Luck be a (cat) lady tonight

Monopoly - The cat, you and us

One of the good things about the holiday season here in Barcelona is that it lasts until the 6th of January where we celebrate the Three Kings tradition – ok, in winter I feel like we are traditions hoarders ;) – and this year I was lucky (and quite rarely, let me admit) to have enough vacation days left to take all the season off from work until just yesterday. Don’t get me started on how hard the comeback was, so to cheer myself up a little today I thought it would be great to remember one of those fun afternoons we devoted to board games!

Monopoly - The cat, you and us Monopoly - The cat, you and us

The wooden case has neat built-in spaces to hold the bank money, houses and streets deeds. Dani likes to play the role of the bank.

Monopoly - The cat, you and us Monopoly - The cat, you and us

Dani loves Monopoly, I think we have talked about this before in one of our Q&A posts (my favorite classic game would be Trivial instead). The monopoly is a board game that you need to have enough time ahead or you already know that you won’t be finishing it; in fact the game you can see in pictures was played in two different days: 4-ish hours for the first one and 1-ish for the second part.

Ours is a retro edition that represents the streets of Madrid, comes in a wooden box and metallic tokens. We also know that exists a Monopoly with the streets of Barcelona and some special editions (Simpsons and so on…). Do you have a Monopoly? I’m curious about which cities are represented in yours!

Monopoly - The cat, you and us Monopoly - The cat, you and us

You got me! I’m using the Juno trick, she has a sixth sense for board games. If only she could stay put for more than a couple minutes ;)

Monopoly - The cat, you and us Monopoly - The cat, you and us

Of course thanks to Juno I won, but don’t worry I paid her back with lots of (unwanted) love!

Which are your favorite classic games? Do you know any shortcut for a Monopoly game? Do you have any special tips that makes you instantly the winner? Since Juno won’t tell us her monopoly success secrets, we ask yours!

Share this adventure


20 Comments

  1. annie lee ADDS...

    you and your cat… so cute together :D

    8th January 2015
    • We reply...

      *blush* Juno takes all the credit, no doubts about this :)

  2. Jane Y. ADDS...

    Yangkyu loves Monopoly too. Me not too much because I never win! I love Clue though – so does Yangkyu and so we end up playing that more. We had the wooden version of Monopoly but gave it away after we had to move multiple times. We bought a new one few months ago – Nintendo version! :)

    8th January 2015
    • We reply...

      Clue! I was looking also for the wooden version, so we are still waiting until we find that one to include it on our board game collection. Dani just got Sherlock Holmes and it looks very neat, we’ll let you know :) Nintendo! I remember a picture on your blog, how cool must be that version! What are the streets after?

  3. Kathryn ADDS...

    I am probably the worst Monopoly player in the world – I need Juno on my team! ;) I do love a Friday night with friends and board games though. Lately we’ve been playing one called Resistance where you have to pass a mission, but some people are secret spies that try to sabotage it. It’s a quick game but addictive!

    xx Kathryn
    http://www.throughthethicket.ca

    8th January 2015
    • We reply...

      Juno would love to join your side, she likes challenge! hahaha, just kidding! :) Monopoly depends a lot on how lucky you’re with the dice so you stop on consecutive streets. The most streets together you have the harder for the others to avoid them, oh! and train stations those are good. Resistance sounds great, definitely adding it to our list.

  4. Ice Pandora ADDS...

    I used to play Monopoly a lot when I was little :P
    I even made my own version of Monopoly out of
    cardboard haha :’)
    Man you have the wooden box version! Very neat!
    I also like: Guess who? Labyrinth, Cluedo, UNO,
    Battleship, Scrabble… Solitude? :P Xx

    8th January 2015
    • We reply...

      Aw, your own version sounds so cute! You gathered here a great list of classic games, all favorites.

  5. petra ADDS...

    looks like fun. we just had our galettes des rois yesterday and were wondering if in Spain, you have the same tradition [with the little figurine in the cake]?

    9th January 2015
    • We reply...

      We totally have the same tradition! We call the cake “roscón de reyes”, a ring-shaped cake with fillings such as cream or chocolate. We usually have two figurines inside, one is the king, which means that you’ll have a lucky year and another is the bean which means you must pay the cake to have the same luck… and you don’t want to know how will be otherwise, so everyone pays! ;)

  6. Fiona ADDS...

    This entry is funny for me because out of all the boardgames and my two big boxes of them, neatly labelled “board games I play the most” and “board games I play the least” monopoly doesn’t even exist. I wont go as far to say I’m a hater but I do hate that it last soooo long! lol, I remember in high school a few all nighter sessions and by the end giving in because I want to sleep (which is weird for me because I’m a tad competitive!).

    I also think the rules are a bit loose, which maybe goes back to being competitive, I’m suspicious of sneaky trades and people bending the rules :P My little bro LOVESS monopoly and always wants me to play, I think he has the star wars one, or maybe the Australia version?!? I just went to google the different types to see if it would spark my memory and holy moly there are soooo many….
    http://monopoly.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_Monopoly_Games_%28Board%29
    (Clearly i’m one of few people in the World that passes on monopoly :P)

    Maybe I need to give monopoly one last go before I totally rule it out!

    9th January 2015
    • We reply...

      Hahahahhaa, how I can understand you, I’m the same: nooooo Dani, it’s too long, too long :) but I have to admit that while I’m on it my inner competitiveness raises and I always have fun. Oh! Star Wars! I didn’t remember this one, so cool. Australia also seems cute with the koala tokens and main cities of the country. What an incredible large list of Monopoly editions in the wikipedia! :)

  7. Anna ADDS...

    Que xules les fotos i la vostra versió del Monopoly! Tot i que jo també sóc més de trivial (definitivament de trivial, vaja, el monopoly m’aclapara per complet), i cada any toca jugar-hi amb la família per nadal. És molt divertit, sobretot perquè es generen unes rivalitats terribles, hahaha… Que xulo el penjoll de colors pastels! Com ha anat la tornada a la rutina? Jo fins dilluns, però l’estrés postvacacional ja m’ha començat avui, ufff…

    9th January 2015
    • We reply...

      Veig que ets de les meves (Trivial!) :) Com t’entenc amb lo del estrés postvacacional, espero que el dilluns hagi anat bé (dintre el que pot anar bé la tornada a la feina…ufff) – un petó been fort!

  8. Fiona ADDS...

    I remember playing the Australia edition as a kid (not sure if we still have that copy) but I always wanted to be the koala!! Picking the token was perhaps my favourite thing :P (I’ll stop being mean to monopoly now!)

    10th January 2015
    • We reply...

      :) :) hahahahahaa, “mean” Fiona is fun! ;)

  9. My family never plays monopoly or chess together, because it usually results in heated arguments haha. We like to play Clue or Uno together :) It’s so great that you had some downtime before the holidays were over and you had to get back to work. I came straight from my family vacation back to school to start my winter training trip with the swim team! Luckily the team and I flew to a warmer location to have our training trip. The condos we’re staying in are by the beach, so we can spend whatever free time we have relaxing there! -Audrey | Brunch at Audrey’s

    11th January 2015
    • We reply...

      Oh! Lucky about your training trip with some relaxing time, going back to work/school after xmas days sure must be smoother if you’re able to be by the beach. xxx

  10. Louise ADDS...

    Ohhh, Monopoly is amazing! I play it too little though. In Holland the regular edition is with all the bigger cities in Holland, like Amsterdam, The Hague, Rotterdam, Groningen, Utrecht, and with a few of their most famous/popular (shopping)streets. The most expensive one is the Kalverstaat in Amsterdam, everyone always seems to want to have that one haha.

    11th January 2015
    • We reply...

      Fun to learn that Holland’s edition is a combination of famous streets and cities :) I usually try to buy also the most expensive but finally I’ve realized that Dani almost never lands on the last streets in the board, he always goes right away to the exit box.

Leave your comment

  • (will not be published)

(*) Comments are moderated, we will approve it soon!