I had this weird dream last night, weird and very vivid too. Vivid and weirdly enough to make me write about it.

The first part of it, it’s a little blurry, I was back home, in Puerto Rico on some kind of school trip. I remember being sitting in the yellow school bus. Many of my high school friends were there, I remember each of their faces. Where we were going and where we ended up, I do not remember.

All of a sudden, I’m on the rooftop of a tall building. There were other much taller buildings around me, all with glass windows. Kind of like the one you might have seen in the movie The Matrix. Like the one Trinity hits when escaping the helicopter that is about to clash to the building. On that roof, was also my father, and we were talking. I was asking him questions. I do not remember the questions nor the answers, but I suspect there were related to my mom and their relationship…

As we were talking, all of a sudden, an aerial type show, and there were a few dozens on planes of different kinds and shapes flying and doing tricks in the air and synchronized, it was cool. I remember I took one of my phones out off my pocket and started recording, “I need to share this with the guys in the chat!”, I said to myself. Once the spectacle was ended, a big airplane appeared, it was like one of those Boeing 737. It was sort of suspended midair right next to the building I was on. And someone down on the ground announced some in the lines of, “now, this plane is going to come down, cut through the tall building’s side, and windows without collapsing it”.

Somehow, I grabbed my backpack and jumped into the airplane as I wanted to be part of it, there were more “passengers”. The plane flys down, slowly, it’s right-wing cutting through the glass and the building is not collapsing.

We get to the ground, safe and sound, but I remember I had forgotten my backpack in the plane. Then I was told, “oh no, everything in the plane it’s pretty much lost at this point, here”. The guy handed me a detailed list of all the items I had lost. It had listed my camera and all the lenses I had, a couple of random items and my two phones. Then I started thinking, “how am I going to tell my boss I have lost the company’s phone”.

Then I was at the airport, looking for a flight home, and home was Puerto Rico, I remember the ticket had as its final destination SJU. I was freaking out because I had no face mask, it was in my lost backpack and I had no money to buy one. Not only that, but I remember telling myself or thinking, “just don’t touch anything and if you do, wash your hands and don’t touch your face”. Once I found my gate I realized I still had to go through some kind of TSA like checkpoint. I was in line and there was this kid asking something to his that, I don’t remember what, but I remember it was in a “dumb-like” manner and the guys behind me started laughing and making fun of the kid. The kid’s dad turns around and yell at the guys and whatnot, and I sigh, and do a facepalm expression. Then I realize I had touched my face and I go…

“FUCK, NOW I HAVE COVID!!!”

And then I woke up.

The End

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla on the Xbox One.

Normally, when I post one of these, it is usually within the first few days or at least a week after first starting the game. This one though, it is a hundred and forty hours after the fact.

It is no secret whatsoever that I am a huge fan of the Assassin’s Creed franchise. I have played pretty much every major title since the first one, and I am still a big fan to this date. For the longest time the Ezio Saga, if you will, had been my favorite until AC Origins. I am a sucker for Egyptian everything, so that was right up my aisle. And then Odyssey came out, and then that one was my favorite (😂). And now, Valhalla.

Basically, what I am trying to say here is that Ubisoft has found a way to make these games better and better, taking the good things about them and improve upon them. Making each iteration better and better, to me, at least. AC Origins I replayed that one at least 3 times, and so Odyssey.

In Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, you take the role of Eivor Varinsdottir (male or female), A Viking rider in Norway and long story short, you set out to England, against the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. Why, well because they can, and they will. If you have played Origins and or Odyssey, the game play and game mechanics are very similar. The same exploration sense of it, parkour and more parkour, leap of faith “eagle” (or raven in this game) vision. All the things that make and Assassin’s Creed and AC game.

In addition to all of that, you have the raids, basically as the word implies, you raid towns, military bases and Monasteries. By doing these raids you gain materials and supplies that will allow you to improve and buildup your settlement. By improving your settlement you get access to some perks which are somewhat necessary to progress in the game as you can upgrade your gear, stats and such. Raids are mostly besides the main story, they are sort of like side-boat-quests kind of thing. In this game, you can either travel by land or by water. I often choose to travel mostly by land simply because you can train your mount to be faster, with more stamina and to swim. So, once you can swim, well, you just go and forget you have a boat (or at least I did), until you want to go to town and do some raids.

The main story of this game it’s pretty huge, I believe people in the internets and some reviewers say about 70-80 hours, or something like that, full of good story telling, and lore My first play though was about 110 hours. The reason why is that I was having so much fun with the game that at any moment that I felt like I was close to the end, I would go out of my way and do side quests, which this game has a lot of the side quests. Some side quests can be, simple word events, like helping someone. Some others are cursed areas, and you need to lift the curse. There can be some secret missions, secret items, drinking games, and some dice game called Orlog, which I had a hard time understanding it at first, not going to lie. And all these side quests are scattered all over the map and the map its massive!

Often times I found myself just going around the map hunting for specific armor pieces and going into areas where I wasn’t supposed to, given my current level.

Now, I am not certain if this is going to be a little spoilery, talking about then protagonist’s dreams.

So, I guess this is a warning ⚠️ - ish

Anyhow, at some point in the game you visit some dreams, some visions you’re having. And they are very Norse Mythology driven or related and that was a lot of fun to play. Although I enjoyed playing it, I did not appreciate that part of the game on my first play through as much as I did the second time. In between play throughs I was listening to the audiotape Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman, and then I realized that most of the missions in that part of the story, where Nordic tales, somewhat adapted to fit that part of the game. They weren’t word by word or event by event, but I would say pretty close, and it was awesome to see an adaptation of those stories in the game.

So, yes as you may have gathered by now, once I finish the game I started a second save file. This time around I am focusing more on the main story line, not doing much of the side quests and whatnot. Making different decisions and different approach.

If you’d ask me “Gaby, shall I get this game?”, I’ll say abso-fucking-lutely”! If you are willing to put in the time that is. The game is a lot of fun, I got this game for Christmas and, in between the two plays throughs I’ve got about 130 hours. And just today, as I am posting this, they came out with a new update that adds more raids and missions to the game, so let’s see how many more hours I’ll be putting on this one (😅)

I believe the game now, the standard edition can be acquired or less than 40.00 USD, but if you’re like me, you’ll be spending way more on it as you can buy armors, weapons, and other goodies from the Ubisoft Store 😜

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla on the Xbox One.

Normally, when I post one of these, it is usually within the first few days or at least a week after first starting the game. This one though is a hundred and forty hours after the fact.

It is no secret whatsoever that I am a huge fan of the Assassin’s Creed franchise. I have played pretty much every major title since the first one, and I am still a big fan to this date. For the longest time the Ezio Saga, if you will, had been my favorite until AC Origins. I am a sucker for Egyptian everything, so that was right up my aisle. And then Odyssey came out, and then that one was my favorite (😂). And now, Valhalla.

Basically, what I am trying to say here is that Ubisoft has found a way to make these games better and better, taking the good things about them and improving upon them. Making each iteration better and better, to me, at least. AC Origins I replayed that one at least 3 times, and so Odyssey.

In Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, you take the role of Eivor Varinsdottir (male or female), A Viking rider in Norway, and long story short, you set out to England, against the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. Why, well because they can, and they will. If you have played Origins and or Odyssey, the gameplay and game mechanics are very similar. The same exploration sense of it, parkour and more parkour, leap of faith “eagle” (or raven in this game) vision. All the things that make an Assassin’s Creed and AC game.

In addition to all of that, you have the raids, basically, as the word implies, you raid towns, military bases, and Monasteries. By doing these raids you gain materials and supplies that will allow you to improve and buildup your settlement. By improving your settlement you get access to some perks which are somewhat necessary to progress in the game as you can upgrade your gear, stats, and such. Raids are mostly beside the main story, they are sort of like side-boat-quests kind of thing. In this game, you can either travel by land or by water. I often choose to travel mostly by land simply because you can train your mount to be faster, with more stamina, and to swim. So, once you can swim, well, you just go and forget you have a boat (or at least I did), until you want to go to town and do some raids.

The main story of this game it’s pretty huge, I believe people on the internet and some reviewers say about 70-80 hours, or something like that, full of good storytelling, and lore My first playthrough was about 110 hours. The reason why is that I was having so much fun with the game that at any moment that I felt like I was close to the end, I would go out of my way and do side quests, which this game has a lot of side quests. Some side quests can be, simple word events, like helping someone. Some others are cursed areas, and you need to lift the curse. There can be some secret missions, secret items, drinking games, and some dice game called Orlog, which I had a hard time understanding it at first, not going to lie. And all these side quests are scattered all over the map and the map is massive!

Often times I found myself just going around the map hunting for specific armor pieces and going into areas where I wasn’t supposed to, given my current level.

Now, I am not certain if this is going to be a little spoilery, talking about the protagonist’s dreams.

So, I guess this is a warning ⚠️ - ish

Anyhow, at some point in the game you visit some dreams, some visions you’re having. And they are very Norse Mythology driven or related and that was a lot of fun to play. Although I enjoyed playing it, I did not appreciate that part of the game on my first play-through as much as I did the second time. In between play-throughs, I was listening to the audiotape Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman, and then I realized that most of the missions in that part of the story, where Nordic tales, somewhat adapted to fit that part of the game. They weren’t worded by word or event by event, but I would say pretty close, and it was awesome to see an adaptation of those stories in the game.

So, yes as you may have gathered by now, once I finish the game I started a second save the file. This time around I am focusing more on the main storyline, not doing much of the side quests and whatnot. Making different decisions and different approaches.

If you’d ask me “Gaby, shall I get this game?”, I’ll say abso-fucking-lutely”! If you are willing to put in the time that is. The game is a lot of fun, I got this game for Christmas and, in between the two plays throughs, I’ve got about 130 hours. And just today, as I am posting this, they came out with a new update that adds more raids and missions to the game, so let’s see how many more hours I’ll be putting on this one (😅)

I believe the game now, the standard edition can be acquired or less than 40.00 USD, but if you’re like me, you’ll be spending way more on it as you can buy armors, weapons, and other goodies from the Ubisoft Store 😜

I was having a hard time thinking about this challenge and what to post for whatever reason. The first that kept coming back to my mind was some postal cards we got from the hospital staff al back in 2014.

Back in 2013, we had news that we were expecting our first, a baby boy, Alexander Gabriel Santiago. Things are a little blurry now, but I remember January 1st of 2014, we went to see The Hobbit, things went not good that night, and on January second of 2014, Alex was born, at 21 weeks of age, and sadly, he did not make it.

Today’s photo challenge, Compassion, made me thinking of these events. We have a box, where we keep anything related to Alex. Today, I opened it and looked through it, Marley and Luna joined. They asked, asked about the tiny footprints and other items, I told them it was their big brother’s, and he’s now watching over them. And I found the kind words we received from the hospital staff.

It was very unexpected for us to receive messages of comfort and compassion from the hospital staff. And we were very grateful and certainly helped our spirits.

And as you can imagine, we don’t watch the Hobbit very often….