Just like with Chess, my journey on the Magic:The Gathering world began pretty early on, around 1999 when I was only 10 years old.
I actually wrote about MTG 4 years ago on Hive, so if you know what this card game is you might be interested in reading more about my Magic story here. I think 
This Friday I went to a board game coffee shop, where the idea of the owners is to have hundreds of board games free to use, and welcoming any kind of geek to use them while selling them coffee, beer and some snacks. This coffee shop was only a board game styled place for relaxing, but around a year ago the biggest hobby store in this town nearby the city of Puebla, Mexico closed shop because the owner died, and the MTG community was left stranded. Not willing to call it a day, the community searched for options to continue the Magic legacy somewhere close with the same vibe, and they found this place coffee and dragons... which is where I went this Friday.
It took me a couple of minutes to make some friends, begin the nostalgia conversations, talk a little bit about the meta, how the game has changed and what should I need to know if I want to get back to playing and the main guy offered his deck for me to test it out and see if I still got it.
Turns out that I didn't, because I lost the first three games. I played with a counters + token deck against an aura + enchantments deck - if you don't know what Magic is but you are interested, cause you might as well be since you roam a crypto social media platform, then you should check out what Magic is, you might be surprised of how fun and challenging it is. But on the 4th game against a different deck and using the sideboard, I won 4 games in a row.
The store is what any geek would ask for. Tons of merchandise to play role games, board games and card games, an old school store vibe, chill and friendly people and lots of tables to play anything, from Yugioh to Warhammer, from Catan to heroclix... you name it, there's space and people willing to play - or at least willing to learn.
Anyway, I went there with my girlfriend, she was supposed to meet a friend there and then go for a coffee next door - even though we were in a coffee place she wanted me to have my own space - but the friend cancelled, so my gf called her sister and told her to meet her there. While she was waiting for her and watching me play in the meantime, she decided to buy me a back to Magic present while I was too focused in the game to notice. She came back with a 10-booster box from the latest set. I didn't even notice she left it next to me until her sister arrived and she just said "That's yours by the way, I hope it helps you get back on the Magic track". The other dudes were amazed to the point a couple said something along the lines of "my gf doesn't like it when I spend money on this shit and yours gifts you booster packs, I want one like that". I guess I'm lucky lol.
It had been a while since I took some time off from working, posting on Hive, learning JavaScript, working from my treadmill, researching investment opportunities, working again... you get the point. So this was pretty refreshing and even though I only spent 3 hours playing, it seemed as if I never stopped playing and I kept going at this since my last actual game in 2005ish.
I guess I'm going back there this next Friday provided that I have some spare time and I actually have the energy to go out instead of just chilling at home. I hope I do.
What about you, what's you hobby for when you actually have some spare time?