Last week was probably the craziest week in my entire life.
It started with terrible tragedy unfolding right on my doorstep. I live next to Manchester arena and heard the explosion and everything that happened afterwards. After initial shock and three hours of sleep I woke up to a number of requests from Russian state TV channels asking whether I will be up to go live and talk about Manchester.
It was rather surreal experience as Russian television is very biased and tend to focus on spreading hatred. It is a bit like Fox News, probably even worse to be fair. I believe I managed to portray Manchester as a city that comes together in this tragedy.
On Wednesday though, things started brightening up! I went to the airport to pick up my friends from Netherlands, Germany and the USA. They were first to arrive for my birthday weekend.
We had tons of fun touring Manchester and Trafford Centre:
On Friday Peter Connelly, the composer for Tomb Raider 4-6, came down for a day with us as well.
Unfortunately, Murti Schofield, the writer for Tomb Raider – The Angel of Darkness, was unwell this week so he could not come but he did send me this awesome card:
And so, Saturday. More friends arrived from all over the UK. We spent whole day chatting, playing LOADS of games and eating lots of takeaway food.
On Sunday, we went to the Arcade Club, two floors of retro gaming awesomeness. It was actually my first experience playing DDR.
I feel very privileged and lucky to have friends who travelled across the country and world to see me and to have people messaging, posting, tweeting their birthday wishes at me all day long.
Thank you guys, I honestly had the best birthday ever!