My trip to Estonia

Since the http://www.sk-gaming.com/blog/2349/]last blog I wrote about[/url] one of my trips seemed to go over pretty well, I thought I'd do another one about the one I was just on, which was a trip to Estonia, more particularily, Tallinn. To hang out with my best friend Eicca. With a stopover on my way back in Stockholm to make final preperations for my move next spring, and also to visit my grandmother.
Note: I am writing this from memory so some small details might be a bit off, and also I might embellish a few things to make this a more interesting read, but for the most part it's 100% accurate :) Also, There are a few links, and Pictures in it, so keep your eyes peeled for URL tags, since I probably won't make it 100% clear when I use them to cut down on clutter.
So without further adieu, here we go...
Date - Friday, October 13th, 2006
Location - My house in North East Calgary
After finally getting all my packing done, which seemed to take forever considering that all I was bringing was a standard suitcase, and my trusty Rammstein shoulder bag. I ordered a Taxi, While I was waiting for the cab, I finished getting dressed. After a little debating, I decided on a pair of simple, yet expensive looking black straight leg dress pants, and a Bordeux coloured Versace sweater, and a matching beige scarf. No sooner had I finished getting ready, than my taxi arrived. After travelling no more than three blocks, I suddenly realised I had forgotten my passport. Feeling like an idiot, I turned around and went back home and grabbed it. Fifteen minutes later, I arrived at the Calgary International Airport. Quickly checked my bag, spent 10,00 CAD to get my leather shoes polished since I was to lazy to do it myself at home, then went to Montana's Saloon / Cookhouse (Also my place of employment). I only had about 90 mins to kill, so I just had a salad, and a half litre of semi-decent Valpolicella.
After I was done, I exchanged the last of my Canadian Dollars for 55€ since I knew I had a three hour layover in Frankfurt, before my flight to Tallinn; then went through security (which for once I didn't set off the metal detector) and boarded my plane; An Airbus A340 at a little after 17:00. After settling into my Business class seat (My father worked at Air Canada for 32 years, so I usually get nicer seats when I fly which is pretty nice when you're crossing the Atlantic).
As we prepared to take off, I set my watch to Central European Time. Not just because it seemed like a good time to do it, but also because by doing this it made it Saturday (even though I'm not really superstitious, I wasn't sure I really wanted to be flying on Friday the 13th hehe)
Once airborne, I had a Seafood kebab, and a couple glasses of sparkling wine, while I forced myself to watch The Da Vinci Code, which proved to be even worse than the book, even though I had thought that immpossible. After the movie was finally over, I took out my cd player, put in my copy of Rosenrot by Rammstein, and made it to "Wo bist du?" before I fell asleep.
Date - Saturday, October 14th, 2006
Location - Frankfurt International Airport, Frankfurt
A flight attendant woke me up about 45 mins outside of the airport, as we were starting to land. I shotgunned a glass of Orange juice, and two coffee's then just waited to land.
Once on the ground, I stayed seated for a few mins to let the throng of impatient people get off, then casually deboarded myself once the coast was clear.
After getting my passport stamped, I went down to belt 18 to get my bag, then went back upstairs to find out where exactly I needed to go for my Lufthansa flight to Tallinn. I located the check in painlessly enough, thanks to the astronomical flight board inside Terminal B. After standing in a gigantic lineup for about ten minutes, an employee started walking down the line, asking people where they were flying to, in the hopes she could shorten the line by getting people to split up into different check ins. When she got to me, I had a bit of a funny Conversation.
Lufthansa Girl - "Wo fligen Sie?"
Me - "Nach Tallinn."
Lufthansa Girl - "Wo?"
Me - "Tallinn, auf Estonia."
Lufthansa Girl - "Wo?"
After explaining to her where I was going (I guess it isn't just North American's who suck at geography hehe), I found my correct check in counter, checked my bag again. Cleared security again without any hassles, killed an hour at a post security bar with a few Bitburgers, then boarded my flight to Estonia.
Date - Saturday October 14th, 2006
Location - Tallinn Airport, Tallinn, Estonia
After quickly reading the interesting parts of the previous days copy of "Die Welt" and setting my watch another hour ahead to Eastern European Time, I found myself descending into Tallinn.
I got my passport stamped again which was cool (Finally I got a stamp from somewhere other than Frankfurt), and stood inline waiting for my bag. After a few minutes, I felt a slap on the back of my head, and turned around to see Eicca standing there giddy as a school girl. I found out that he had flown in from Helsinki earlier in the day, and had been waiting for a few hours by the Frankfurt gate for me. After I got my bag, we went outside, and got in a Taxi. I let him do the talking, since his Eesti is a lot better than mine, although I had hoped to improve mine a little bit in the time I was there.
Our destination was the Merchant's House Hotel, a 14-16th century property with restored features, right in the centre of Tallinn's Old Towne. In an effort to keep it as genuine as possible, vehicles aren't allowed in the old towne itself, and as such our Taxi had to drop us off up the hill from the hotel, which was fine. We split the 150 EEK bill, got our bags and walked down.
After we got checked in, and organised we both went to the locally famous Ice Baar in the hotel for a few drinks. We had both spent the past day and a half between airplanes and cars, without much food or sleep, and just wanted to relax.
We started off with a shot each of 80% Viru Valge (Really nice Estonian Vodka) served in shot glasses made of ice, followed by a few rounds of of mixed drinks. Being the typical Finn that he is, Eicca had only Finlandia with Cranberry juice, whereas I had orange juice and ???????? ?????, a really nice Russian vodka. With a little pronunciation help from Eicca, I was able to order our second round in Estonian. "Paluks veel ühed" I'm sure I probably didn't pronounce it correctly, but the bartender seemed happy that I at least made the effort. Almost everyone else in the bar was British, and didn't even bother to even try to say anything in Estonian, so I think she was happy just to hear somthing in Estonian, even if I did pronounce it badly. After that, we ended with a coffee and Vana Tallinn (Translates to Old Tallinn. It's a high proof liqueur that kind of tastes like bitter rum with vanila, that goes really well with coffee or tea). Then we both went to bed.
Date - Sunday October 15th, 2006
Location - Tallinn, Estonia
Eicca and I woke up at an reasonable hour, and had a typical breakfast of fruit, yoghurt, and toast, then went out to do some exploring. After a little bit of conversing, and some practise on my part, I learned to at least ask for directions, how to count, and a few other basic phrases, the most important of which was probably "Kas te räägite Inglise keelt?" which is the formal way to ask if someone speaks english. With our Tallinn cards in hand (tourist cards that provide substantial discounts to just about everything) we did a generic bus tour of the entire city, followed by some exploring on foot.
Here's some pictures I took, with some descriptions
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A street Car in the Downtown
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Not 100% sure what this building was, but there was a staircase leading down, so whatever it is, most of it is underground. Maybe an Estonian here can let the rest of us know what it is?
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A nice looking street
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Another old street
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We were told that this was the old KGB building. Barred windows, and steel covered basement windows. Also, can't see it in the photo, but right beside it is the chess club, named in honour of Paul Keras, Estonian Grand Master of chess, and prominent Chess Theorist.
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Downtown Tallinn, old and new combining
After getting back to the hotel, we both showered quick, then went down the square to the local Molly Malone's for a few drinks, and enjoyed a local football match. After we were done we went for dinner since it was about 19:00, we went a few blocks down to a 600 year old restaurant called "Olde Hansa" which had been reccomended to us by several people.
I would have loved to have taken some photo's of this magnificant place, to show you guys, but alas, the flash on my camera is broken, and as the entire restaurant is lit by candles only, none of my pictures turned out :(
If any of you are ever in Tallinn though, I highly reccommend this place. It really is medeval. It is designed to look the same as it did in 1400. Everything is wooden, and made in the old ways. the floor has straw on it,the staff are dressed to suit the era, the entire place is lit by candles like I said, and all the walls are hand painted with designs of the times. And to top it off, instead of radio, there were wandering chamber musicians playing violins, and harps, and what not. We both started with a glass of ale (although to call it a glass is misleading, since a glass there is actually a full litre) I had the light cinnamon flavoured beer, and Eicca tried the dark ale complete with floating herbs for flavour in it. We then split a bottle of Romanian red wine over our meal. He had wild boar with potatoes, and I had seasoned bear. The last page of the menu, listed souvenirs that the restaurant sold, so Eicca bought himself a pepper sack, and a beer stein, while I spent 800 EEK, on one of their leather and parchment menus.
We then stumbled back to the hotel (we'd both had a bit too much to drink hehe) and promptly passed out until a few hours after midday the next day.
Date - Monday October 16th, 2006
Location - Tallinn, Estonia
Like I said we both slept well into the afternoon, finally getting up at about 15:30. We ate a greasey breakfast, to help with the mild stomach aches we both had, but then feeling better went out and just wasted an afternoon walking around. We had lunch at a nice place called the African Kitchen. At nightfall, we went to a local nightclub called Club Hollywood, and had a plesant evening, drinking and socializing.
Date - Tuesday October 17th, 2006
Location - Tallinn, Estonia
After waking up early this day, Eicca and I checked out of the hotel, and went to the port, as we had a boat to catch.
Our boat was the Silja Super Sea Cat #4, which was going to take us to Helsinki. We boarded around 9:00 and set sail soon after. The boat (made in Italy) was quite nice. And very fast, it had a top speed of 38 knottical miles, and was able to bring us from Tallinn to Helsinki, port-to-port in only 1 hour and 40 minutes.
On board we did a little duty free shopping. Eicca bought himself some Vodka, and a bottle of Canadian Club, while I got a 50ml bottle of Hypnôse for my girl friend, and a 300€ Versace wallet for myself.
Here are some picturess of, and on the boat.
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A view of the boat from the harbour in Helsinki
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A view of the bar on the boat
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The wake of the boat. We guessed that it must have been jet powered, but were not 100% sure.
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A view of the Super Sea Cat #3 going in the opposite direction.
Date - Tuesday October 17th, 2006
Location - Helsinki, Finland
After docking in Helsinki, we left our luggage in a locker, since we needed to be back at the harbour at 17:00 for our boat to Stockholm. We only had a few hours to kill so we went shopping at the forum, then to a big park near the opera house that Banzai says is called the "Töölön lahden ranta" or "The beach of Töölön bay"
Here are some pictures of the park
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After that, we did some shopping at the new Forum, had a lunch at McDonald's then spent our last hour or so at the Helsinki Molly Mallones.
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Then it was a twenty minute walk back to the dock, where we boarder the Silja Serenade (sister ship to the Symphony) and waited to leave for Stockholm.
Here is a picture of the atrium on the boat, just to give you a scale of how big it is.
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After we got settled into out cabin, we went and did a bit more tax free shopping, then watched a pretty immpressive gymnast girl do some pretty amazing dances on some silk ropes tied to the roof. Pretty immpressive to see soemone dancing thrity feet in the air, with no saftey wires. Unfortuanetly we both forgot our cameras so no pictures of this :(
Later on in our Cabin Eicca got this pic of me, not quite sure what I was doing, but here it is.
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I wanted to get his photo, but he is notoriously camera shy, and refused, so I didn't. His loss I guess.
We then watched a few episodes of "House" on TV then went to bed.
Date - Wednesday October 18th, 2006
Location - Stockholm, Sweden
We got off the boat at 9:55 and hailed a cab the Slussen area of Stockholm, which is just near Gamla Stan, or the old part of the town. Did a bit of sight seeing downtown, since he has never really seen it.
Here is a picture of a really nice building near the royal palace on one of the islands in the downtown.
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After that, we went to my grandmother's apartment for the afternoon. Here are some pictures taken from her fifth story balcony.
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This is unfortuanetly, where my film ran out, and I didn't feel like buying a one time use camera, so no more pics unfortuanetly.
After this, and a lunch, we took a train about 40 mins north to a suburb called Märsta, to visit some of my friends (This is also where I will probably be moving when I move to Sweden next spring)
And had a simple dinner at a nice small cosy Irish pub, then took the train back to Stockholm later in the evening. But before heading back to my Grandmother's Eicca and I stopped into my favourite pub in Stockholm called Limmerick, to watch the Chelsea FC vs. FC Barcelona Champions League match. After some really healthy beer, and Nacho's, and a fair amount of cursing after watching Diddier Drogba (My least favourite Footballer ever) score the only goal in the 47th minute. We none the less left feeling pretty good, since even though Chelsea did win, it was still a really entertaining game. We aren't really Barca fans, we just don't like to see Chelsea win, and I'm sure a lot of you are the same hehe.
Date - Thursday October 19th, 2006
Location - Stockholm, Sweden
Another early day, followed by a 45 minute, 500 SEK taxi to the airport, I bid Eicca adieu as he left for his flight back to Turku, and I waited for my flight back to Frankfurt, then continuing on to Calgary. Nothing really too exciting happened on this day. Spent a long time travelling, tried to sleep on the long flight, but couldn't due to a sick Polish girl beside me who kept waking me up with her constand coughing, and trips to the washroom, but w/e It wasn't a huge deal.
Date - Thursday October 19th, 2006
Location - Calgary, Canada
Landed back in Calgary, went out for dinner with some freinds, then promptly went to sleep for almost twelve hours.
--THE END--
Well, that's about it. Hope you guys have at least some fun reading this, since it sure was a blast, and I highly reccommend Tallinn, to any of you wanting to travel somewhere but aren't sure where. Aside from Budapest, it is probably the nicest city I have been to
Anyway, until next time,
See ya,
Auf Wiedersehen,
Hej då,
Head Aega,
Viszontlátásra.
Mánníng Þamánð :)




Football, the great equaliser

Soccer, Fußball, Football, or w/e you call it I think is quite possibly one of the best things to happen to the world.
Once every four years the countries of the world put aside their differences, and send their best players to compete for the right to call themselves world champions, and while with all the other sports going on all the time, this may seem to get lost on people, even those who call themselves football fanatics, a lot of the subtle things that happen seem to go unnoticed by the population.
I don't show emotion all that often, as anyone who knows me will say, but I must admit, after witnissing the Iranian team give the Mexican keeper a bouquet of flowers in honour of his recently departed father yesterday, I almost cried.
Now I know this doesn't always happen, and football does have a bad reputation for rioting and stuff in some circles, but I say if the best players in the world can once every four years get together to play some of the best football ever recorded, and set aside their differences for even just one month to play for the love of the game, and for their country, rather than for millions of dollars to play for their teams, and at the same time show eachother the amount of respect and admiration that I've seen over the past few world cups, then I say bravo.
Who needs the United Nations or anyother such thing when such a simple thing as the game of football can bring even the bitterest of eneimes together on the pitch for a fun filled 90 minutes of excitment? Personally, I think calling Football "The Beautiful Game" has taken on more than a slogan, and in actuality, is more of a philosophy.



Kids > Adults

As anyone who has ever read any of my blogs will know, I work at the international airport here in Hickville AKA Calgary, Alberta.
And I have to say the neverending barrage of stupidness that is forced my way every day of the week never ceases to amaze me. Airport securiy badges seem to also double as magnets for stupidity.
Now I can only speak for this particular city for the most part, but I do see international travellers from everywhere every day, but IMHO it seems that ppl under 25 seem to be vastly more intelligent than the older people in society.
For example, I had an elderly person today ask me where to go to get on a USA flight. Normally this would be an acceptable question, if not for the (and this is its acutal mesuremeant) 5m x 0.5m sign inbehind me that said UNITED STATES on a red and blue background, in english and en Français. Not to mention the four 2.5m x 1m USA flags hanging from the cieling above me.
Or one of my favourites, people asking where the ABM or Smoking areas are. FFS look at the godamn signs you idiots. they're literally everywhere. Didn't you learn how to read?
Sadly though I think the real culprit here is society. Decades of mindless TV drivel and idiotic acvertisments, have taken their tole on today's population. Gone are the days when people would take accountability for their actions, instead they expect to be lead by the hand, to whatever they want, that way if somewhere along the way a fuckup occurs they themselves don't need to be held accountable.
95% of Today's 'adult' (and I use this term loosley) population is bareley more than cattle, lead by the hand from point A to point B, doing what ever the magic box (aka TV) tells them, and believing all of it also. A few days ago I was speaking German with a young girl who couldn't speak english very well, when some fifty somthing person in line behind her told us to go back to Russia.
This type of idiocy is a plague upon today's society, and I think we (the 15-25 year olds) of today's world are quite possibly the first generation to surpass their parents in terms of intelligence.
Now, I realise that I am an arrogant person, I'm the first to admit it, so you can probably dismiss some of this as just a rant, but I still maintain, that today's youth are possibly the best thing to happen to the world. Indifferent to a fault, we don't by into the moronics of today's society, instead trusting in what we know, and what we learn, rather than what we're told.
I still maintain Humanity is a plague on this earth, and the sooner we're gone the better off the planet will be, but as long as we're here, I'm glad that today's youth are finally starting to stand up for themselves and start questioning tradition.




I like Rammstein but Im not evil

So I'm sure this happens more often than gets reported but it pisses me off, so to vent I'm writing this.
For those of you who are unaware, three plots by teenagers in the USA, to go on killing sprees were foiled in the past weeks.
So what you say? People kill eachother all the time what's the point?
The point is that when an adult shoots another adult in the USA it bareley makes any news it happens so much. BUT! Upon further investigation it was determined that all these kids liestened to "Death Metal" so this was the real cause of the violence. (incidently Eric, and Dylan, the Colombine kids also liked hard metal)
Now ok this makes me mad, and sorry to pick on the states again but this is where stuff like this seems to always happen.
Personally, I am a huge fan of Rammstein, and Dimmu Borgir, own all their albums, and have seen both live a few times, but do I go around and shoot people because the music told me to?
Granted fans of harder metal may be part of their own little 'goth' group or w/e, but that's just their way of rebelling or standing out or w/e they want to do. This music may not be mainstream, and may sound evil, and have bad lyrics, but music (like art) is mereley an expression not to be taken literally.
We've all had bad days for one reason or another, and gotten very angry, and it's been proven that loud, angry music is an effective way to vent. Sometimes we all need to go into our room, close the door, pull the blind, and throw on Mutter, or Puritanical Euphoric Misanthropia, or w/e and just let our anger out through the music. It's a completley healthy, normal thing to do. And is a much better way to get your anger out than say punching a wall, or shooting up a school/workplace. If anything listening to sappy pop music would only make you angrier.
IMO these people who kill others would do these things regardless of whether they listened to Marilyn Manson, or Laurence Welk. But it's just so much easier to blame the "dark evil anti-christ" music that they listen to. Anotehr typical stereotype of today's moronic population.
No way can it be bad parenting. It has to be the music. Maybe instead of "Parental Advisory - Contains Explicit Lyrics" warnings today's CD's should come instead with "Parental Advisory - This CD will cause your child to go on a murderous rampage"
-.-




My 7,000 SEK Journey

I've been to Europe more times than I can count, but always I just fly from point A to point B, so six weeks ago I decided to (just for fun) take a train.
Me and my friends wake up early morning at 04:00, after a quick shower and fruit we get a cab from Slussen to Stockholm's central Järnvagstation off Vasagatan. Just our luck we get there before it even opens, so we wait around outside until 05:00, then go in and head to our train.
After a brief wait we board our train and wait for it to depart. Within a few minutes we're off, headed south west to our first of four destionations, Malmö. Along the way we make stops in the towns of Jonköpping, Norköpping (Where my ex is from, but that's another story), and Linköpping.
The four hour train ride goes by fairly fast, and with the aid of a few coffee's and a small breakfast we all felt a lot better quite fast. For the first part of the trip it was still dark out obviously, but even still we could see a lot of the Swedish countryside, which is pretty nice tbh.
We arrive in Malmö a little after 09:00, and have about 45 mins to kill for our next train, so we go outside and walk around the station just so we can say we did, then head back in and grab a coffee.
Our next train is to Copenhagen, and is fairly short. We leave the Swedish boarder, and soon after pass through the subway tunnel of Copenhagens airport, and soon after arrive at the central station. Here we have a little more time to kill, so we go across the street and get a proper meal at a small café. Back at the train station we split up a bit to do a bit of shopping while we kill the last bit of our wait. I picked up a copy of "Underworld" in Danish (I'm trying to see how many languages I can collect this movie in, so far I'm at English, German, Swedish, Danish, and Hungarian) for 199DKK.
Back on our train we head for the ship yard, as we are to take a ferry to Hamburg. We get held up momentarily at the yard due to construction as our train waits to board the ferry. On the ferry, we wait until the boat starts to move, then exit our train and head upstairs to the deck. My best friend, and clan mate Eicca makes a quick stop at a foreign exchange counter to turn his left over Estonian Krooni (He was in Tallinn for a few days before he met up with us in Stockholm, but again that's another story) for a little over 600 Euro.
After he's done that we grab a sandwhich, and a few rounds of Beck's (We're in German waters now hehe :D). Once we see the land come into view we head back to our train, and wait to disembark. We then continue on through northern Germany to Hamburg, where we have a small layover. Just enough time to use the WC, and grab a cola and a copy of "Der Welt", before we board our final train to Frankfurt. By this time we are all fairly exhausted, and don't do much of anything, except sit in the bar of the ICE (Inter City Express) train drinking Warsteiner, and König Ludwig for the entire trip.
So Finally after 19 hours we get off the train at Frankfurt's airport, pay a visit to Junker's Zweiundfünfzig for one last round, then head to our hotel, and passout immidieatly after checking in :)
So that's my story. Net cost to me 7,006 Swedish Kronor (about 930$ USD, or about 750 EUR) Sure I could have saved a bunch of money if I had flown, but all I'd have seen would have been two airports. I wouldn't have had near as much fun, and I wouldn't got to see and experience all that I did.
So I say to you, anyone still reading this, next time you go somewhere, instead of flying, take a train. You may spend a bit more, and take a bit longer, but if you don't mind the cost and time, you're bound to have way more fun :)
PS- This blog doesn't really have a point, I just felt like writing it. :)




What is the world coming to?

For those that don't know, I work at a currency exchange in the international airport in Calgary. I see lots of stupid stuff happen on a daily basis, but what I saw the otherday I thought was particular retarted, so much though, that I felt I needed to write this.
So anyway, it's 05:00 last Friday and I just finished setting up, and counting my money, when my other coworker shows up, I'm feeling a little under the weather on account of a small hangover, so he says I can go get somthing to eat if I want, since mornings are usually kind of slow, and he'll be able to handle it for 30mins or so.
So I go to a restaurant to get some food and coffee, and when I get close I see airport police arresting some guy, and when I get there after they leave, I ask my friend what happend. This is where it got ridiculous.
Apparently the guy was waiting for a 06:15 flight to Cancun, and he was completley drunk, and making a scene, so the police came and told him that they understood he was on vacation, and didn't want to ruin it for him, so they told him to go eat a sandwhich, have a coffee and calm down.
But I guess what he did was go to the smoking room for a cigarette, and I guess he was to drunk to realise it, or just plain didn't care, but while he was in there, he urinated all over the carpeting. That's why he got arrested.
Now I know we all do things we aren't proud of when were drinking, but how fucking dumb do you have to be to do that on the floor of an airport with 80 thousand cameras watching you?
Anyway, sorry if I made this longer than it shouldda been, or if you don't care, but I felt it meritted this blog. Further proof that about 95% of the world is retarted :(
Cheers :)




Do you like the Euro?

I go to europe several times a year, and while the € makes travel between countires infinitley easier, I have noticed that not everyone so much likes it. Germany in particular I see spray paints and stickers in some downtown cities asking for the D-Mark back all the time.
I am undecided I think, it makes it good because it is much more stable than any of the old currencies used to be by themselves which is very good for all the EU's economies, but then again many people are proud of their money, and identify their country with it, if all of europe used the same money, a lot of individualism may be lost, even with each country making their own coins.
I am moving back to Hungary next year, which is one of a few countries that will likley adopt the euro in 2007, and while like I said it has many pluses, I find myself kind of hoping that they keep the Forint, even though that likley won't happen.
What do you guys think? If you're in a EUR country would you like your old currency back? Or if you are in a country on the cusp (Hungary, Slovenia, etc) what do you think?




Közmondás

Mert vannak dolgok, melyeknek emlékezete nélkül nincsen jövend?.




Counter-Strike 1.6 vs CS:Source

This has been done a lot, but anyway, here's my take on this battle.
CS:Source from a marketing stand point is a vastly superior game. It has better graphics, smoother animation, rag doll bodies, awesome sound, is easier to than it's predecessor to get good at, and aside from a few bugs that'll get edited out, quite a fun game. Why then is 1.6 still a more popular game? It uses a seven year old graphics engine, and can not compete in any of the categories I just listed, except for one. How good it is.
For people new to the game, who have never played 1.6, and start straight into source it must be perplexing to them why everyone still likes 1.6 better. From a merketing stand point Source is such an easy sell to today's youth. It has top of the line graphics, and jaw dropping sounds and effects, and is easier to get good at, like I said, and as such it is infinetly easier to market, and sell.
The reason 1.6 keeps all the attention is much the same reason why StarCraft still has a bigger audience than WarCraft 3. It uses a seven year old graphics engine. The people who play it obviously don't play it for the graphics. For those of us who have been playing Half-Life, and CS since 1999, or even for those of us who got introduced to it later in the glory days of 1.3-1.5. And who have been playing long sleepless nights trying to perfect our Colt spray, or AK burst, or AWP quickscope. 1.6 offers a wonderful sense of accomplishment when you finally do get it down. Unlike Source which one could get decent at in a week, 1.6 forces you to practise, practise, practise or you'll never get good. It's an easy game to pick up, but hard to get good at.
And I think, it's that very hardness that makes it so appealing. Imagine spending days and days at a lan centre, or in your clanmates basement with your comps, perfecting your catwalk rush on dust2, or your pistol trick on train, or your sneaky strat on nuke to get the bomb underground without anyone seeing. Then come match day, you square off against another set of five people who no doubt have been training as hard as you, and you engage in a skillfull game of chess. Choosing when to eco, when to full buy. The thrill of winning a round when your strat worked perfectly, and the disgrace when your opponents pull off one of their own strats. Then, finally coming out on top after a really close game. I've been playing this game competivley for a while, and the feeling I get when we beat another close team is still the same as it was all those years ago. This is somthing Source at the moment, can not offer, which is why I don't think to many people will take to it.
It's almost ironic that the very things that make it easy to market and sell as a game, also discourage us veterans from playing it.
So in closing, I don't know if 1.6 will last forever, or if Source eventually will pound it out. But I say as long as we have our old faithful 1.6 we might as well enjoy it to the fullest.




Europe: United in Diversity

I know that this is the EU's motto, and all but have any of you ever stopped and thought about it for a few seconds?
Take for example a situation of mine. One of my best friends, Giuseppe Marcielo, is born and rasied in Milan, Italy. And my best friend, Eicca Tappinen is born and raised in Turku, Finland. Italy and Finland may be part of the same continent, but they are on way opposite ends of the spectrum culture wise, and their respective languages couldn't be more different, and yet, they share a common bond. They both, more or less, share the same ideals, political beliefs, and laws. Hell, they both use the same currency. To be honest, any European can pretty much go anywhere in Europe and feel at home, which is a wonderful thing. Which is why I think Europe is the envy of most other countries, yes, even the United States.
The European Union has its failings, as any country or group of countries will, but more or less it is a wonderful place to live. And it's cool that I, a Frenchman in Germany, can go just about anywhere, and see everything Europe has to offer, and experience all it's dynamic cultures, and yet no matter where I go, feel at home at the same time.

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