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| Our first stop in Italy, Dro and Camping Paolino. |
Ding-dong.
I was lying in my bed and listened the church bells. Central and
Southern Europe is filled with churches and their bells make a loud
noice. Every hour, the most annoying ones every 15 minutes.
Ding-a-ling-clang-dong. Three times. So it was three o’clock. AM. I
can’t even count how many times I have woken up in the middle of
night because of church bells. No matter were we in Germany, France,
Spain or Switzerland. But this time I hadn’t woken up. I was in
Italy and at 3 am just about to go to sleep.
Boardgames for Dogs and Robots
We
came to Italy for Modena
PLAY.
This was the tenth time PLAY
was arranged. The event has grown a lot, but has managed to maintain
a relaxed atmosphere. What was surprising to me, was the opening
hours. In Italy, most of the activity begins after 6pm, so the fair
is open until 8 pm. On Saturday the fair was open 11 hours!
From
the very first day it was clear that Italian gamers like cosplay. We
soon got used to gladiators, faeries, robots and stormtroopers that
kept passing the booth. Unlike in any other convention, the doors
were open also to four legged friends. You had to be careful when
moving in the crowd not to stumble on a labradorian retriever laying relaxed in
the middle of an aisle.
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| Marco Valtriani and Timo in Modena PLAY. |
Midnight Hobbies
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| Pietro played Darwinning with a dragon - a special Kickstarter species designed by Dagmar de Cassan. |
After
PLAY we had two weeks of gaming events booked with local gaming
clubs, thanks to our translator Fabio and to Pietro
Cremona. Pietro and his players were one of
the
many play test groups for Perdition’s Mouth. We wanted to get their
opinion of Darwinning, too.
Of
course we were also
spreading the happy news of soon
available Italian
version of Perdition’s Mouth Revised Edition.
These
gaming events were in the evening. In Finland that would be ”soon
after 6pm”. But in Italy, it meant ”starting after dinner, at
9pm”. In the first evening I was too tired to join in, so Timo and
Väinö went together. I woke up half past midnight, and they were
still not back. It was pouring rain, so I was a bit worried and
phoned to Timo. I heard they had just left the event– and it would
still take over half an hour for driving. After second evening we
noticed that these evenings were too late for Väinö. Even if we
didn’t have to wake up early in the morning, this changed schedule
was tiring.
It
was the third evening, when I got in bed at 3am. Even if we were
demoing the introduction scenario of Perdition’s Mouth, the plays
took many hours. I honestly can’t understand how our Italian
players were able to wake up to work after these hobby evenings. But
I’m starting to understand the afternoon siesta…
Missing Sauna and Speed
Adjusting
to caravan life has been surprisingly easy. I mean, I haven’t
really missed anything. Except sauna.
Surprisingly we found one at a camping place next to Lake Garda. It
was heated just for us, no extra charge. It had nice temperature of
+80 C and we were allowed to throw water on the stove. The only minus
side was, that the water in the bucket had some eucalyptus drops in
it. Way too much eucalyptus. We changed the water twice, rinsed the
bucket, and then it was possible to have proper ”löyly”.
In
Italy we have also missed proper internet. Most of the camping places
do not offer wifi, at least not for free. And even with money, the
speed of data transfer is depressingly slow. There are data limits
for the free roaming. When we have two games under production and a
lot graphics to transfer, the lack of fibre optic is really
noticeable.
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| Lake Garda. |
Cheers for Sausages
We
had also booked a vacation in Rome. In our case, vacation does not
mean ”time when you do not have work”. It means ”time when you
can relax a bit more”. Timo’s parents came also to Rome and
offered to accommodate Väinö in their hotel. So me and Timo were
able to spend some time together.
It
was sunny, temperature nice +25. We bought a barbecue, an outdoor
mattress, some sausages and good
rucola salad from Lidl. We opened up a bottle of champagne. A proper
champagne, that Timo had got as a present almost 20 years ago. We ate
our dinner from plastic plates, under the sun roof and listened to
extremely loud pigeons. That I would a call a proper vacation!