And I'm back.
Actually, I've been back for almost a week now, but been busy catching up on things and just enjoying my last days of vacation.
Had a wonderful time. Though also more adventurous than expected. Sudden heavy snowfall back in The Netherlands made travel by train quite... painful. My mom and I traveled to France (where my parents have a second home) in two stages; first to my brother's place and then the next day to Belgium (where dad picked us up with the car for the rest of the journey).
We went to my brother's on Friday, which was the first day of snow and we didn't quite realize the havoc it was wreaking on public transportation. We ended up waiting forever in a sort-of traffic jam of trains before Amsterdam and after that the trains were absolutely packed (as there were far fewer trains going). I felt for those in the train with us going on to the airport though as I heard that most flights were canceled that evening. The next day we decided to still go on despite the weather (as the following days the weather was predicted to only get worse) and luckily it went all right despite being a longer trip... except for the nearly three hours of waiting on a delayed train to Bruxelles on a very cold train station. We arrived safely and with fairly little trouble at our destination, ready for two weeks of vacation.
Though that wasn't all of it yet. Due to the snowfall we spent over two days without electricity. Which was quite... inconvenient. Without electricity we had no heating (except for a wood stove which thankfully kept the living room warm) and no running water (except for a hand-pump). We got food from neighbors that we could heat up on the stove and in the evening read books by candlelight. And we made a merry dance when finally the electricity came back.
The rest of the time there was thankfully uneventful. Read a number of books (Guild Wars: Ghosts of Ascalon, Star Wars The Old Republic: Fatal Alliance, Jacqueline Carey's Naamah's Curse and a number more). Though my favorite (next to Jacqueline Carey's) was definitely Sarah Waters' Tipping the Velvet. A departure from my usual fare (i.e. not fantasy or sci-fi), but definitely quite wonderful. Luckily I don't think my parents figured out what "tipping the velvet" meant (nor did I until it was explained near the end of the book).
Also saw a lot of movies (Unthinkable, Clash of the Titans, Red, Robin Hood), but none that really stood out that much. They were nice enough, but none of them truly great imho.
After a week with my parents both my brothers and their families came over too. Luckily they had no trouble with the snow. But it truly was a white Christmas, to the point that I've had enough white Christmas to last me a decade. I still love the snow, love how it looks, but all that trouble it causes I can do without.
Got a number of gifts too, including book 13 in the Wheel of Time series (which I also read before my vacation was over; I have to say that I'm enjoying the writing of the new author a bit better than Robert Jordan's original writing), Guild Wars Factions and Guild Wars Nightfall (neither of which I've had much time to play yet) and a few movies on DVD including Avatar.
Oh, and I had to get not one but two cavities filled by the dentist (once I got back to The Netherlands). Not sure if that counts as a Christmas gift (probably not since I have to pay for it myself).
Then once I got back home had nearly a month of game news to catch up on, several television series to catch up on, play Lord of the Rings Online with friends (who had been holding back from leveling as much as possible while I was gone), etc. Also got invited into the Rift beta over the weekend which was pretty much as I expected it to be; solidly put together, but about as standard as MMOs come. The rift mechanics are fun at first but indeed quickly become boring and what's worse is that they interfere with the rest of the game (spawning on top of quest, quest npcs, outpost, etc disabling whatever's in the area as they do). If you like standard MMO design (WoW, LotRO, EQ2, etc) and want something new, and don't mind paying a monthly fee (where LotRO you can play for free), then it might be alright but otherwise I don't see what it has to offer.
Anyway, I'm back now; you probably weren't waiting to get a rundown of my holiday, but too late now.
So Happy New Year to you all and I hope that you all had a wonderful time as well.
Love -x-x-x-
Shir'le
