Wrap Up of My Trip
After the completion of the puzzle competition, there was still many activities before flying home the next morning. So below, I’ve tried to summarize what happened.
Before start of the puzzle playoffs: 3 of us decided to play ‘mini’ golf which was only 6 holes, but varied in skill from easy to dangerously difficult because the ball could go under the course which is bolted down to the ground and required me to dig my ball out from under it on two separate occasions.
During the playoffs, specifically the team playoffs, I caught a Mr. Mime in Pokemon Go!! This was pretty exciting for me given how many times I had sighted one without finding out where it was (likely outside of my wifi range). When I told the Americans that I caught one, there was a mad scramble by half of the team to catch it before it disappeared (they had just completed the team comp where they finished third). The individual final was noteworthy in that the overwhelming favourite and defending champion, wasted his 4 minute head start on a puzzle type he chose before the final (a coded nurikabe for those who care - I saw it afterwards and while it was over my head, the American who ended up finishing second, explained the logic to solving it, which is why the other finalists solved it much quicker). The German who ended up winning, won his 11th title (everyone else combined have won 14 btw).
Afterwards, was our group photo by the lake… which turned into a team photo for Canada as we couldn’t do it earlier in the week. We then went to play the annual soccer/football game and this year it was played on two tennis courts and used small mini nets giving it a cramped feel. It was slippery from the rain over the past few days but we seemed to survive with only a few nasty looking falls after about 2 hours of playing.
Next, was the banquet and awards ceremony. I didn’t win anything this time around but our table did commandeer a lot of wine (about a bottle each) which made it more lively than most award ceremonies are. I knew I had an early wake up for the airport next morning, so I packed about 90% of my things before arriving to the dinner (packing in the middle of the night while heavily intoxicated isn’t easy). When the dinner was completed, we were surprised to find out that we could do karaoke in the dining hall, which we didn’t get to do the prior year.
In years past, karaoke was the most memorable of the night time entertainment in the tournaments in Beijing and London, so it was with great delight that we could do so again in Senec. I believe I sang Don't Stop Believing and Twist & Shout, while the more memorable ones performed were the Slovak organizing committee doing YMCA (which I have video of) and an American that did If I Had A Million Dollars, which I believe was the only Canadian song played during the night. We ended it with Wonderwall by Oasis at about 2:30am, which was a tradition started in Beijing. All in all, it was a pretty fun night.
After the hotel shut down our karaoke to clean up the room, I decided to call it a night and get a few hours of sleep before my day of travelling. I should probably also mention that it became my birthday overnight, which someone reminded me of because of Facebook. As a side note, by travelling back to Canada on my birthday, it ended up lasting for 30 hours rather than the usual mundane 24 hour birthdays that most people celebrate. When I got up, I managed to make a sandwich and checked out and took the bus to Vienna (through Bratislava) which lasted about an hour to 2 hours. I arrived at the airport about 4 hours early and ended up meeting with some of the other competitors waiting for their flights. Mine was Vienna to Warsaw to Toronto, which would be about 10 hours in the air and about 7 to 8 hours of waiting in between.
The first flight, which was Vienna to Warsaw, was on a smaller plane, which forced my carry on case to be checked in at the plane itself. It was a scenic flight (I had a window seat) with few clouds and was nice in the sense that they offered free beer even though it was only an hour and a half long. When I landed, I decided to eat at the airport in anticipation of the potential horrors ahead from my next flight (and it was a good thing I did) and grabbed McDonald's, which allowed me to eat a Big Mac on yet another Sudoku/Puzzle championship adventure (4th in a row I've done so), and then went and waited for my flight at the gate with about 2-3 hours to go.
I should probably mention that the wait at the airport in Warsaw is very different than waiting at Pearson in Toronto. For one, it was nearly impossible to find a place to charge any electronic devices. Fortunately, before this trip, I purchased a portable battery charger, which kept my phone alive. The flight ended up being delayed an hour which caused a lot of impatience as it was a flight on a Boeing 787 Dreamliner and it was a full flight. I ended up getting stuck with a middle seat, which is probably an omen of my luck on this flight.
I could probably go into details of why the flight sucked and was perhaps my worst flight ever but I'll lay out brief points instead: 1. Stuck in a middle seat; 2. The video screen malfunctioned for everyone in my row during the entire flight which meant no movies, tv, music or anything during the entire flight; 3. The food was terrible, both 'meals' looked like heated or thawed out garbage; 4. I couldn't sleep thanks to whining children a couple of rows away; 5. The person in front of me leaned their seat all the way back which made a cramped area even more so than usual; 6. It was a full flight which meant I couldn't go to another seat; 7. The flight crew weren't helpful with any of the problems any of us were having until about 3 hours into the flight when it went into lights out; 8. Lots of turbulence during most of the flight; 9. The plane seemed to shake even more than usual before landing, thankfully we didn't crash land or break apart on landing (everyone applauded at surviving afterwards)
Thankfully, in Canada, going through customs was quick... though there was a bit of a holdup in the baggage claim due to some bags jamming up the gears. This was resolved pretty quickly and I managed to find my ride amongst the chaos of the pickup area in the arrivals section of Terminal 1 (cars were double and triple parked).
In all, the trip was a lot of fun and I'm quite happy with my results in the competitions. Next year, the WSC and WPC are in Bangalore, India. The competition hall and hotel may be smaller which means fewer competitors allowed to compete next year, but I'm fairly confident I'll qualify for both Canadian teams if necessary