My Kids & Me

Where did Michael take me? Is this a WWE event? A rock concert? No, it's ESL One Cologne, one of the biggest eGaming tournaments of the year worldwide. 15,000 people turned up to essentially watch other people play video games. I'm simplifying it of course. This weekend was all about Michael and me spending time together one-on-one.

We came to Cologne because this is where Michael wanted to go. He's a huge fan of CS:GO and had been wanting to come to a tournament live. I was a bit skeptical, mostly because I've never been into video games, yet the weekend has opened my eyes and allowed me to learn more about what's going on inside Michael's mind.

We took an early flight Friday morning to get to the event as soon as possible. After dropping our bags at the hotel, we took the 30 minute walk across the Rhine to the arena.


Like most European cities, Cologne is quite the stunner! More on that in a bit. So we arrive at the event and I really have no idea what to exp…

I've been in Germany since Monday, June 26 for work, running events with our German team in Frankfurt then in Hamburg. I needed to be in Berlin this week for the Exasol conference, so I decided to come to Berlin for the weekend as I'd never been here before and I love being a tourist.

I was able to secure a lovely, cheap AirBnB in the former East Berlin. The view was pretty amazing, overlooking a beautiful park where I could hear children playing and having fun.


After catching up with the wifey on the phone, I started my Saturday with a run nearby my AirBnB. Shortly up the street is the amazing Berlin Wall Memorial.



It turns out my run was largely along where the Wall once stood. Check out this neat video of my route.


I found a fruit market nearby and decided to do something really crazy...nothing but massive amounts of fruit for lunch. Such a good decision! The grapefruit was amazing, like I had just picked them off Grandmom and Pop Pop's tree.

Originally I had planned to…