So I have loved reading everyone's blog entries. It is always great to see everyone doing so well. Tom, you will look at all these great experiences fondly. Like Tom, I had an experience unique to Europe this weekend. I got to got to "Essen" which is the boardgaming equivalent of the detroit auto show, or the videogame equivalent of E3. Basically thousands of people descend on Essen (near Cologne-Dusseldorf) and check out all the new releases for the year. Most the games are only available at the show and then several months later or never in the states. So for me, it was likely a once in a lifetime experience. 12 Halls of hundreds of game stables and "coaches" to show you how they are played so you can get going right away. I played a lot between shopping. So here is what I grabbed. I am sure some of you will get to play if you visit!

It would have been a ton more fun with friends (especially Brooke) but the people were very nice and I got to play a lot of games.

Space Alert - Czech- A cooperative-times game where you have to plan a work cycle as a timer ticks down and then you replay everyone's plans actions to see if you space ship is destroyed. Very funny. It forces cooperation. Perfect for the teacher's quorum that is not getting along.

Krakow 1325 A.D. - Dutch - A game where you play as partners but you are secretly playing for yourself also. Only one winner. Great artwork.

Wasabi - American? - Try to create sushi recipes out of ingredient tiles all on the same board to match your recipes to gain points while everyone else tries to get their recipes.

Powerboats - Dutch - A racing game with powerboats (what else?) that uses various numbers of dice to replicate boat movement. Very creative game. I played it several times at the fair.

Chicago Express - American - Train investing game. Would take to long to describe but it was my favorite game of the show.

Le Havre - German - A resource management game that focuses on the famous French port city by the designer of a recently very popular Euro-game called Agricola. Agricola is currently the highest rated game in the world so getting the limited edition of this follow-up was one of the main goals of everyone at the fair.

Comuni - Italian - A typical European game (Catan is the classic Euro style game). The rick with this one is that you have to cooperate in the common defense of your towns several times during the game.

Ghost Stories - French - A cooperative game like Shadows over Camelot with a chinese folklore/ghost theme. Very unique and popular. It sold out at the fair.

Fairy Tale - Japanese - I know the name sounds gay but this is a very good card game that we already own and love. Ellyn destroyed some of the cards so this new release with better artwork was an easy purchase decision.

Giants - French - Set on Easter Island, it is a race to get your workers to carry the big Moai statues to their resting positions on the beach. Beautiful game parts.

The Princes of Machu Picchu - German - A worker placement game set in the famous city in Peru (Book of Mormnon picture?). Another one with beautiful components. One of the big "crazes" at the show that was getting great feedback but I did not get to play it...yet.

Um Reifinbreite - German - Older game I picked up for cheap. It is a very popular game based on bicycle racing.

Dorn - Czech - Ok, this game is total nerd but amazing pencil drawn art fantasy game. Kind of a combo of D&D and chess. Likely very hard to get in the states.

Snow Tails - Scottish - race sled dogs down tracks. very fun and humorous.

Memoir '44 Expansion - English - One of my favorite games released this Mediterranean theater expansion at the fair.



31 more days!

Mike