Books, Food, Christmas , and more

We got more books from Sinterklaas and as early Christmas presents!

These we got from Melliane (together with a 3rd that arrived separately).

We went out and I got hot chocolat and apple strudel. 

On an evening walk I spotted a building dressed up as a Christmas ornament.

We made a trip to the garden center for a Christmas tree, and they had beautiful decorations!

Just my size!

I think this is the Snow Queen.

There were lots of Christmas animals

Maybe this is the Dog Queen?

I have so many questions about this vase...

More Christmas cheer!

We found a beautiful tree and decorated it at home.

My owner is very busy with work at the moment as she works extra because of Christmas shoppers, but we managed to squeeze in a lunch at the Sushi Mall with a friend when she was in town.

I ate tons of Edamame.

My owner got a Christmas present that we're not allowed to open before Christmas. I'm very curious! (I think the mailmen were curious too, as they squashed the package a bit.)

We also got signed books!

Thanks, Jeffe and Sarah Pinsker.

Have a great Holiday Season, everyone.

 

Gilbert - A Trip into Town and More

 

We went into town not long ago and I met this beaver at a shop that sold outdoor stuff like raincoats and winter gear.

After that we got a nice bottle of cider,

and a vlammenkoek (a kind of pizza).

It was a really fun outing.

The next day we participated in a Pub Quiz!

And we won!

We visited friends and played The Hunger.

It's a fun deck builder/race game with vampires. I got a piggy familiar!

Sinterklaas arrived in the Netherlands and left us a present!

A book.

Sullivan immediately started reading it.

And we played Planet B with friends!

At Spellenspektakel we only got to play a few rounds, but now we got to play the whole game. It was lots of fun.

And it has Dodos!

Gilbert - Spellenspektakel - part 2

 

After we left Spellenspektakel we went in search of food.

And we succeeded!

We got a delicious meal at Amazing Oriental.

After dinner we found a supermarket to get some drinks and snacks and then we wanted to go to our hotel so we could rest after a long fun day.

We had to take a tram, which turned out to be more difficult than we thought. Every time a tram was supposed to show up, it just didn't arrive. After about three disappearing trams one finally showed up though.

Once at the hotel I got to relax with a bottle of cider.

My owner was a bit puzzled by the shower situation. The shower had a window that looked out into the hotel room. And there wasn't a curtain! (Can you spot me?)

After planning what games we really wanted to see (and hopefully try) the next day we went to sleep. We had a great first day!

 

We were up bright and early the next morning and caught a bus to the station to have breakfast with friends who would also visit the fair that day.

At the station I spotted a Miffy train!

We were early, so we got coffee and hot chocolat before meeting our friends for breakfast.

After breakfast we went back to Spellenspektakel.

On Saturday the people at the Hot Games stand told us they might have some copies of Cubosaurus for sale the next day, so we asked them to hold one for us. We didn't want to risk them getting impatient and selling our copy, so our first visit on Sunday was Hot Games. And they indeed had a copy of the game for us! 

Next we went to 999 Games because we wanted to try Planet B.

Planet B turned out to be a really fun game!

You play a politician who has to decide on all kinds of actions on a new planet, some for the good of the planet and some for the good of your wallet. We didn't get to play the whole game, but enough to get a good feel for it. It wasn't for sale yet, but it's now definitely on my wish list.

We walked around some more and tried a couple of party games, like Hitster and Name 5.

We also went back to the stand that had the cool dinosaur game, because my owner finally agreed with me on buying it. We were in luck: there were only two left! As we were paying for the game, the last copy got sold as well.

We tried the game Kluster.

It's  game where you have to put magnets close to each other on the table. If the magnets touch each other and stuck together you have to take them. The first person who gets rid of all their magnets, wins.

And we went back to Woodcraft of course.

It's a beautiful game, but don't try to play it when you're already a bit tired after a day full of games and fun. It took me a long time to understand what I had to do and why.

After playing Woodcraft we did a final round to see if we missed anything important.

This game looked cool, but my owner wasn't impressed when it was explained to her.

Finally we decided to call it a day and we went in search for dinner. After dinner we went back to the hotel. We had lots of fun, but were very tired, so we went to bed early.

The next morning we had breakfast at the hotel.

Happy egg!

After breakfast we packed our suitcase and once again took a bus to the station.

You can see the hotel in the background, btw.

We took the train back to Groningen, and after having lunch at the station in Groningen we said goodbye to my owner's friend and made our way home.

Here's my loot!

What a great weekend, we will most certainly try to go again next year!

Gilbert - Spellenspektakel - Part 1

 

On November 5th my owner had me get up very early, because we were going on a trip!

Together with a friend of my owner we took the train to Utrecht to go to Spellenspektakel for two days. 

Spellenspektakel is a big games fair where you can see games, play games, get information about games, and of course buy them if you like them.

Once in Utrecht we walked to the building where the fair was. It was rainy, so my owner didn't get a picture of the building.

The first game I saw was Bar Pig!

We already got it as a present for our birthday, so no need to buy it again. I did pose with the bar pig though!

Next we were invited to take part in the White Goblin Experience. It was a room with all kinds of stuff related to White Goblin Games. You could find letters that if put in the right order were the name of a Flamecraft dragon. It was fun, even if this plague doctor wouldn't tell me where all the letters were.

Next we tried a game: Tiny Towns.

We had to collect building materials and build all kinds of buildings to score points.

I won!

We got an orange token as a price. If we could win 3 tokens we could spin a wheel of fortune, so we went in search of more games to play.

I won again with Railroad Ink. 

Here we had to draw railroads and normal roads to score points

Next we wanted to try another game, but nobody could explain it to us, so they gave us a third token as a consolation.

So I immediately went to the wheel of fortune of course!

I won a goblin plushie named Gobby. How cool!

We walked around and looked at all the available games. There was a stand that sold Murder Mysteries. My owner's friend bought one, and we get to organize it with her in a couple of months. 

We spotted a cool looking dragon game and had to try it out.

We had to collect dragons and the person who got the best combinations won the most points. It was a nice game.

I spotted a dinosaur game at one of the shop stands,but it was very expensive.

Another dinosaur game!

We couldn't play it, but it looked absolutely beautiful!

The goal of the game is to build an ecosystem that can support dinosaurs. I really wanted it, but my owner said we should wait with spending our money in case we saw something we liked more.  

This one looked cool as well, but not as cool as the dinosaur game in my opinion.

This one was very tempting as well, but I think it might be a game for children.

We tried another game: My Shelfie.

We had to create a bookcase full of pictures and other stuff in a certain order to gain points. It was a fun game.

Next we wanted to try Woodcraft, but once again there wasn't anyone who could explain it to us.

We tried figuring it out ourselves, but it was a very complicated game with lots of options. We were told there would be someone the next day who could explain it to us, so we decided to try again the next day.

The hours really flew by while we played games and walked around. Before we knew it it was almost closing time. Even though we had pizza for lunch we were getting hungry as well. So we got our luggage and went in search for dinner.

Next: Games and more