At the fair yesterday I bought a game called "Bohnanza". It has a bright yellow box with crazy looking cartoon vegetables on it. (Bohne is the german word for Bean, so Bohnanza is a silly play on that) I thought it wouldn't be a big thing to translate the directions and learn how to play. Then we'd have something to do, since the weather has been so crummy. It's about 45 degrees and foggy out. Laura hasn't seen the mountains yet.
I was very wrong about the game. I could not for the life of me figure out how to play the game, besides: a player must have 5 cards in their hand. We tried for about an hour to figure out how to play, or to make up some passable rules for ourselves, but the barometric pressure was dropping, and the apartment was getting smaller by the minute. At about 7 minutes to 5 I said "I saw UNO at the co-op. If we run, we can get there before it closes" We ended up getting Yatzee (or Yatzy in German) and for the record: I am the (unofficial) reigning Yatzee champion of Adelboden.
Yup, pretty exciting times in the Alps when the mountains are not out.
Jen, my Chalet-neighbor, ended up going to Bunderspitz today. She came home around 8:30 and reported that she made it to the top but only by climbing through snow and hail. When she got to the top she discovered that the trail to the other side of the mountain was impassable so she had to slide back down the mountain on her butt. I think Yatzee was a good choice today.
Jen is the program assistant and she's from Finland. She's also a very good sport. She translated the Bohnanza game instructions for me. It wasn't very easy for her (since neither german nor english are her first language) and there was lots of head scratching and at one point she said "What possessed you to buy this?" Laura said "At least it wasn't a 2000 CHF coffee machine". Humph.
The game isn't as exciting as the deranged cartoon green-bean on the cover makes it look. The object of the game is to collect the most money by "growing" and "harvesting" crops of beans. It's my new favorite game though, because I've invested so much in learning to play it.
In other news: I joined the Adelboden Library. It costs (COSTS!) 40 CHF a year. But, I've already spent more than that on books since I've gotten here. I don't get much of a return on that investment either since I can't read them yet. I'm making progress with my german though and I'm currently working on a delightful book with large print and pictures entitled Hase Schnuffi--Schnuffi the Bunny.
1 comment:
It's also fun to learn a new language by reading cooking magazine recipes. In Italy, there were special magazines put out seasonally and had lots of different dishes with photos. Try it - you'll like it.
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