Birthdays are exhausting…but oh so much fun!

So I've been 25 for almost two weeks now. And have neglected to blog about my birthday weekend of funness (<-- is that a word?) My flat is rather small so I had to have birthday parties in shifts. I invited my director and the ladies from my office over for lunch. Naturally, we had pizza...their choice. They came a little past 12pm; I stayed home that day cleaning, cooking and preparing everything. They got here and we had a SUPER fun time. At least I think they did. I made them birthday hats with poster board and made them wear them the WHOLE time they were here. They purchased for me a chai set. I drew it on a piece of paper earlier in the week when they asked what I wanted...I didn't know the word for it :) We ate lots of food and I was rather impressed with myself. There were 2 salads...I purchased those, fruited gelatin, pizza and cake. Then we had a photo shoot. And I made them take silly pictures...even when they didn't want to by saying, "it's MY birthday" <-- I'm kind of a brat like that :)

After they left, I immediately went to work cleaning, cooking and preparing for more guests. Yes, more pizza. These were my English teacher friends and they arrived around 6pm for dinner. They stayed until like 11pm and we had a good time just eating and chatting. I didn't have hats for this group, but it was still fun!

After they left. I went to bed. Cleaning could wait until morning. The following morning I went to cleaning, cooking and preparing everything <-- noticing a trend. Some teachers from my school came for early evening for dinner. and you guessed it, we had...MORE PIZZA! I was totally pizzaed out, but they really seemed to enjoy it. After they left I cleaned my flat one final time and put everything back where it belonged.

It was fun, but during the time I was cleaning and cooking, I remember thinking 'it's my birthday' and then thought back in America I would have gone out to a restaurant with friends, where someone else would have picked up my tab and the people at Olive Garden would have brought things directly to our table and then cleaned up after us. Here the birthday person is responsible for everything. Had we gone to a restaurant, I would have had to front the $$. CrAzY! But super fun when you get invited to a party :-)