Green Board Games

Thanks to my cousin Ela and her friend Ania, recently I had a chance to play two board games, which were completely new to me. Funny coincidence was that they were both mostly green.

Shear Panic /pol. Owczy Pęd/
When Ela told me about this game for the first time, I told her that I've seen some friends of mine playing it once and I didn't like it too much. Ela was quite suprised coz I was not enthusiastic about it at all. Next time we met, she told me about this game once again, about how lovely the figures are... and I asked: "What figures???". It turned out that when she told me about Shear Panic for the first time, I confused it with a different game which also has sheeps as main characters.
After seeing those adorable sheeps, I can't be critical about this game anymore. They're just too pretty!

My own summary of this game is: cute chess, and that is more or less what it is about - the board is similar to chess and strategy plays the main role. The difference is that Shear Panic is a game up to 4 players or 4 groups of players. I believe that its difficulty level depends on the players.
What else can I say? Niiiccceeeeeee!

Keltis
The other game we played that night was Keltis. The game is based on cards mainly but also on the board which includes some stones, magic diamonds and shamrocks. Players have different colors of shamrocks - mine was white- and their aim in the game is to collect as many cards in the right order as possible, what enables them to collect many magic diamonds which are being converted into points at the end of the game.

It is perfect to play with people who get scared when the see regular cards. In reality, Keltis is a very friendly looking card game.

Both of those games are perfectly adjusted to the needs of the XXIst century customer. Classic stuff in new layouts... and that's what everybody loves!

Stylish Evil Eye

Every culture has its own traditions and superstitions. One of the things that all Mediterranean countries have in common is the amulet, most commonly called the Evil Eye. The superstition about this amulet is that it is supposed to protect a person who has it, from envious and jealous people.

Before, I used to think that those blue shaped things sold in the bazaars and souvenir shops are just things for tourists. What a surprise it was discovering, after I made friends in Turkey, that the Evil Eye is an amulet, a symbol that is really present in their daily lives.
Since then I've been finding it where only it was possible: necklaces, bracelets and rings for both - boys and girls, tea glasses, tablecloths, carpets, door, bags and so on, but it still was not the end.

One sunny Monday afternoon by the Bosphorus, while I was having a tea with my long time no see friend, her sister called to tell that she just left the beautician and that she is coming to join us. As soon as she showed up, it turned out that she just had her manicure and pedicure done and there wouldn't be anything special about it, if not two little details - one on her fingernail and the other one on her toe nail. These were nothing else than the Evil Eyes!

Personally, I'm not a huge fan of crazy colors nail painting but in this case I really loved to see how the elegance nicely matched with a bit of extravagance.

Hello! Yellow?

Listen to the song "Yellow" by Coldplay

Carpet stories

If carpets could speak, they would tell us fascinating stories. Not only about flying, but even better ones, about lying in one place for years.

Mother's Day

When is Mother's Day in your country?

In Poland it is always on the 26th of May, which is not accidentally today.
Two weeks ago I've been to Istanbul, where one afternoon, my friend's aunt served a piece of cake after lunch and mentioned that it was left after Mother's Day. I asked immediately when do they celebrate it in Turkey and she told me that it's always the 2nd Sunday of May.

It reminded me, that in previous year, while I was in Portugal, it was even different - the 1st Sunday of May.
Because of my curiosity, I've made a small research (about the countries that are tagged on my blog) and it turned out that most of them celebrates Mother's Day on the same day as Turkey, for example Japan, Czech Republic, Ukraine or Belgium. Also, Spain celebrates it on the same day as Portugal but France is a bit odd and delays until the last Sunday of May.

The conclusion should be that, if someone travels too often and pays attention to local holidays, then that person's Mum, may start thinking that her child became crazy, if she was given wishes and presents over few times in May!