Wednesday was my roommate’s birthday (just two days after mine). For her birthday, we didn’t really do much as a whole, but her mother and boyfriend did come to Jávea to celebrate with her. Apparently her mom came to take her out to lunch and her boyfriend came to take her out to dinner. It was my first time meeting her mom, but I had seen her boyfriend several times.
When I got home from my valenciano class I met her mom and I sat down and talked and watched TV with them for a while. My other roommate was in the room also working on her computer. After talking for a while, her boyfriend showed up (he surprised her) and my roommate thought that it would be fun for us to play a game called Callejeros Viajeros. I actually forgot that we had the game here. It has been sitting on a shelf in the living room collecting dust ever since my roommate bought it. My roommate and I did play the game once, but about an hour after playing, both of us realized that we weren’t going to win anytime soon so we just stopped and went to bed.
Anyway, although it is a little difficult, I really like Callejeros Viajeros. This game is based solely on your knowledge of the world. Each person has a card with 5 different cities on it from all around the world. When it’s a person’s turn, he or she rolls the dice and moves his or her game piece to that number of spaces on the board. Then another player picks up a game card with 3 questions on it about a city and reads the questions for that player. If the player lands on one of the cities on their cards then they have to answer the 3 questions (correctly) about their city, and if they answer the questions correctly then they get to “take” that city. If the person lands on another space, they have to answer the questions about any other city, and if they answer correctly then they can go again. The objective of the game is to conquer each of the cities on your list, which means that you have to be able to answer all 3 questions correctly about each of your cities. 
In theory, this game sounds feasible, but the truth is, you have to have a good knowledge of geography and history to play the game. Some of the questions are easy, such as “Qué colores tiene la bandera de Francia?” (What are the colors of France’s flag?) Whereas other questions are a bit more difficult like, “Cómo se llama la torre más alta del mundo construida en Dubai?” (What is the name of the tallest tower in the constructed world in Dubai?) I believe that this game would be a lot easier to someone who has travelled the world a bit more. I was actually impressed by the number of Paris questions that I could answer, and this is largely due to the fact that I just visited Paris and learned so much about the different places there. When my roommate and I first played this game, we had to Google search some of the cities just to see where in the world they were located. One thing about this game that’s for sure is that you are definitely learning a lot while you are playing it.
Another reason why I like this game is because, even though everything is in Spanish, I can still understand it and I feel like everyone has an equal chance of winning. I couldn’t imagine playing a game like Taboo (my favorite game) with my roommates. I’m not sure that my Spanish vocabulary is profound enough or that I can think quickly enough in Spanish for me to be very successful at that game.
I played Callejeros Viajeros with my roommate and her mom and boyfriend (my other roommate went swimming) and they were having side conversations in valenciano almost the whole time (and I could understand everything!) We played for about an hour and a half and then finally we stopped playing because we realized that no one was going to win anytime soon (no one had even conquered one city!). But I still had a very good time playing and talking with them.
Earlier that day one of my roommates mentioned something that was so true. She said that the whole atmosphere in the piso had changed because we never do anything exciting. She mentioned that all we ever do in the piso is sleep, eat and watch TV. I could definitely agree with this statement. Although I mostly do a lot of writing and other work inside of my room, when I am in the living room with my roommates that is all we ever do. Although we enjoy each other’s company it is still nice to have guests once in a while. Hopefully, we will have more guests and more game nights in the future.
Someone, Anyone… Please come visit me in Jávea!
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