Board game review: Kemet

Kemet is a board game that I have not yet played during my monthly Game Night with friends. It is high on the list though! My boyfriend and I have played it several times and we are eager to introduce it to the others soon, when we are off to a cottage in Zandvoort to play board games for an entire weekend. 

Kemet is from the same publishers as Cyclades, which is set in ancient Greece. Although I have never played that game, Kemet is usually considered the more combat-driven of the two. The setting is ancient Egypt and 'Kemet' refers to 'keh-met' [km.t], which was the name the Egyptians gave to their land. It translates as 'black land', which according to most Egyptologists describes the fertile soil at the flooded banks of the river Nile, although nowadays this is debated by others who claim it to be a referance to people with dark skin. 

'K.mt' or Kemet in hieroglyphic writing

Kemet is not a historical game however, like Hannibal: Rome vs. Carthage, but a fantasy version of ancient Egypt that reminds me somewhat of the Stargate series. One can use pyramids and obelisks to teleport ones armies and use impressive creatures such as a gigantic royal scarab or a powerful mummy - in the shape of beautifully executed minis - as extra support. The aim of the game is to gain the most victory points by controlling temples, conquering pyramids and especially by winning fights! 

The fast action and frequent battles is what makes this game exciting and lots of fun. There's never a dull moment! The power tiles that can be bought by prayer points, earned by frequently praying to the gods to keep them at peace, are of three different categories and are aimed at different strategies (defensive, aggressive or resource based). Pretty much all of them are attractive to obtain, which makes choosing a luxury problem. 

It is wise to plan ahead your strategy early in the game, since these power tiles reach their maximum effect when combined effectively. The use of battle cards reminded me of the house cards from the Game of Thrones board game. Both add a bidding aspect to the game, which adds bluff and even more excitement. 

A great extra of this game is the two-sided board for different player combinations, which makes the game very versatile. This is another reason why I cannot wait to intrudoce the game to our friends!

Sometime in 2014, the expansion Kemet: Ta-Seti is due ('Ta-Seti' referring to ancient Nubia). 

Stress-free month

After six exhausting months of working five days a week and travelling two hours a day on average, I am overjoyed to have the intire month off! From one of my two jobs, anyway. That's all I could afford, but I'm thrilled. I am finally sleeping well and I have time to clean my appartment, answer e-mails, reorganize things and plan ahead for September, when I'll be going back to college. No travel for me this month - it would cost too much energy. 

Working five days a week and having to perform tough psysical tasks all the time put too much pressure on my neck and back. It has been very painful for me to work the last couple of weeks and especially my neck was completely cramped. I had trouble sleeping and moving my head from left to right had become almost impossible. Fortunately the company doctor decided that I should be put to different tasks until my vacation would arrive, which helped a great deal. Now that I'm home for a week, the pain has almost completely vanished and I feel so much better. I wouldn't have worked so much if I had had a different choice. But I need to save as much money as I can to be able to execute my new plans for studying how to restore and conserve artifacts. Studying in the Netherlands has become insanely expensive, espcially when one already has an MA degree. 

I have decided to focus on a couple of things I have been neglecting somewhat:

- My health: I still aim to loose a considerable amount of weight and to get in better shape altogether. With Irritable Bowel Syndrome, this is not an easy task. But I am determined to work harder this time. I am even working out every day now, if only for 15 or 30 minutes, at home. This way, 'having no time' will not be an excuse anymore!

- Writing: Not just blogging, but keeping a private diary as well. It's therapeutic and just like reading, it is a way for me to relief stress. 

- Being involved again in archaeology and cultural heritage, both as a warming-up to my new study trajectory as well as to keep my mind active and my CV interesting to have more chances of finding a job that suits me. This however also includes experiencing the 'fun' aspect of those fiels of interest again, like I used to do naturally, before facing the difficulties of the economic crisis and not being able to find a job in the field. 

- De-cluttering: My boyfriend and I already improved our tiny living space a lot by buying lots of storage furniture at Ikea a couple of months ago, creating so much more space. But I still feel that we own too much stuff. So many things aren't used and just take up space. Of course it's never easy to part with one's belongings, but it would be a relief to have a decent set of basic things to own and not all of the time and space consuming 'extras'. For me, the main problem must be clothes and accessories. I have much more than I need and some things I never wear because I don't feel comfortable in them. 

- Practicing my arts and crafts skills: I need to compose a portfolio of personal projects, so I can prove next year that I am able to work well with my hands and with different materials, in order to get admitted to the MA trajectory I would like to follow.

- Practising different hair styles for long hair. When I'm working, I tend to always wear my hair the same way for practical reasons (usually a side braid). Although I like it, I would love to be a bit more creative once in a while. So I intend to look for practical, fast but fun hairstyles that look good on me. It would be a pity not to make use of my long hair, while there are such amazing hairstyles around to choose from! 

My go-to hairstyle

- Relaxing! Taking my time to do nothing at all for a change...or just reading a book, watching a movie, playing a game or reading magazines.

     Panda bear at Pairi Daiza zoo, Belgium, 2014

Christmas fair in Düsseldorf

Last weekend I went on a day-trip to Düsseldorf with my mother, to see the Weihnachtsmarkt (Christmas fair) and do a little shopping. Although I usually do not like Christmas fairs a lot, the city was beautifully decorated and the atmosphere quite nice, despite the masses. We wandered around, ate ‘Currywurst’ and enjoyed visiting a big organic supermarket, where prices seemed considerably lower than in the Netherlands. The city itself was not particularly beautiful, but the waterfront of the river Rhine has its charm and reminds me of Antwerp somewhat. We did not have enough time to visit one of the museums, like I had hoped we would, but the good vibe of the city made the trip entirely worthwhile.

In the organic supermarket ‘Basic-Bio’, I bought some food and beauty products. My shopping haul:

-          Baking products for making gluten-free quinoa bread       (never had this before)

-          Vivani chocolate bar ‘winter’ (with ‘speculaas’ spices)

-          Lacoa chocolate bar with 60% cocoa

-          Rapunzel chocolate bar honey-almond

-          Lebensbaum six flavours of chai (sample box)

-          Gluten-free millet cookies called ‘Braunhirse Zungen’, by Werz.

-          Logona coconut oil as an extra, leave-in conditioner, to apply to the ends of my hair

-          Lavera grape hair treatment (sample), without silicones

-          Santé eye shadow base

From a very cute store with American products, called ‘American Heritage’ I bought:

-          The Republic of Tea ‘red velvet chocolate’ tea (looking yummy!)

I’m especially thrilled about the organic eye shadow base! It is really difficult to find eye shadow base without parabens or other possibly harmful substances. When I want to apply eye shadow and make it last through the day however, my oily skin badly requires a powerful base, to prevent major creasing.  A review of Santé eye shadow base will follow soon!

Some impressions of Düsseldorf: 

Three lovely dresses

My favourite clothing brand Vive Maria has the most amazing, dark romantic dresses. They are very comfortable to wear due to the soft fabric, yet never look plain. Unfortunately, they cost a LOT of money. I was tempted to buy a dress for the Christmas party from work that I'll be attending next week, but decided against it...there's still an 'old' dress in my closet that I can wear and I need to be clever about what I'm spending my money on. I intend to buy as little clothes as possible in 2014, both to save money and to slim down the contents of my closet. It's quite a mess right now and I live in a rather small appartment....so you get the picture. Building the ideal, small wardrobe is what I'd love to try in the future! Therefore, buying a new dress takes some consideration.... 

It has to:

1) Add something valuable to my already existing wardrobe. New stuff that resembles other pieces is quite honestly a waste of money! 

2) Be on sale. I like to buy good quality, often a bit more expensive dresses...but Dutchie that I am, I prefer not to pay the full price. Therefore I'll patiently (not! :)) wait for the January sales. There is the risk of not obtaining the item, but that's part of the game...I'd rather take my chances and see if I can get it for at least half the price.

3) Fit just right. Look just right. Feel amazing. If it doesn't live up to my expectations, I will return it. This is something I haven't done often enough in the past, but it's really a essential decision in building a good wardrobe. If you want to be wearing all your clothes and not waste your money or closet space to unused items, you have to be extremely critical. 

At this moment there are three Vive Maria dresses that I would love to own. I expect the red one to be the prettiest and the most flattering, but I'd be happy getting my hands on any one of these during the sales. For now, I'll enjoy the lovely photos:

Only Lovers Left Alive

I recently came across this amazing trailer of an upcoming Jim Jarmusch movie. It's from one of my favourite directors, it has vampires (not the cheesy sparkling kind, thank God!) and good actors like John Hurt, Tilda Swinton, Tom Hiddleston (*swoon*) and Mia Wasikowska. 

The trailer reminds me a bit of Interview with the Vampire and Let the Right One in, both excellent, dark and sultry vampire movies. Sounds almost too good to be true, doesn't it? Here in the Netherlands, the movie will be in theaters by February 2014. Time to get excited...

The only trailer I could find has Russian subtitles...oh well. :)

I had a haircut...and survived :)

Today I decided it was about time I went to the hairdresser. I last had a chop about six months ago and I started to notice some split hairs and dry ends. A couple of years ago I dyed part of my hair black and although it has fainted by now, not everything has grown out yet. The darker hair is definately drier and more prone to breakage, but after a +/- 5 cm. cut, the hemline looks much healthier and thicker now. All of my layers are gone too, which feels great! With an even hemline, the individual hairs will be better protected. 

[Source: Edward Scissorhands movie still]

I felt a bit nervous beforehand, but the hairdresser managed to keep her scissors under control and even made a few compliments. What a shock! Usually I'm every hairdresser's nightmare...and they're definately mine. They're just dying to chop off more and more, as if a short haircut is ones only option. I'm glad to know that apparently, peaceful cooperation is still a possibility however. :)

This morning:

Notice the black dye at the ends of my hair!

This afternoon:

Board game review: Letters from Whitechapel

Since a year or so, I have a small obsession with board games. I used to love them as a kid, but hardly ever played them anymore during my college years. I don't quite remember what it was that triggered my renewed interest, but it must have had something to do with being unemployed, having too much time on my hands and getting tired of spending most of my days inside, meeting relatively few people. My boyfriend and I used to watch many movies and tv series and although we still do this quite frequently, we feel it is often more satisfying to engage in activities rather than just sit and watch another screen together. Inviting friends over to play a game also creates the opportunity to bring people together that otherwise wouldn't necessarily feel like interacting. Pretty much all of my friends tend to not get along with each other very well, so spontaneous group meetings are never an option... For a game, however, they are willing to move aside their differences. One-on-one meetings are perfectly fine when it comes to friendship, but sometimes I really miss that special group energy. It also saves a lot of time to bring multiple friends together. 

After a couple of try-outs, we decided to organise a monthly board game night. The first game we've played is Letters from Whitechapel, which was brought along by my friend Joyce. It's a 90-150 minutes game with a maximum of six players. The setting is late 19th century London, where serial killer Jack the Ripper (one of the players) has to murder five prostitutes in the notorious Whitechapel area, before getting caught. The other players represent the policemen, hunting down Jack. 

The best thing about the game, in my opinion, is its cool design. The board looks amazing! If you're a fan of BBC's dark and clever series 'Ripper Street', you will especially love the game's setting! The streets of the Whitechapel area are laid out for everyone to see, with dotted lines indicating the routes that Jack the Ripper or the police can take. Carriages and alleyways speed up Jack's movements. The map is an accurate representation of the Whitechapel district and the names of Jack's victims and the exact locations where they were found dead are indicated on it. The letters mentioned in the game's title refer to the letters sent to the police at the time of the murders, supposedly written by Jack the Ripper himself. They can be read in the booklet provided with the game. It also contains a timeline of the mysterious events that took place in London between 1887 and 1891. 

The positive

Besides a terrific lay-out and an interesting theme, the game offers a huge deal of excitement. The hunt for the killer keeps everyone on edge and especially for the player that has taken on the role of Jack the Ripper, the game can be nerve-racking. The fun aspect is that the policemen can't see Jack moving around the board, but are able to gain clues and see what places he has already visited. Sometimes Jack was standing right next to a policeman, without anyone realizing they could have arrested him! Clever thinking, by excluding possible locations on the board where Jack is residing, will be crucial during the game. 
Another great aspect of the game is that it combines cooperation (the policemen) and competition (Jack killing and hiding from the police). 

The negative 

During the game that we played, we eventually caught Jack before he could commit another murder. The player made a tactical mistake and did not see the trap coming that was laid out by the policemen. We could imagine however that it would have been extremely difficult to locate Jack's exact position if he had not made that mistake. Jack is able to cover larger distances on the board and can easily put other players on the wrong track. The more often the game is played, the easier this will become. I guess I am not able to say much more about it at this point, but it seems to me that perhaps Jack has too many advantages, which could start to annoy after a while. But then again....in reality he got away with it as well! :)

Grade: 8