Snow and Games

 

This is a scene not far from us, very picturesque, but everywhere you look it's like that. The snow has all gone now, but apparently there is more on the way. Had another game of Pillars of the Earth the other day, followed it up with a game of Mystery Rummy: Jekyl and Hyde. Tina likes that one and wiped the floor with me :)

We seem to be settling into a some sort of routine here, the pace of life is very different compared to the UK. I suppose it makes a difference that I don't have to get up for work at 6.00am every morning! We are coming back to the UK at the end of March for a couple of weeks to see family so I probably won't post during that time.

Anyway.....Happy Gaming!!

We finally get registered as residents of Austria

 

Well we went to Gmunden yesterday, bus to Bad Ischl then train to Gmunden then a little tram to take you to the centre by the lake. We had to go the district headquarters of the authorities to register for residency. This took about 2 hours, but we finally got the piece of paper that said that we can stay in Austria. Then we had a nice lunch in a restaurant overlooking the lake....lovely.
Today is a bit different, this was the view from the balcony this morning. It had been snowing all night and it is about 6 inches thick, good job we decided to go yesterday!

Some more gameplay and a trip to Bad Ischl

 

As you can see from the picture we got to play Arkadia. I had read the rules beforehand and Tina picked it up pretty quickly. Basically you use the cards in your hand to build buildings or place your workers on the board during your go. When a building is completely surrounded with other buildings or workers the player who completed the move takes the coloured seal that is on the building then any player with a worker adjacent gets a seal as well. You then have to build a section of the castle. Each castle section has a coloured seal on it so depending on which piece you build you can influence the value of the seals. Each player has 4 banners which you can use at the end of your turn. If you play one of these you get 2 more workers from the pool and can cash any seals you have won for gold. Most gold at the end wins
I like the game, plays well, doesn't take too long, has nice components (apart from the banners and player screens which are a bit flimsy) and has some good strategy to it.

Then on Friday we went to Bad Ischl, takes 40 minutes on the bus. The main reason for the trip is that we have to register for residency within 3 months of arriving in Austria, and to do that you have to go to Gmunden. Well, we wanted to do the trip on our own this time so had to check out the train times from Bad Ischl. Looks pretty straightforward really so we are going next Dienstag, sorry Tuesday. You have to take all the relevant documents with you, health insurance, passport, tenancy agreement and so on and hope that they say yes!!

Keep you posted.....happy gaming!

A Trip to Salzburg and some more games

 

Here is the picture of Gmunden, the Schloss out on lake Traunsee can only be reached from the little causeway you can see in the picture, and the formation in the mountains right in the centre of the pic is known as the sleeping greek!

On tuesday last week we went to Salzburg on the local bus for the day. It was a really nice sunny day and the bus trip takes about 90 mins. Salzburg is a wonderful city, especially if you like Mozart, there are numerous sights to see that are linked to the famous composer. The house he was born in, which has a wonderful multi-media exhibition. We have seen it a lot of times so this time we didn't bother, as we have never been to Salzburg at this time of year before it was interesting to see it without the major bustle of tourists. There was a few of course, but it was very different.

There are also 3 good game shops in Salzburg (not the main reason for the visit I hasten to add), but I always like to have a look. Tina liked the look of 'Die Baumeister Von Arkadia', I hadn't read anything about it, but if Tina liked the look of it she might want to play it so I bought that for 30 euros (about £21). We also picked up Hive, for 18 euros.

We were pretty tired after all the walking so decided to catch the 3.15pm bus back, boy was it crowded, and we had to stand for a while. But all in all a very good day.