West Lothian and take a bus to work in Bathgate or Livingston's DMZ "Craigshill" so the opportunity of moving TO Perth actually offers more interesting things to do and people to see. Just the thought of being able to take my mountain bike around Perth's beautiful parks or countryside is especially appealing, as is the prospect of being able to chill in the pub for a drink or two after work with some friends I used to hang out with at the Games Workshop when we were in our teens. Knowing me and my habits, I'll probably still just want to spend most of my time sat in front of my computer; writing or playing games.

The real downside to all of this is that Kara works in Bathgate and is similarly career-minded. She has secured herself a job as a tattoo artist that she enjoys and spends a lot of her evenings working on. This means that we will be living apart for a while, as the commute from Armadale would be extortionate and would require me to be awake at around 5am, I'll wager. We are buying a new car this Friday, which I would be more excited about if I was able to drive it. The plan is for Kara to visit me as much as she can, and a new car will make it much easier and cheaper than coming up by train or relying on an old car that rattles a bit. I planned to be driving by now, but Reloaded are yet to pay up our severance pay, and after three months, my faith in their ability to come through for us is wavering. Suffice to say that any money coming in is going to be going right back out again, but isn't that always the way?

Where's The Fun?

Apologies to anyone reading this who isn't me. I know the above text is basically just an outpouring of my current mental state, but it's pretty accurate. Let's get on to the good stuff that's coming up.

Honeyversary/Annimoon In Catalonia

So Kara and I have nearly been married for a year. It's mind-boggling to consider where our lives were a year ago. The "American Dream" was definitely tarnished by the distinct lack of updates on the whole process, but we were still anticipating a big American adventure. Little did we think that a year later, we'd be living apart and working in different counties. Still, we took all of the resources we'd been saving for the states and put them into a proper holiday. We haven't been out of the country since 2014 and we wanted to go somewhere that shows an adequate level of pageantry for Halloween, to keep Kara happy. We leave for Barcelona on October 26th and we'll also be spending a little time in Girona, just a little ways up the eastern Spanish coast. Expect the blog to turn into a travel journal for that one, much as it did for our Italian trip. Kara's eating wheat again now, so hopefully we won't have such a hard time eating.

What? No Games?

I have been playing games, I promise! I started playing "Pillars Of Eternity" on my PC, as my brother had gifted it to me last Christmas. I am really enjoying it, but I won't say any more about it this time. Hopefully I'll get a chance to come back to it in the blog, as I'm really enjoying it.

That's all for this post, but if you made it this far, then thank you for reading! Stay tuned for Spanish travel stories - coming soon!

Ross Alexander 9/9/16 Ross Alexander 9/9/16

Deus Ex - Why doesn't everyone love cyborgs?

I've been away for a while, but I'm still playing games. This time, it's the turn of my most anticipated game of 2016: Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. Does it live up to the expectations? Read on to find out!

Signal Interrupted

"Deus Ex: Mankind Divided" has been on my radar for a few years now. Square Enix's incredible first foray into the Deus Ex universe with "Human Revolution" scratched the itch that I didn't even know I had until I played it. Ion Storm's "Deus Ex" was a showcase in environmental storytelling, letting the player figure out what had happened or where to go by observing the room they were in, and Human Revolution was an up-rezzed, golden glowing homage to the stealth mechanics and lateral thinking that made the franchise so good to begin with. Despite being marred with some iffy combat mechanics (that didn't bother me because I play Deus Ex all stealthy-like) and some questionable boss-battle design (that did bother me, because I was spec'd for stealth and not combat), the story and setting ensured that I was going to play any sequel to Human Revolution. Oddly enough, one of the minds behind Deus Ex's incredible design; Harvey Smith is presently finishing off Dishonored 2, which is the only other game I can see dethroning DEMD as my game of the year. I guess time will tell.

The aesthetic design of the different environments is incredible.

So with a legacy as strong as Deus Ex's, it became my most anticipated game of this year. Of course between losing my job and desperately scrambling to find something to keep me afloat, my mind was nowhere near playing games for fun. I completely forgot about DEMD until my brother mentioned it in passing, saying he was happy it looked like the game would be living up to expectations. Waiting on money coming through and working a job and a half to keep myself busy, I felt horrendous that I wouldn't be able to justify the purchase of a new game to myself. When the 9+/10 reviews started to roll in, I knew I was likely to crack, and I justified it to myself (and my long-suffering wife) that I really needed to just escape for a while, and while Fallout 4 has new DLC, I needed a more engaging story; the kind of story that DEMD delivers.

The Details Make The Design

When it comes to world-building, Deus Ex has taken a look at the ways humanity is developing (or regressing, some might say), and is able to craft a cyberpunk dystopia that feels uncomfortably close to an imaginable future. The whole planet has developed from the end of Human Revolution, with humanity divided along the lines of "natural" and "augmented" people, with the naturals persecuting the augmented for a number of reasons, all of which are outlined in a 12 minute intro video that goes over the events of Human Revolution. This backdrop is used expertly to allow players to guide their stoic (some might say "robotic") character through a maze of corporate intrigue, political corruption, brutal law enforcement and as somewhat ill-advised writing labels it; "mechanical apartheid".

The augmented ghetto known as "Golem" feels like classic Cyberpunk.

The story is great, although it's hard to go into any detail without risk of spoiling it for those who haven't played it yet, or for those who are planning on picking up Human Revolution; a recourse that I whole-heartedly endorse! Instead, I want to cover the commitment to detail and storytelling that the designers decided to showcase through their environments.

I don't think I am the only one who appreciates the incredible design of Deus Ex's spaces. From the cozy corners of your engineer's underground lab & bedroom to the cramped high-rise alleyways of Golem, the level designers have crafted an incredible space to play in. Every space feels useful, and often tells a story. The disparity between the rich and poor is put on show in a way that doesn't feel tired or preachy, despite being a central plot-point. While dialogue also conveys the differences between the poor and the rich, it's the living environments where the player can rake around and get a real feel for who's living in 2029 Prague.

Beautiful interior design with high ceilings, minimalist design and little reading cubby-holes make me think that Deus Ex's level designers must be contract architects.

For example, almost every palacial upmarket penthouse has a PC in it that players can hack into and snoop around in the affairs of major characters, NPC's and sometimes even dead bodies who are lying next to the PC you're reading from. The content you're likely to read can involve child custody battles, apologetic emails from parents to now-dead drug addicts and letters from the corrupt corporate body, extorting people for money and making you feel so bad about stealing someone's credits that you drop all your pilfered beer and spirits so that they can at least get pissed when they find out that the trenchcoated weirdo with the naff-looking sunglasses has robbed them blind and read their emails for a laugh. Of course, while the player might appreciate these little snippets of seemingly useless flavour text, the aesthetic design of the city as a whole serves the classic gaming adage of "show, don't tell" and what a show the city puts on. The "Golem" environment feels like classic Cyberpunk, with dark alleyways, barely lit by flashing neon signs, beggars that hack and cough, rowdy locals and aggressive police officers. Naturally the Cyberpunk setting demands that the locals all have robotic limbs. It's a bleak place, but it's damn cool to visit.

Jensen's base of operations has several departments, most of which have cool high-tech looking goodies like this forensic scanner.

More Time in The Vents Than Newt

As well as the obvious visual appeal of Deus Ex's environmental design, the player agency that has always been at the core of the series is served so well by the diversity and depth that the game provides. Every time I needed to get into somewhere I wasn't meant to be, I found that there were normally three options:

Hack your way in.
Find a vent and creep in like a robotic John Mclean.
SHOOT EVERYTHING

Of course, there are sometimes opportunities to talk around problems, or maybe a case for combining some of all the different techniques, but I found myself crawling around in the vents for what felt like a third of the game. The augmentation skill-tree will often dictate what route you can take, with the hacking, traversal and combat skills all requiring sacrifices to be made in other departments to develop. I made myself a half-decent hacker with springy legs that let me jump up high and that sorted most of the puzzles I'd been dealing with. Of course, choice is the real take-away here and while the combat in DEMD is an improvement from HR, it should be mentioned that you are easily killed if you don't have the super-soldier augmentations installed. For all his spiked arm-blades and guns, Adam Jensen collapses under a hail of gunfire if you've stuck all your points into making him some kind of cross between the Blue Gene supercomputer and a pogo stick.

Every good counter-terrorism unit has a command room with lots of monitors, right?

DEMD isn't without its faults mind you, and the open nature of many of the environments are poorly served by some badly signposted environments, but sometimes a hunt to find the next area can lead you to discovering more of the incredible environments that Eidos Montreal have put in the game. The lip-syncing for voice-over is poor, but I am a culprit of sticking on subtitles and skipping through the very well voice acted lines as soon as I've read them. When compared to games like Mass Effect or Fallout, Deus Ex's writing is so brilliantly done that I never found myself stuck between a rock and a hard place, but the out-of-sync faces and the lego hair that clips through character's clothes is unfortunate and detracts from the performance.

In the end, it's a great game for people who like their story-driven RPGs, and the choice to play through the game as a stealth shooter or just a massive cyberpunk gunfight is an example in branching gameplay that rewards players with unique outcomes depending on how they complete a given task. If you like "doing it your way" then Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is worth your time.

Ross Alexander 8/16/16 Ross Alexander 8/16/16

Setting Sail For The Horizon

I explain a little bit about hunting for a job in the games industry before covering the games I've been playing recently! This post has Assassins, Demon Cowboys and Anti-Terrorism Agents. That's pretty cool, no?

Where's my head at?

The last month or so has been quite surreal for me. Back in July, I had a job within the games industry, following a path that I'd been able to find and cling to, while learning what I could about game design and production. Today marks the end of a period of constant stress and concern about my financial future as I try to find a job anywhere, from the tippity-top of the UK's game development scene to returning to my old stomping ground of high-street retail and bar work. I've been able to catch a toe-hold at the moment, and at least for the foreseeable future, I don't have to worry about the dole office.

I know that if you come here looking to read about games, this is perhaps a bit heavy and I apologise for that, but I promise that this is relevant. It will come as no surprise to most people reading this (if anyone still is) that my passion for videogames goes beyond a hobby. When my wife Kara convinced me to "go for it" and pursue my dream to become a game developer back in 2011, I threw myself heart & soul into working towards becoming a valuable asset to the kind of studio I'd like to work in, or maybe even start my own one day. I was fortunate enough to scramble my way out of the retail work I'd been doing since high school and got my foot in the door at a games studio. I've never wanted to look back since.

The past few weeks have been the first time I've ever had the feeling of true investment in a job hunt, with the aim being to pursue my career, as opposed to simply making enough to shelter and feed myself. It's simultaneously terrifying and exhilarating, as you weigh the pros and cons of working in certain places, all the while desperately hoping to hear back with good news from one of your many applications. I have had what can only be described as "mixed success" and while every rejection has been understandable, it pushes a person's impostor syndrome into overdrive as you attempt to predict what it was that made you fall short. Of course, this is the downside to being so truly invested in a job hunt; every rejection stings a little bit more than if it were for a job that was solely for monetary gain. On the other-hand, the feeling you get when you have positive feedback or an interview that seems to have gone well feels like a small step on the road to success, where success is getting back on course and with any luck, ending up slightly better-off than you were when you fell away.

So yeah, that's a small taste of where my mind's been at this past wee while. I really hope that I have some positive news to share with you guys in the near future, but for now; wish me luck.

Can we talk about games now?

Sure, let's leave my professional videogame chatter aside while I discuss my personal videogame experiences in the last couple of weeks, shall we? In the last post, I mentioned that I had been playing three games; Rainbow Six: Siege, Assassin's Creed: Rogue and Hard West.

Cowboys + Satan = Hard West

Hard west is a strange game, for sure. I was sold on the concept while listening to (surprise surprise) an episode of an IGN games podcast, likening the gameplay mechanics to X-Com: Enemy Unknown, which was my #1 game of 2012. I had been waiting for it to drop in price, and then a friend was kind enough to purchase it as a birthday gift (thank you, Alice!) so I decided to spin it up and give it a shot.

Damn, this game's story and setting is bleak. It combines the general hostility and mercenary nature of living as a member of an early American settler in the west with the very acute hostility of satan himself. The player controls a character who dies and is resurrected on a mission of vengeance, vowing to destroy the people responsible for the death of...well himself, and his wife too. This grants him a certain set of supernatural powers, while he still does all his killin' at the end of a rifle/shotgun/six shooter. I'm not finished the game yet, but I thought I would give a quick rundown to anyone else who enjoys turn-based isometric strategy games (we really need to find a snappy word for that, don't we?) like X-Com or even Final Fantasy Tactics.

I think that the environment's aesthetic design is absolutely fantastic, with a range of locations that are straight out of the "gritty western playbook". There's saloons, farmsteads, sandy streets with wooden buildings on either side and plenty of cool props like horse troughs and barrels to take cover behind. While there's plenty of cover, the game uses a luck-based system to adjust your simulated dice rolls when attacking and defending yourself. It basically forces you to consider how focused you want to be on certain enemies, requiring you to reposition or hide your wounded characters as you attempt to pick off the stragglers. As enemy players shoot at your characters, their chances to hit will dictate how likely you are to take damage. If you take damage, then your luck will increase to compensate for the fact that you've already taken damage, and vice versa. I don't know why, but a game that openly displays its "luck factor" as a game mechanic has a tendency to make me feel like the outcomes of gunfights can be a bit arbitrary, but then again; nobody said the wild west was a fair place.

If you ever watched "Hang 'em High" and thought "You know what? They should have Clint Eastwood's character be a demon, hell-bent (pun intended) on vengeance!" then give Hard West a shot. (Pun not intended)

Breaking the siege

I love, love, love Rainbow Six Vegas 1 & 2. The last time I was able to properly dedicate myself to a small pool of games was when I was still in my late teens, living at home with my mum and working in a games shop as I tried (and failed) to save enough money to move in with friends in Edinburgh. It was the perfect cross-over of "Not enough money to buy more games" and "No real responsibilities in the evening" that allowed me to really sink my teeth into Rainbow 6 Vegas 1 & 2. I relished the opportunity to punish players who were coming from faster paced games, who weren't cautious, never expected traps and would find themselves running into a hail of gunfire from a concealed source behind a door. I got so good at playing the game that I could bounce an incendiary grenade off two surfaces and get people behind a door, just from listening to their footsteps on the floor above me.

So to come from that level of confidence in my own abilities to "pwn n00bs", I was brought crashing right back down to earth when I started playing Rainbow 6: Siege recently. Holy shit, there are players that know every nook and cranny of every map, and the array of gadgets that you can use and be forced to counter are wide-ranging and difficult to predict. I find myself getting gunned down in embarrassing situations, where I have camped a corner, as is an expected tactic for defenders in a Rainbow 6 game, then stood up to move down the corridor and have my head blown off by a guy who has had me zeroed in all this time. It's humbling, frustrating and it makes me really sad to think that there's no way I'm ever going to have the same amount of time to dedicate to Siege, the same way I did for the Vegas games.

The game itself is great, though. The maps are almost completely dynamic, with well appointed areas for destruction, that I haven't utilised so extensively since Battlefield 2:Bad Company. The gunplay is top-notch, as you might expect from a Tom Clancy game, and the Terrorist Hunt missions are as you probably remember them, although there's now a much heavier emphasis on objectives and multiplayer, but that just seems to be the way the games industry is moving these days. If you can get a crew together to play T-hunt, it's a good team building experience. Be warned however, the people that lurk around the multiplayer arenas are capable and they appear to be unusually well organised. I like to take "Sledge" who tellingly enough, is a burly Scottish guy whose special ability involves putting holes in walls with a giant sledgehammer. While I am capable of quite literally "making an entrance", it's often a case that any entrance I happen to make becomes host to a hailstorm of bullets, sending me sprawling to my death. Maybe I just ought to "get gud".

Going rogue felt like standing still

While I wouldn't go so far as to call myself an "Assassin's Creed Apologist", I remain a fan of the games despite some considerable design choices that leave me feeling burnt out half-way through. I found 3 to be an uphill slog, and Unity's beautiful rendering of Paris wasn't enough to negate the same game mechanics I've been using in the AC franchise for almost a decade now. AC4: Black Flag was a breath of fresh air, largely because it took players out into the sea to explore on a much grander scale, with epic ship battles that I would have paid for on their own.

With these factors in mind, I held off on playing AC: Syndicate (which I've heard lots of good things about) so I could play through Rogue, which seemed to be the red-headed stepchild of the franchise, as it was brought out on "last-gen consoles" while Unity was given the bigger marketing push. By all accounts, Rogue was basically a palette swap with Black Flag, trading the sunny climes of the Caribbean for the frigid waters of the north Atlantic and Arctic oceans. Unfortunately, Black Flag's protagonist Edward Kenway has also been replaced with Shay Patrick Cormack, an ex-assassin who has joined the Templar cause and sets out to restore order to the area by killing off members of his old cell.

It's the stark contrast between the life of a pirate like Kenway and the straight-laced and often unpleasant Cormack that made me pause to consider the differences between one game and the other. While the combat, environments and sailing are much the same as they were before, I found myself having a really hard time getting into the story. This was a shame as the story itself fills in some really interesting gaps in the Assassins vs Templar story, but it's just not enough to make me like Shay. His motives are seemingly coming from a benign place, and I suppose it's fair to say that his change in loyalties in the early game is a good microcosm of the differences between the two factions. Both want peace, but on their own terms and they're both entirely certain that the other is only going to hurt the human race if it gets its way.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the whole "employee at Abstergo entertainment" thing that forms the framework around the story in Rogue, in much the same was as it did during Black Flag. I know it's a super divisive framing mechanic, but as someone who dreams of working in a studio like that (sans the whole murder and genocide angle) I always found it super-cool to wander around Ubisoft Montreal's meta-version of itself. It plays much like the Black Flag meta campaign does, but with less oomph. Dialogue and animation has been replaced with hidden soundbytes, reducing engagement with the story in a way that makes the Abstergo offices seem a little...empty?

Anyway, I did enjoy Rogue for its ability to fill in little bits of story that had fallen away in the main AC plot, but for the most part the game suffers from a weaker central protagonist and modern-day story. The sailing and combat feels the same, and while it was super-fun to get out there on the high seas again, it felt like DLC as opposed to a new game. I'd recommend giving it a shot if you loved Black Flag and just want more of the same, with a little bit of back-story in there too.

That's all for this post, but I hope you guys enjoyed it. As always, any comments or feedback is valuable, but I am mostly writing these to chart my own thoughts.

Until next time, thanks for reading!

Ross Alexander 8/6/16 Ross Alexander 8/6/16

Podcasting a wide net. (Part 2)

In part 2 of my podcast rundown, I talk about some of the best podcasts for learning about the wider world, and becoming a better writer.

Good for laughs, good for learning

So in my last post, I spoke about my favourite podcasts that made me laugh and you could class as "entertainment". Today's post covers my favourite podcasts that are still entertaining, but I see them more as tools for gaining a better understanding of the world around me, or just for general self-betterment. They cover a wide range of topics, from human interest stories, obscure stories from history to lessons on how to become a better writer. I feel that all of the podcasts I'm going to mention have given me perspective on some very diverse topics, as well as making me a more considerate person.

Human interest; made interesting

Those of you reading who listen to podcasts, and many of you who don't may have already heard of Serial; a spin off podcast from "This American Life". Season 1 garnered widespread acclaim for its approach to covering a long-dormant murder case from 1999. I won't say any more here, as it's the developments in the podcast that make it so compelling. I'm aware that there is a second season, but I don't like to wait for the next episode in shows like this, so I am waiting until I know it's finished before I jump in. Anyway, Serial isn't on my list because it's possibly the most ubiquitous podcast of all time, and you'll know from the description whether it's your thing or not. I mention Serial because it compelled me to look into more podcasts that cover human interest stories, and I've found some that range from deeply personal stories of survival, revenge, escape and peril, to some inspirational stories about the people who build monuments to science, culture and technology and have been forgotten. If you like hearing about remarkable people, here are some remarkable podcasts.

Snap Judgement

Snap Judgement is definitely in my "must listen to" category for podcasts. Glynn Washington has a voice that instantly makes me think of 70s late night American funk radio hosts as they're depicted in movies and TV, and that might be because Snap has its own band who score every episode and it's normally funky as hell. But presentation is just the icing on the cake of this top-notch show.

In the couple of years that I've been listening to Snap Judgement, I've heard stories from an incredibly diverse range of people. Glynn himself has led an interesting life, from growing up in a cult known as the "Worldwide Church of God" where race mixing wasn't allowed, to studying in Japan as a young man; he often throws in his own personal anecdotes to episodes. My personal favourite episode that I've heard is called "Mercenary", which includes a segment about James Brabazon; a journalist who is assigned a mercenary to watch his back as he follows rebel fighters around in a civil war in Liberia. The two become close friends after going through some real hardships together, and while Brabazon acknowledges that his best friend kills people for money, he feels guilty for not being there when something goes wrong.

Other highlights include an episode where a deceased hip-hop artist's secret collection of unreleased material is found in a storage locker, and the fight for his mother to use the music to recoup many of the costs of her son's medical bills gets nasty. There's a story about a woman in the middle east who is forced to marry a man who works for the government, or else he will have her family arrested and killed. It's not always sad though, there's often a satisfying, if not "happy" ending. The Snap Judgement Live shows are often hilariously funny and touchingly personal at the same time. If there's only one podcast that piques your interest from reading this, I hope it's Snap, 'cos there's something there for everyone.

Stuff You Missed In History Class

A member of the "How Stuff Works" family of podcasts, SYMIHC specialises in telling the stories of people and institutions that history has largely forgotten. Because of the in-built racism and misogyny that permeates so much of culture, this often means they're stories about minorities and women who have done amazing things but haven't seen recognition in the wider cultural picture. There's also a lot of stories about institutions that have been kept on the down-low, or were perhaps taboo subjects at the time.

While many of the subjects are very compelling, they are guided somewhat by the interests of the two presenters, and this recently led to an episode on "The History Of Knitting". I listened to it and I don't know what I was expecting, but it was exactly what it sounds like, so I do sometimes skip episodes if it isn't something that is likely to interest me.

Recent highlights include a two-parter story on the Women's Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) during WW2, the way French women objected to Nazi occupation, Harriet Tubman's lesser-known work with the Underground railroad and the story of Hercules Mulligan who worked as a spy during the American war of independence. With some moderation in what you listen to, you can have a great listening experience and learn about totally new and unheard-of historical tales. One small problem with the show is something that dogs the entire "stuff" network and that is the frequent and lengthy advertising breaks. Normally there are two or three per 25-30 minute episode, and if you don't have a chance to skip forward, it gets really annoying.

99% Invisible

Roman Mars' voice is the audible equivalent of a warm jumper and a cup of cocoa. He is perfect for Radio, and although he normally only takes care of the introduction and outro of the show, he welcomes new listeners in and makes you feel comfortable before the show-proper begins.

The show is principally about design; talking about not only why every objects, organisations, techniques and structures are made the way they are, but the minds behind some of the greatest inventions you've never needed to know about. The human interest element often comes from interviews with people who designed the items, as well as those whose lives have been affected by the subject of the show. I cannot stress how big an effect this show has had on my awareness of design as I walk around. From the question of "why do police officers wear uniforms like that?" to "how do they build skyscrapers that can withstand hurricanes, typhoons and earthquakes?" 99PI has you covered. There was even an episode about the restoration of Stirling Castle. The tagline for 99PI is "Always Read The Plaque" which is a great message for people who are interesting in not only how an item works, but why it works and who made it. They did an episode on "Challenge Coins", an American military tradition, and to aid with a crowdfunding campaign, they even made their own and sent them out to everyone who pledged to support the show. I keep mine in a little pouch in my office.

Always read the caption. The audio waves are Roman Mars' voice introducing the show.

99% Invisible is a part of the "Radiotopia" network of podcasts, and sometimes it does some cross-features with other members of the Radiotopia family. This has led me to listen to a few episodes of "Song Exploder" where host Hrishikesh Hirway invites musicians (such as Bjork, U2, Garbage & Harry Gregson-Williams) to dissect their music-making process and describe how a song is made. I need to listen to more of this, but I am a colossal music snob and it can sometimes make it difficult to listen if I know I don't like the music ahead of time. Still, that's my beef, and if you're more open minded than I am about music, you'll have a great time. I've also heard an episode of Helen Zaltzman (sister of the Bugle's Andy Zaltzman) hosting "The Allusionist", where she and a host of experts discuss how modern society is reflected in the way we speak to each other. This is another show I really want to listen to, as I think it would be very useful to someone who writes for a living. I just can't seem to get my list of podcast episodes down low enough to pick up a new one for long.

Imaginary Worlds

"IMAGINARY WORLDS IS A BI-WEEKLY PODCAST HOSTED BY ERIC MOLINSKY ABOUT SCIENCE FICTION AND OTHER FANTASY GENRES -- HOW WE CREATE THEM AND WHY WE SUSPEND OUR DISBELIEF."

With those words, Eric Molinsky starts off every episode of Imaginary Worlds, and that description does a really good job of conveying what the show is about. This was yet another show that I was turned on to by 99PI, and it was a perfect fit due to Molinsky's ability to cover not only the design of sci-fi and fantasy, but the psychology behind it as well. Sensibly enough, his first episode "Origin Stories" attempts to unlock the formula for a compelling hero, discussing the psychology behind the common writer's trope "The Hero's Journey" that covers characters from Luke Skywalker to Link from Legend of Zelda. In stark contrast, his second episode "When Human Met Creature" covers the practical implications of making real-life human actors work with practical effects. This combination of psychology and technical knowledge forms the backbone of the show, and ensures that you never get bored, listening to the hows and whys of sci-fi. Fans of superhero movies (and Batman in particular) should check out episode 22 "Fixing The Hobo Suit" where Molinsky talks with Hollywood costume designers about how superhero costumes have changed over the years.

Molinsky himself is a former animator, who brings a lot of practical knowledge to the show, having lots of connections with Disney, Pixar and other animation studios it seems. I won't lie to you, I like this show a lot because I am a nerd. If you're not interested in sci-fi or fantasy, then it's probably not going to interest you that much, but if like me, you enjoy finding out about the origin and evolution of WonderWoman as a character, or a radio play about Cthulu and "Eldritch Horror", you owe it to yourself to listen to Imaginary Worlds.

Becoming a better writer

My ambition is to write stories for games. That's really the top of the list of things I want to do in my professional career right now. I enjoy telling stories and I am passionate about what videogame storytelling is just now, and may become. To that end, I have tracked down a couple of podcasts that cover writing. It sounds a bit corny, but it really is inspiring to hear the stories and advice of other writers as they describe their preferred methods for getting stuff done and improving their own work.

Writing Excuses

Fans of sci-fi and fantasy will probably be familiar with the name "Brandon Sanderson", even if they haven't read his work. To describe him as "prolific" seems to be an understatement. He leads up a team of experienced and published authors as they give short 15 minute episodes on a very wide range of writing subjects, from "how to start", "how to write convincing characters" and "how to end a story" to "how to pace a story" and "how to spread out text". While this isn't likely to appeal to a wide range of people (Which is why I saved these podcasts for last), casual listeners might find it interesting to see how the professionals do it.

I am still working my way through the episodes, as it seems Sanderson is as prolific a podcaster as he is a writer. Fortunately, as the tagline states; episodes are only fifteen minutes long. Often they'll have guest authors on, discussing a particular facet of writing that this specific author excels at. They've discussed creating your own role playing game book, as well as writing comic books and screenplays. While I like the fact that Sanderson is primarily a fantasy writer, rest assured that the show is somewhat genre neutral, so aspiring writers should be able to find something here.

Script Lock

The difficulty of finding a podcast about games writing is that the role of writing narrative for games isn't an especially well-established position in the industry. Sure, we've been telling stories in games since the Zork era, but different studios have different approaches to the level of control and agency a writer is given. Often it's the case of the game design being almost finished, then the writer is brought in to build a narrative that fits the mechanics that have been distributed throughout an already established game world. This can often make for a story that is full of contrivances to make it fit the gameplay. Because the role is quite specialised, it's challenging to find a podcast that covers narrative in games, but the Folkman brothers' "Script Lock" is a great example of a podcast that embraces the hurdles that storytellers have to deal with when they're writing for games.

The format of the show is that the Folkman brothers (Max & Nick) will invite a couple of guests into a skype call (of wildly varying audio quality) and the foursome will discuss their experiences in writing for games, as well as what they're excited about in the world of interactive narrative. The range of guests has been really eye-opening as well, with some of them coming from a more technical standpoint, talking about the work that goes into building a framework to support narrative, while others discuss the colossal task of recording thousands of lines of audio for a game with spoken dialogue. Once again, this is probably a bit more niche as podcasts go, but if you like story-driven games, this is a good chance to see how story and gameplay fit together.

A podcast in every home

So that's it, folks. A rundown of some of my favourite podcasts at the moment. I have some that come and go from my iPod from time to time, as their format evolves or guests are replaced and swapped out. I listen to podcasts almost everywhere, from when I'm doing the dishes, to my commute and at the gym. I also love recording podcasts, and I am trying to put one together at the moment that combines my love of videogame music and talking with friends. It's proving to be a tricky format to nail down, but I'm confident that when "That Sounds Like Fun" makes it out, it's going to be worth checking out. In the meantime, you can check out my work on Brashcast, where I discuss all things movies, games and TV with my friend Liam.

I hope this list has shown that podcasts are as wide-ranging as any other media format, and makes it possible for almost anyone to create one. I use free software such as Skype and Audacity as well as a cheap USB microphone to create shows, and it really is good fun. If you have a hobby, there's a good chance there's a podcast for it. If it turns out that there isn't one, get your friends together and make one.

Next Time...

It's been a tough time in the Alexander household of late, with me being made redundant from my job. While I'm hunting for new jobs, I find it's been helping to keep up this blog, so thank you to anyone who's reading these, I appreciate it. It's been a few episodes since I spoke about games, but I have been playing some recently, so expect to read more about them next time. I will be covering:

Hard West
Rainbow 6:Siege
Assassin's Creed: Rogue

Until then, thanks for reading!