Posts Tagged ‘girlfriend’

Trip to Eindhoven airport and city center – few city impressions on city Cathedrals and centre

Thursday, January 3rd, 2013

at_Eindhoven

Today, for its my 3rd time I go to Eindhoven. My first time was when I flied from Sofia, Bulgaria to Eindhoven (Holland) Airport in September, second time I was there was December 22-nd as I had to go there to take my girlfriend Svetlana from the airport; today it was the first time as unfortunately her Belarusian visa was expiring and she had to travel back to Belarus.

We travelled with Svetla from Arnhem to Eindhoven, the whole trip takes about approximate 1 hour. There is no direct train from Anrnhem to Eindhoven; thus we had to change train in 's-Hertogenbsoch. The trip thanks God went smoothly and the train was late with only few minutes (something very unusual for trains here in Holland). About 12 o'clock we were in the Train station. The bus station allowing a number of bus lines travelling to different destinations of the city is located right infront of train station, just like in Arnhem, Nijmegen (and probably a lot of other Dutch cities). Dutch architects did obviously a very good job by designing such a good road architecture in Holland, along with the ability to travel through absolutely all country on bike, the train and bus architecture is designed very well too. The bus to Airport is arriving and departing every 7 minutes, so there was no need we wait for long time for the next bus to arrive. I had to pick-up a bus tickets from a special bus tickets sell-office. The bus per person costs 3.50 EURO as of time of writing this post – something to mention is I have memorybus ticket in 22 december 2012 from train-station to Airport was 3 EUR – 50 cents less. Actually a curious fact to mention from 22 dec 2012 is I went to take the bus very early in the morning and bus-tickets office (located on the right of the entrance of Train Station entrance), were closed. I went to buy a bus ticket from the driver (a kind lady) and she told me their ticketing system is not working so "everybody is for free :)". This was quite a fun, since here in Holland they're so advanced and high-tech and they put most of their "lives" in the hands of technology and suddenly something as important as a bus-ticketing system is off and everyone in bus travels for free – absolutely ridiculous story …

My whole impression from Eindhoven is not very different from other cities I've seen in holland. The architecture of most of the streets and houses is no different. The brown beautiful houses build of little blocks with plenty of beautiful outside house decorations, green grass etc. There is however an evident difference from Arnhem and Nijmegen as many of the company buildings  near the city center and on the way while in the bus to Airport were built in a very modernistic style. Something noticable was buildings belonging to the so famous Philips company as well as the Philips stadium. Few of the buildings were quite tall looking a bit like New York's sky-scrapers. On the way to train-station, the most noticable thing I've seen was the Evuliona modernistic building build in the shape of scifi movies UFO 🙂

Evoluion Eindhoven UFO like building one of the most notable buildings in Eindhoven - Symbol of Human knowledge evolution

The eindhoven's attraction Unidentified Flying Object futuristic building

The rest was just a lot of company buildings and industrial equipment or markets, the whole city as long as I saw it is very technological and industrial. I derive this conclusion as  I've seen buildings of many of the most famous world IT companies, as well as a lot of industrial vehicles on the way to train station. After I had to leave my dear Svetlanka on airport. I've took the bus back to the train station. BTW, the bus number as of time of writting which goes from Train Station to Airport and Airport to Train-Station is bus number 401. The bus looks a bit more modern than the usual bus-es I've seen in Arnhem and Nijmegen. One thing which is different also from the regular bus-es in many other cities and towns in Holland is the driver in the bus going to and from Airport to tr. station, refuses to sell you tickets, but instead one has to buy the ticket from a ticket selling machine, which is accepting debit and credit cards, as well as probably the Dutch OV Chipcard as well as supports buying by coins. The ticket selling machine is made to work complicated, as there are few ticket types one can choose using a touch-screen computer interface; I tried inserting 3.50 euro to buy ticket for myself but the machine is just spitting the money. It is good a lady I asked on how she bought helped me showing me I first have to select the ticket type from the touch-screen as the touch screen is very much on the left side of the ticket-selling machine and I was in a hurry I didn't even noticed it. I've seen other people having the same problem with the machine, wondering why it happens – so it might be a good idea the high-tech guys who constructed it to make ticket buying using a 3 or 5 simple buttons, through which one can select the ticket type. It will save people time as well as not confuse probably multitude of foreigners like me who came to holland and get a first impression that Holland's sophisticated IT structure is not working 🙂

After Svetka check-in her laggage in around 12:40 and we had to say each other good buy in 13:10, she went inside the usual Airport Security check – metal detector scanner and I took the bus back to Eindhoven train-station. As the train station is located 3 minutes walk from the city center. I decided to take a quick look in the city center to see if there is something nice to see on centre – I was more interested to take a look at some Churches and my main idea was to see if I can find the Orthodox Church Parish of Saint Nectarios of Aegina as well as take a look at the Gothic style built Roman Catholic or Protestant Church buildings. About 10-15 minutes walk from train-station I've noticed two huge cathedrals. Both of them was heavily decorated with towers with the usual 3 enormous windows repeating pattern and the many other architectural patterns containing 3 elements (probably symbolizing) the Holy Trinity. What was new for me on both of the Cathedrals is the of Virgin Mary and Jesus or Saints? statues located on top of the Gothic Cathedrals. I checked the time schedule and it seemed both of cathedrals were functional, but only the second one I went to (St. Catherine) was opened.

Catharina kerk Roman Catholic city center church Cathedral Eindhoven

I've red the short history of the Cathedral and walked around it to check the wall paintings, statues, roman catholic crucifixes, the mosaics on the Church windows and generally the Church decoration. Many of the things in the Church seemed very unusual to me. The thing I most disliked was the ugly modern art reproductions mosaics of Jesus and various evangelica scenes. Though I'm happy I could have entered a Christian Church, I couldn't have not say how grotesque the crucifix means. There was a separate room in where it seemed people from the Church was doing something it looked a bit like an office. Though this was a still Church, for me it was somehow missing the light and feeling of spiritual deepness. There was an icon of Virgin Mary holding the most pure body of our Saviour Jesus Christ. One can clearly distinguish it is a Slavonic icon by the "МР ОУ" – abbreviation for Marry Mother of God.
I've red the Church story and it seems the earliest Church there is from the 12th century – meaning that it is possible an Orthodox Holy Liturgy was never served there.
A very short story of the Church is very similar to many of the Roman Catholic Cathedrals in Holland;

In short, Church building was taken from Roman Catholics and used by protestant in 16th / 17th century, just like with many other of the Roman Catholic Churches during the 16th – 18th century protestant reformation. In 19th century Catholics used it again, but then in 20th century it was almost completely destroyed during World War II, later rebuild and now again owned by Roman Catholics.

One thing to mention is though, I've only been in few Roman Catholic Cathedrals so far, it seems almost every one was keeping an Orthodox icon (usually Russian one), or an icon at least looking like Orthodox. Usually I would not be interested into entering a Roman Catholic Church, as we are prohibited to pray with them and I know about their errs in faith, however I know many of the Churches contain Holy Relics of saints / martyrs and bishops who preached and lived an extremely holy life, before the great schism thus I walk in Roman Catholic Churches with the hope and desire that the Church might contain Holy Relics of saint in their alter or somewhere kept and through that I might a blessing of the respective saint ….

After, walking out, I've walked through the city center, and most I saw was modernistic buildings shops and just few houses with more interesting oldish architecture. Some interesting building on city center is an Iglu shaped like called "Iglus".

Eindhoven Holland Iglus Massive Shopping Center Winkel in form of Escimos (Eskimo) Iglu

I didn't saw all of the city center but from what I've seen it seemed to me the city center of Eindhoven is less interesting to see than Arnhem and Nijmegen's. Eindhoven's city center looks modern and maybe this was main thing why I was not impressed.

Steentjeskerk church Eindhoven Holland architecture like Orthodox Church

I've seen one Church building, while traveling with the bus from Eindhoven Airport to Train-Station, and this building looked very much like Orthodox, also from the far the cross of it and the overall architecture looked very much Orthodox. I very much hoped it is an Orthodox so from Train Station walked about 20 minutes to the Church to check if it is not the Nectarios of Aegina Orthodox Church I mentioned earlier. The Steentjeskerk  Church was closed and on the main entrance doors. I've later found out the Church is not used for Roman Catholic Holy Liturgy since 1971.

It was quite striking to see shops selling souvenirs or something on the exact place where the Church entrance door used to be;  just 15 meters from the Church was a Coffee-Shop (i.e. a place here in Holland, where people go to Smoke Ganja, Mushrooms, alcohol and other light drugs ….

After checking on the Internet for the Steentjeskerk building is relatively new and had nothing to do ever with Orthodoxy. What however made me happy is it used to be dedicated to st. Anthony the Great – the saint who is considered as a father of Christian monks life.
The scenery right in front of my eyes was striking, I made a walk through the Church to see well its Architecture and in hope I can understand if it used to be Protestant or Roman Catholic. According to the Virgin Mary statue on top of Church I derived conclusion the Church used to be Roman Catholic. i've seen some text written somewhere on the back of the Church speaking the Church is used for some kind of exhibition. Even though the Church was not Orthodox, I felt sad for the poor Church being abandoned and being almost pranked with by allowing a place which was used for regular prayer to shop / exhibition …..

On the back of the Majestic Church, My amazement doubled when I saw a big mosque with a high Minaret (space ship rocket – as a friend likes to joke). The working Muslim Mosque built according to architecture norms of Muslims on the backstage of the unworking poort closed Roman Catholic Church turned to shop / exhibition was one of the saddest things I've seen. This whole scenery also explained, why Muslim faith is blooming and Europe it also explains, why Muslims are currently "taking over" Europe – just until recently the largest Christian continent.

 

How to fix Skype no (built in) web camera on MacBook Air with (Mac OS X 10.8.5) resolve Skype issue of Aug 2013

Sunday, September 29th, 2013

Resolve fix issue with no camera in MacBookAir

My dear fiance girlfriend Svetlana, has a MacBookAir from 2013 since a month time. We speak quite regularly in Skype since right now she is in Belarus and I'm in Bulgaria. So it was a big surprise for me today her brand new shiny MacBookAir camera stopped working. She is completely new to Mac OS X so she didn't have idea if something automatically updated on the notebook, probably some update poped up and she proceeded to update. Well no matter how the issue happened … I instructed her how to install TeamViewer (for Mac OS X – just download the .DMG double click it and install) and logged in to the PC to check what's happening. In FaceTime video was showing fine so obviously on OS level webcamera was detected. I saw some threads suggesting sometimes built in webcam is not working due to some other application which uses the camera (Safari instrance using flash to open webcam, FacePalm or whatever) …
I checked the version release of Mac OS X and it showed Mac OS X 10.8.5. I checked whether some updates are available but there were none. After browsing a bit figured out the web camera not detected Skype error is experienced by hundreds of MacBook air users online. Thanksfully there is a quick and simple fix by just substituting a file called AppleCamera.plugin.

Below are instructions on how to fix I followed from Skype's Community Website: 
———————

This is a very simple fix that works! There are lots of ways to do it, but to put it very simply ,

Download  the AppleCamera.plugin provided.
 

Click on go in the finder menu, select go to golder and paste in  /Library/CoreMediaIO/Plug-Ins/DAL/ ,

 

move that item, AppleCamera.plugin, to the trash

 

Go to your downloads folder and copy the new  AppleCamera.plugin, then paste it in the folder where the old one was. 

 

It works

After following literally instructions Skype camera worked out like a charm 😉

Easy way to travel from Belarus to Holland hopping through Lithuania or other Shengen country

Friday, January 4th, 2013

Shengen tourist visa travel to Holland from belarus via Lithuania

Over the last 2 months or me and my girlfriend from Belarus, had quite a lot of pondering on how and if is easy possible to travel from Belarus to Holland. As with every new undertaking, obtaining enough information on how to proceed put a lot of stress on her and me.

I will explain in short the whole situation in hope that someone else who is in a situation like this can benefit out of our experience.

I am born in Bulgaria with Bulgarian nationality, but currently living in the Netherlands, because of my studies. I study here in Arnhem, Holland in Arnhem Business School. My Belarusian girlfriend is with Belarusian ID and since Belarus is not in EU. They're not allowed to freely travel within the EU without a VISA. To receive a VISA for EU Belarusians obliged to have first invitation send by a person – (priglashenie) as called in Russian language) and then it is up to government authorities to issue the Visa.

We wanted to meet each other here in Holland for the Christmas holidays somewhere in period 20 Dec – 05 January 2013 and thus she needed a tourist VISA. My first idea was to send her invitation through a Bulgarian friends family who live and work and have a registered company here in Netherlands. I asked them to check about if it is possible they somehow invite Svetlana, through their company, but it never happened I received an answer. Then failing this I thought about asking a Slovenian friend if it is possible, that he send Svetlana invitation using his Offshore Company which is already offering clients issuing Business VISAS for few destinations.

My logic was since Slovenia is within Shengen, it should be possible to invite Svetlana to Netherlands. However as I heard from him he contacted the embassy  of Germany / Netherlands to ask them but received a reply this is not possible. Failing this as an  option then  I thought of a friend of mine who is a citizen of the Netherlands – I asked him if he can send her invitation, but he refused to do so fearing maybe, Svetlana will stay as illegal emigrant here in Holland and he might have problems with police.

My next, idea was to ask the Slovenian guy to invite Svetlana to Slovenia and hence she make VISA for Slovenia; Slovenia is in the European Union and in Shengen agreement for Free re-location and work within all Shengen countries, thus she might first fly to ljubljana and then from ljubljana take another flight to Holland. This "doorway" is far away from convenient, even if possible (I was not sure if even possible it was just an idea), the ticket prices for flight from Minsk to Lubljana and Lubljana to somewhere in Holland costed around 400 EUR!

In one of our consequent Skype conversations with Svetlana, I've learned she researched on some Belarusian internet forums many people claim it is actually possible to travel from Lithuania to any of the 27 countries of the European Union. Meaning she needed to get a tourist (Shengen) VISA for Lithuania. Issuing VISA for Lithuania is comparatively easy cause Belarus and  Lithua are neighbor border countries and many people frequently travel from Belarus to Lithuania and vice versa.

Issuing a VISA from Belarus to Lithuania is possible through using few agencies in Belarus helping people to have a vacation trip to Western Europe. Svetla applied for one of those agencies, promising to issue a VISA for a week / week en a half or so. However as Belarus is still living on  a plenty of government structures inherited by the Communism which was until 1991 and which were kept after the fall of communism there and perestroika, it is necessery that a special government institution approves the Tourist Visa after the Lithuanian government  issues it. It seems there were plenty of people from Belarus who applied for Tourist Visa to western European countries, so Svetla was put in a queue line not knowing for sure  if the Visa will be possible to be issued until 22nd of December. The big trouble here was I already booked a flight ticket ticket from Lithuania capital Vilnius to Eindhoven Holland with low cost company – Wizzair. BTW I flight with Wizzair 2 times so far and the flight experience was pretty decent for its low ticket price.

Finally after the agency failed to confirm whether it will be able to help her in issuing the tickets before 22nd of Dec, she had to go herself to the Embassy  of Lithuania to sign up on a queue with other people to receive a VISA to Lithuania. The situation was quite uncertain, as it was not clear if this Embassy of Lithuania will issue her Visa or not or even if her queue turn will come before 22-nd. In theory it should have but it also depended on Belarusian governmental athorities who had to also approve the visa. Like in all complex situations like this, all left was we pray God to help us and hope it all will just run smoothly with issuing and approvel of visa.

One important note to make here is Svetla asked a lady in the Embassy of Lithuania, if she can use her Lithuanian VISA to travel within the rest of the member states of the European Union and she was given a negative response – a fact which discouraged and saddened both of us.
The encouraging thing was Svetla asked other people waiting for entering the embassy to request a Visa and as she spoke with them they all said it is possible to use the Lithuanian Visa to travel freely with no check to any country within the EU.

It was days of waiting and a lot of stress mainly for her because, I was in Holland and I couldn't help her (physically) in arranging the visa.

Praise God all went Okay and she was issued VISA few days before the flight date!!!! 🙂 🙂 🙂

Now to take the flight which was early in the morning of 22 of December 2012, Svetla had to travel quite a lot. First on a bus from Belarusian capital Minsk, she had to travel to Metro (if not mistaken), from Metro to Bus-Station, then take bus fr Minsk – Vilnius and after going down on Bus Station in Vilnius to take another bus to Vilnius Airport. After this long travel  finally had to check in on Airport and fly on Wizzair airplane in 06:15 morning.
She had to spend about 6 hours waiting for the check-in on Vilnius Airport, because the bus from Minsk arrived about midnight.

Thanksfully by God's Grace she met a nice Russian family travelling to Brussels, through Eindhoven and hence flying on same flight to Eindhoven like her, so she had a nice chat time on the Airport. Thanks God again, all went smoothly with the flight and about 08:30 she was on Eindhoven's airport waiting for me and I take her about 09:15.

There was no need for passport and security check on Eindhoven airport – as I heard from her, cause there is no border control of passengers travelling within the circle of Shengen EU country zone. In Vilnius she had the usual security check before entering the plane, but in Holland it was not needed. In Holland all she had to do is to collect her laggage from the luggage circling platform.

Hopefully this little post will help other Belarusians who need to travel to any country within the Shengen zone to meet friends, beloved or family.

 

The Living of Saint Peter and Saint Fevronia – a fascinating Russian cartoon retelling the saints story

Monday, March 26th, 2012

Saint Peter and Fevronia Orthodox Christian saints protector of happy family, love and blessed marriage

The anime Living Story of Saint Peter and Saint Fevronia is a modern story remake of an ancient Church living of two bright Russian saints.
The official movie genre is orthodox christian kids animation movie.
The 14 minutes cartoon re-tolds the living story of St. Peter and st, Fevronia in a playful and entertaining way like for kids or youngsters.
Nomatter the movie primary target audience is children, the cartoon is great to see for adults people as well :).
The movie genre is orthodox christian kids animation movie.
The plot is based on a true (historic record) story of two saints venerated each year across Orthodox Churches around the world.

The original story I watched was a Bulgarian translation from Russian. But since I found it to be so valuable, I look for a translated video and got one in youtube.Take 14 minutes break and watch it, I'm sure you will like it so much, that probably give it a second time glimpse alone or with your wife, children or girlfriend.

Unfortunately, the english title is mis-translated as it says "Tale" and not "Story" and there is difference in meaning between this two words.
It is not tale as tale is made up story and this is not a made story but a story based on the two saints who lived in the end of 12 and beginning of the thirteen century.
Here is in short the real Church living:
The two saints were living in Murom Russia. Peter was prince and Fevronia a poor maid a daughter of a beekeeper who made his family living by collecting wild honey in the forest.

Prince Peter was striken by a severe sickness and in a vision it was revealed to him, that the only one that can cure him is Fevronia (a village maid living in the village of Laskovo Russia. The prince went to her and since he saw she is a pious, good and wisdom rich maid promised her, if she manage to heal him to take her as a bride to his place.
By her warm prayers to God and herbs, Fevronia succeeded in healing the prince sickness. Being fully restored st.Peter changed his mind and wanted to break his promise to marry her, cause the young made not part of the aristocratic Russian society. He didn't yet reached his home and the sickness, came back. This time with a deep repentance, he came back to Fevronia and she cured him again. Then the prince merried her and made her a princess of Murom
 

St. Peter and Fevronia Orthodox Church saints protector of marriage

However there love in Christ had to went through high temptations. Once the couple married, the prince proud boyars requested the prince to leave his new bride, as they didn't wanted to accept a simple girl as Fevronia will be governing them. Being in uneasy situation prince Peter prefered to leave his governing power and castle but to stay with his life. Together by boat by the near river Oka they left the kingdom. Soon after Gods wrath came Murom because of people's rebellion and the people requested the chased prince family to be restored to power.
Pushed by the peasents, the boyars bringed back the couple to power. The two saints governed their kingdom with great wisdom, love and mercy to the people.

In their old age the decided to become monks in separate monasteries. St. Peter received his new monk name David and princess Fevronia took the nun name Evphrosia (Evfrosia). Even living a sepate monk / nun life the couple continued having a deep love to each other and asked God to take them from this earthly life on the same date. God answered their prayer granting them to depart this earth on the same day in the same hour!
Like in life even in death people tried to separate them.
Fevronia was put in a coffin in the nun monastery, where Peter was prepared for a monk funeral in the man monastery and they put them in separate graves.
In the morning the graves were empty and their bodies were found buried together in one grave. People realized it is Gods will they are buried together and left them buried together. Today the incorruptable bodies of the two saints can be seen and venerated in Holy Trinity's nun monastery in the town of Murom Russia. St. Peter and St. Fevronia are considered patron of the Christian marriage, couple's love and family happiness.
It is common that many young people are, asking for the two saints prayer intercession in front of God for getting a good spouse in life and good marriage.

Also the two saints are oftenly asked for prayer for improving a marriege bindings.
The two saints feast day is like the Orthodox Antipode of the Roman Catholic feast of couples in love – St. Valentine.

As you see, St. Peter and St. Fevronia living is full of wisdom and true spirituality, and there is plenty we the modern disbelieving people can learn from it.
Let God by the two saints holy prayers have mercy on us.

The Edukators 2004 – Die fetten Jahre sind vorbei (The Fat Year are Over) movie short review

Monday, February 6th, 2012

The Edukators movie cover

I'm in Sofia for a couple of days being a guest to a friend (thx Nomen), after my stay for a week in Bodesće (a little village nearby Bled located in Slovenia).
Yesterday on my way to sleep I wanted to see a movie and asked Nomen to recommend me a movie. His recommendation was a German-Australian movie from 2004 called The Edukators The Fat years are Over. I had absolutely no idea what it will be like so I didn't expected much but it seems the movie plot took my attention.

The movie plot revolves around 3 avarage German persons who live in Berlin. The three youngsters has just passed the 20s, Peter and Daniel (two close friends who hold some serious anti-capitalist views and does organize house break-ups without stealing.) Peter and Daniel's rich villas break-ups aim is idealistic, they don't steal but just change the order of furniture and leave messages to make rich people aware that money doesn't make them invincible…
Jule a girlfriend of Peter, becomes friend with Daniel and they fall in love, while Peter is away for a vacation. During Peters sojourn abroad Daniel tells Jule the secret (Peter and Daniel) are the Edukators whose break-ins has just recently become known via the local Berlin newspapers.
The Edukators group leave messages to every of the "victim" homes saying – "die fetten Jahre sind vorbei" – "The fat years are over", a sentence well known from the Holy Bible's story of Joseph in Egypt.

Jule works as a waitress in a luxurious restaurant but her payment is only good to cover her very basic needs as well as pay her debt (as she is already indebted as many youngsters in Germany).

Jule is more indebted compared to many of the young germans, since by accident she hit a rich businessman's car which costs 100 000 eur. Since more than a year she is working for paying the monthly bills to cover richman's car and she succeeded to pay only €55000 …

The Jule's "injustice" is just a part of the many injustices that are in society, but as the youngsters hold anarchistic and anti democratic views, this whole Mercedes crash accelerates as Jule and Daniel break up in the Luxurious Villa of the rich man whose car Jule is still paying.
The Edukators die fetten jahre sind vorbei movie cover

Just like the other break ups Jule and Daniel change completely the order of the furniture and leave the threatening message die fetten Jahre sind vorbei , this time however they do even more as they decide to drop the sofa in the pool. These time Daniel and Jule's planning is more like an venture than just a well planned Edukators break-in. Suddenly the watchdogs in the yard start barking and the two youngesters has to move quickly to prevent being taken by the police patrol.
On the next day Peter is back from his vacation and Jule realizes her mobile phone is missing (probably fallen in the pool or somewhere in the richman's mansion)… On the next night Jule and Daniel, enter the house again in hope to find and cover-up the tracks they left last night and hopefully find, Jule's missing mobile.
They don't know however the richman would arrive his villa to stay for the night. As he enter his house, the businessman encounters Jule and immediately recognizes her.
Daniel being in the other floor comes down and hits the richman from behind and he enters unconscioness. As the two are panicked they call Peter and tell him about "the villa accident". Daniel arrives immediately and the three "revolutionaries" decide to take the wealthy man who as a hostage bringing him in Jule's uncle mountain hut.
The 3 anti-current system democrats and the representative of the wealthy class has to spend few weeks together in a small house each one exposing his stand point and philosophy. Little by little the 4 people become friends and a dramma between Daniel and Peter emerges as Jule is now in love with Daniel and Peter finds out …
Hardenberg (the 3 youngesters hostage) happens to be an ex-leader of a Socialist German Student Union some 35 years go … and tells a story how he and his union members hostiged a VIP german person in their youth days and how funny is that he is in the same situation like the person they hostiged so long time ago…
The movie is interesting as it really shows the sad reality and the falling democratic system which we have established and follow. It exposes the injustice of the system but it doesn't really offer a solution to the society and economic problems and injustices.

Alex the Alligator – a nice retro style Nintendo / GameBoy like Free Software game for GNU / Linux

Tuesday, December 20th, 2011

Alex the Alligator Free Software 4 colors game Intro GNU Linux screen

Alex the Alligator is a Free Software (Open Sourced) arcade game licensed under the General Public License (GPL)
The game is quite of fun and especially the music totally kicks ass! 😉

The game plot is simple but fun in the good Spirit of oldschool Super Mario like arcade games.
Alex the Alligator evil human kidnapper poachers helicopter, GNU / Linux

In the game you are a little cute crocodile whose (crocodile) girlfriend is kidnapped with a helicopter by the evil human poachers.
As you love her too much and you're determined to grow a crocodile family with this croco-girl you start a long quest to save her from possible zoo slavery or killing for a crocodile skin boots.
Kidnapping Lola dropping a cage Linux screenshot

The quest for kidnapped girlfriend (LOLA) liberation wents through the harsh jungles.
Alex The ALligator level 1 on Linux screenshot

Alex The Alligator has a version for both Windows and Linux ports. The Linux port is available for most major distributions including Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora etc.

To install the game on Debian and Ubuntu with apt-get issue:

debian:~# apt-get --yes install alex4
...

After installing the game can be run from command line using cmd:

alex4

The game controls are as follows;
 

  • Arrow Keys – Movement
  • Alt – Jump
  • Ctrl – Fire (if you have previously collected Eggs

Alex the Alligator is also equipped with a MAP editor, so if you really want to contribute the game development, take some time create some maps and submit to game's official website http://allegator.sourceforge.net/ . On the game website there are few other variations of the Alex the Alligator as well as extra game maps.
Explanation on which keys can be used to create maps is found in the game manual, e.g.:

debian:~$ man alex4

If you have downloaded some extra game maps from the game sourceforge website, to load them you can use:

Shift+L

Will Alex succeed in saving his girlfriend ? It's up to you 😉