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France Day 4: Traveling to Deauville

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Today we woke up around 7:30 and got out of the room by 8:45. We wanted to eat at the hotel but it was crowded! There was a wait for breakfast! So we decided to go down the street and try a breakfast place since we were a little short on time. The restaurant was called Le Pre aux Clercs. It was ok, just an average omelet breakfast. If you’re in a hurry though going to any cafe in France is not the place to be.

Once we were done with breakfast we took an uber to the train station to meet Greg. We all took the train to the airport to pick up a rental car to drive to the house in Deauville. We got a manual van haha—so thankfully Greg had driven a manual in college. The drive to the house was about 2 hours. We really enjoyed the signs on the side of the roads for the towns. It seemed they depicted things the towns were known for. I wish I had gotten a picture of the town with all the science stuff like beakers. Here’s one though:

When we arrived at the house we could not get ahold of the owner to check in early, so we loaded back in the van to meet everyone else at the train station. We put everyone’s luggage into the van and we all went to look for some food, except Greg, he went to get groceries.

We walked around town for a bit and I was getting pretty hangry. Finally we decided on a bar called Le Morny’s Cafe. Everyone started ordering drinks, which was a bit depressing because I could have used one. I had a croque madame which was recommended by Julie. A croque madame is like a grilled ham and cheese with a white sauce and a fried egg on top. It was delicious. Don had a cheeseburger.

After lunch we walked back to the house with Julie. Everyone else stayed behind to look around the town. Greg was at the house sitting outside and he had picked up a few snacks. He still was unable to get ahold of the owner even though it was 4 pm. Julie and I walked to the beach to check it out. It was very pretty, but with the weather only being in the 50s and 60s I don’t see it getting much use! When we got back to the house Greg said someone was coming to let us in.

The house is pretty cool. We drew names for the 3 bedrooms the couples would be sleeping in. We got a pretty sweet room. It has a giant bathroom.

For dinner we walked about 20-30 minutes to a restaurant on a boat called La Peniche. It was nice because the menu was set. We could choose from a few appetizers, main dishes, and then desserts. I had a mozzarella tart for an appetizer while Don had Foie Gras. For main courses I had the steak fillet and fries and Don had chicken with mashed potatoes. The steak was done perfectly. Dinner was very good. Don had creme brulee for dessert and I had something that reminded me of chocolate lava cake and vanilla ice cream.

The walk home was rainy and cold. I went to bed when we got back because my nose was very stuffy and I had a headache.

Bloggings, Reviews - Travel, Travel

France Day 3: The Louvre & Eiffel Tower

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Today we woke up early and had breakfast at the hotel. We then walked to The Louvre, which was about a 15 minute walk from our hotel. I wasn’t in the best mood for some reason so I tried to snap out of it.

Don wanted to see the Mona Lisa so I had looked up directions on the best, most efficient way to get in and see the Mona Lisa. I had also gotten us skip the line tickets. I didn’t realize though that the skip the line ticket was only good at the main entrance. I went to an entrance recommended for viewing the Mona Lisa. So we had to wait in a bit of a line, it didn’t take too long.

Once we got into the museum we booked it to the Mona Lisa. Luckily the museum was not too crowded yet and after a bit of getting turned around we found the room with the Mona Lisa. There wasn’t a line and there was a medium sized group viewing her. The room was quite sad; it was just a huge white room with construction going on. Then on the wall was the tiny Mona Lisa behind glass. We both knew the Mona Lisa was not very big, but it did just look so small and sad in this room. Tourists were pushing, trying to get the best shot of this painting that we all have seen. It was weird.

After seeing the Mona Lisa the museum had gotten much more crowded. I was thirsty so we stopped at the cafe in the museum. There wasn’t really anything in the Louvre that I wanted to see. I don’t know much about art; Don is much more knowledgeable when it comes to stuff like that. He looked at the map while we rested and found a few things to look at. The Egyptian art display was closed when we were there but that would have been cool to see. We probably walked around the museum for an hour or so but it was just so crowded so we decided to go outside.

Favorite picture I saw in The Louvre.

Once we got outside we got some croissants and sat down. We sat around and people watched at various different fountains. There were a ton of birds. We even saw pigeons mating!

I think we both enjoyed the gardens at The Louvre more than being inside the museum. We walked around quite a bit and then decided to get lunch.

We found a place called Flottes. It seemed to be in a fancy part of Paris. I had chicken with mashed potatoes. The gravy it came with was awesome. Don had a steak. After we ate we walked back to the hotel and laid around.

We left around 8 for the Eiffel Tower. Greg and some people had decided that it would be cool to go up in the Eiffel Tower at sunset and have champagne. Sunset in Paris this time of year was super late, like around 9:40. We booked skip the line tickets for 9 pm. Jim, Doreen, Linda, and Donna arrived around when we did so we decided to go up because Greg, Julie, Patty, Kevin, & Laura were running late. It took a long time to get up to the top of the tower. The lines were ridiculous, even with a skip the line. I have to say I think I enjoyed seeing the tower from across the river more than actually going up it. The views were cool but often it felt too crowded to really enjoy it.

As we were going down, Greg and his crew were coming up so we decided to stay longer with them. It was fun to watch Greg since he’s afraid of heights.

Afterwards, I was pretty hungry but also tired. This just led to me being mostly grouchy, so even though Don tried to get me food, I just wanted to go sleep.

Bloggings, Reviews - Travel, Travel

Getting to France-First Day!

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We left last night on a direct flight to Paris with American Airlines. The flight was about an hour delayed due to maintenance. On the flight I tried to sleep, but didn’t get much sleep; it was so uncomfortable. The only movie I remember watching was Vice.

We landed in Paris around 11:45 am. Finding the train to Paris was pretty easy. We made it a little more difficult on ourselves by not transferring and deciding to walk from a train stop that was a little further from our hotel. I was tired, grouchy, and hungry so this was a mistake. It was cool to see the Notre Dame Cathedral as we came out of the train though.

We got to our hotel in the neighborhood of Saint Germain around 2 pm and was able to check in. The hotel is called Hotel Des Deux Continents. Unfortunately, it is a 3 story walk up and we are on the 3rd floor haha. The staircase was tiny and winding. The room, though, was nice and cute.

We got settled in and took a 3 hour nap. Once we woke up I was ready to eat so we went out to walk around. It was cool to me how much New Orleans really looked like the streets of Saint Germain. We found a cute American diner called Coffee Parisien, which was really weird, but cool. The place mats at the diner had all of the American presidents on them, including the newest idiot. The food here was pretty good. I had a cheeseburger with fries, and they even had Dr Pepper! Don had steak and eggs, which was more like a hamburger patty and eggs. After dinner we walked around a bit and stopped at a grocery store. Then we got back to the hotel around 9 and fell asleep.

Bloggings, Gaming

Pandemic Legacy 2: December

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Let me start off by saying this game is completely crazy. December did not turn out how any of us thought it would. When we started the month our journal entry reminded us that our supplies were almost gone and that we needed to reach Lake Baikal to find the PEARL Lab. Once we get there we would get whatever cure they had and bring it to Johannesburg.

We made it to Lake Baikal within the first round of the game and what we found out was really unexpected. The cure was here but it would be too dangerous to carry it out in the open so we had to inject massive amounts of it and carry it in our bodies. This dosage would kill the carrier. We only have 4 doses. In order to win this game we would have to kill characters.

Our goal now was to build a supply center in Johannesburg and Self-Infect at the PEARL Lab in Lake Baikal. To self-infect we had to scratch off exposures until we found a scar or died. If we found a scar we had to add the carrier sticker to our character card. This carrier sticker would cover character abilities and once your a carrier life gets even harder. As a carrier you can only move by doing the drive or ferry action and once you enter a city you have to discard a card matching its color. Finally, once the game is over, win or lose, the character is destroyed! We realized it would be impossible to win this game because we didn’t have the cards in order for a carrier to move to Johannesburg and our plague cubes were out of control. We decided it wouldn’t be worth it to infect anyone, but to work on a building a couple of new routes to make it easier and build a satellite tower we could keep. We were able to accomplish this but this next game just seems impossible. It also just feels awful that this is the way its ending. None of us expected that we would have to kill off characters to win. Yeah, it’s the last month, but still, they couldn’t find a more satisfying way to end the game?

During our second game in December we actually managed to pull off a win. I have no idea how this happened but we did it! Somehow we were able to manage plague cubes, build the supply center in Johannesburg and successfully deliver the sample. Claire, being the Laborer and Architect, was able to make the supply center in Johannesburg early on. She did receive her first scar of the game in the process but it had to be done. The scar she chose was called “weak”. This scar meant that Claire could only hold 3 supply cubes on her character card and that seemed ok because we didn’t see a need for carrying cubes anymore.

Aofie was the character we decided should self-inflect because she had room on her character card to carry the scars. Also her most useful job as an Administrator would not be helpful in moving the carrier. We were able to build a broadcast station in the red area to give her cards. Once she had the majority of the cards she self-inflicted.

The game couldn’t have been won without Goods. He was essential in managing stockpiles in cities. His Courier action which allowed him to deliver supplies to an adjacent city was huge. Goods was also a Smuggler which helped us out a few times because he could discard a card to move a supply cube from the reserve to the city that was discarded.

Once Aofie was infected and had moved herself towards Newt he was able to move her on his turn all of the way to Johannesburg. He did this because he was a Coordinator and as a free action he could move a pawn to his location if they were in an adjacent location. We thought this was the only way a special ability could move the carrier because it was still a drive/ferry and Aofie had all of the cards necessary to discard to enter the city.

After winning we were able to draw the final legacy cards. We thought they were a bit anticlimactic. I don’t know what we really expected but it just seemed like after spending a year on this game the whole ending was not what we expected. We learned that the world now belonged to the Faded and non-Faded. We tallied up our score and got 719. With this score we found that we had persevered and saved some cities. There are hopes that the Faded, non-Faded, and Hollow Men can co-exist.

Even though we felt the first season was better we are anxiously awaiting season 3.

Bloggings, Gaming

Pandemic Legacy 2: October and November

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This game is getting hard. October was weird because we were now able to use the satellite towers to communicate with the Hollow Men. We had to move the Hollow Men into 3 different havens to win October. The objective of building 3 supply centers was also still there. We thought that by moving the Hollow Men into the havens we could get them on our side and it would also help us move around the world more freely.

We were able to complete October with a win on the first try and to be honest I didn’t keep many notes about the game so I’m not going to say much.

November was a different story. In November we were told to destroy the objectives of building 3 new supply centers and get hollow men to defect. Now we had only one new objective to complete: complete the plan. The plan was we had to recon in Shanghai with 4 different recon missions. The nice thing about this was we didn’t need a supply center in Shanghai to recon. We had to Locate Hidden Entrance with 5 different red cards, Decode Access Key with 4 different black cards, Devise Distraction with 3 different yellow cards, and Prepare Containment Units with 3 different blue cards.

We knew this objective would be impossible because we didn’t have 5 different red cards yet. So we worked hard and completed 3 out of 4 recons and we accessed new red cities like crazy. With our game end upgrades we made sure to upgrade city cards to make them red cards. Even though we lost it still felt like a win and productive.

The second half of November was pretty hard. We are struggling now with keeping supply cubes on cities to avoid plague cubes. Things were not feeling great but all of the sudden the cards fell into place. We had one of the cards that could be any color and another card that could either be it’s original yellow or red. We even got lucky and on our way to complete the plan we drew another red card and was able to recon Jarkarta. Luckily Claire has the ability to recon without a supply center. With the recon we found another lost haven. We were told the haven was in ruins and we named it Assie (because all of our havens begin with A and this is in Australia). We are able to recon here if we get the opportunity. It felt good to win this game.

By completing the plan we accessed Utopia. Things seemed to get crazy when we did this though, we now have 8 Utopia infections cards and 4 more Hollow Men cards.