Luxor, Egypt

I was away on a two-week vacation to Luxor, Egypt. It was my first actual paid vacation. I'm 27, so I guess I'm a bit late to that train, but it did feel good and did the recharging trick pretty well. It's the middle of the winter and very dark in Finland. It was good to get some sun in and be really away from the day to day.

I did miss videogames out there. I played some Dweller on the phone, but nothing more. Once I got sick and had to stay in for a couple of days, in the very cold apartment (+14 centigrade), I was longing for some multiplayer Soul Calibur II or Dead Or Alive 3. Something relaxing to take the mind off the boredom and the cold. I read the books I had along before craving for videogames, though, so I guess I'm not that hopeless. But I sure hope I had brought some card games along! Like Mythos, Pokémon and INWO - I was quite a bit into the collectible card game thing back when they were new.

Our group was mostly students of Egyptology. We didn't have a paid guide, but the trip was organized by a former guide. We got to know some interesting people over there and two weeks of free time is quite enough to get to know a small city like Luxor (150K inhabitants). Some culture shock did set in, in the end, but I got to like the atmosphere a lot before that.

When I came back, I played some Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow, but that's been about it. Too much quality TV occupying the free time right now: backlogs of Shield, Survivor and Desperate Housewives. Deadwood and Galactica open this week in Finland, too, so lots of tube time heading my way.