Hi, I'm Hraefn here, but my real name's Melissa. I'm an American living in Japan as an English teacher/missionary assistant. I've been in Japan for two years now and plan on being here another year - it's a great experience! I'm learning spoken and written Japanese while I'm here too.
Like Kiis and a couple others, I have recently switched to Phoenix from the former BWG alliance. Now if only my Japanese were as good as Kiis' English (which is always excellent).

I was helping lead BWG before it closed up, but I'm happy to just be a follower here. I now have a lot more appreciation for what the poor leaders have to go through!

I'm also on a couple other servers, 4.com and 1.com. I don't want my inherited account on s4 to have any relation to this one, since I'm most likely not with the same group of people here. I'm just helping out there because a friend of mine got me on there, and I wanted to see what the end game was like. It's pretty cool so far! I'm Grianne on s1 - more of an experiment than anything else, but I'm having fun there, getting to know more cool people. I love how the .com servers have people from all over the world - it gives me a chance to learn about many different places, my native country included.
I've only been playing Travian since last Nov, but I've learned a lot from reading, reading, reading (game rules, FAQ, a couple of alliance forums filled with experienced players' comments (like this one!), etc.). I look forward to learning even more during my time here and will help out in any way I can.