Another yuletide has come and gone and here's what I did this year. On Christmas Eve, I went out Christmas shopping and the weather decided to punish me for my procrastination with bucketing rain. Soaked to the bone, I managed to buy something for everyone. My family came from Canada to visit me in France, allowing me to see them in person for the first time in four months, which in of itself was a great present. They were pretty jet-lagged, but we managed to make it to our apartment (which was much nicer than my tiny studio apartment), where we set up a small artificial Christmas tree, Christmas lights, and put out our presents. Just as we were about to watch a movie before going to bed, the power went out, so they decided to go to sleep while I tried to entertain myself. I managed to fix the power before my laptop battery ran out, though, so I didn't die of boredom.

Christmas morning, we opened our presents. I got:

-Artemis Fowl and the Atlantis Complex

-City of Secrets

-Civilization V

-A bunch of those Parker Bros. card games

-A novelty t-shirt

-Miscellaneous chocolates

After spending a few days in our apartment with me showing my family around, we were unfortunately unable to visit my great aunt and uncle (who had taken ill), so we instead drove to a town just outside of Dijon, where we stayed in a nice, homey hotel for the night, which we had all to ourselves. Consequently, I decided to explore the place at night. To heighten the adventure, the doors were all unlocked, so it was a pretty exciting adventure. The next day, we drove to Paris to spend the week there before my family would go back to Canada and I would go back to finishing my year in France.

So yeah... add me on Steam (name in the content block) if you want to face me in Civ 5, but give me some time to get used to it. Not being able to pile a billion units in one square kind of ruins a few of my strategies.