27 DECEMBER
Boxing day was full of activities that drained a considerable amount of energy out of the guests and the Hideaway household so they sleep late on Dec 27. That's why they have brunch instead of breakfast. When they feel full enough, they realise there is a heavy snow fall outside.
Weather not permitting any outdoor activities, they make up their minds to stay inside and play board games. The Finns introduce a famous Finnish board game called The Star of Africa, one of the best-selling games ever in Finland, and quite well-known elsewhere, esp in Nordic countries. In this game the ultimate objective is to find the Star of Africa before anybody else does and take it back to either Cairo or Tangiers. While travelling in Africa, the players can get more money, which helps them go more quickly from place to place by plane or be robbed out of their money, which forces them to proceed more slowly. However, to add more suspense to the game, anybody who finds a horseshoe and goes to the finish, to Cairo or Tangiers, before the possessor of the Star, is the winner. Nevertheless, a horseshoe becomes valuable only after the Star is found.