Birthday Party Pt.2
Recently, was my birthday and oh more so recently was my birthday party where I celebrated with a few friends of mine. The reason why an introvert like me would throw a birthday party is one of the questions I asked myself in my last article. This time I want to do some reporting and write about how the birthday party of mine went.
My day started at 10 am whereas on a normal weekend, I would still stay in bed just a bit longer simply because I can. I find that there is no shame in staying in a bit longer on a weekend as long as that doesn’t mess up the weekday sleep schedule. The productive side of my brain is objecting to this comment with all its might but sometimes you just need to sleep in.
I woke up feeling giddy and really happy because I get to celebrate my birthday with my friends, some of whom I haven´t seen in ages. However, by comparing the feeling, I got that day and the feeling I used to get on the morning of my birthday, everything felt different.
To a certain extent, it felt as if something was missing. I don’t know how to explain it but a childhood feeling just went missing. It is not bad per se but it felt sad as if the childhood magic which made so childhood amazing, got lost on me.
After a simple breakfast consisting of a melon pan and fruit/muesli yoghurt, my boyfriend and I got to work making the cakes. Since time was of the essence, we didn’t make a cake out of scratch but we made cakes using cake mixes which felt a bit like cheating because it was a cake at the end of the day but at the same time I know it’s not.
I love baking and letting me use cake mixes just makes me feel like I am betraying the art of cake making which feels wrong. If I can be honest, I spent so long perfecting my cake-making technique, using a cheat code does not only feel a bit odd but getting away with it makes it downright awful. Why did I spend so long to perfect cake baking to make good cakes and bakes when all this time I could have been mediocre at baking and making average cakes with barely any effort.
Where was I? Oh yeah, that morning. The cakes were actually pretty simple to make, just following the instructions on the back of the box. It truly surprised me when a handheld mixer wasn’t even necessary. It sufficed when I used a spatula. No cake I ever made could have been made with a spatula but turns out cake mixes are just that easy to mix.
After taking barely any effort to mix all three cakes, we popped them into the oven and waited. The cheesecake brownie only took 35 minutes and the last one which came out of the oven was a lemon cake which took an hour. The chocolate brownie was somewhere in the middle with its 45 minutes.
When the cakes were done, we made some lunch while we waited for the cake to cool down a bit so we could apply the icing to the cake. As it turns out waiting for the cake to cool down was the least of our problems since after we applied the icing, the icing took its time to harden.
Since we wanted the cake done as soon as possible, we cleared out some space in the fridge so the icing could cool down quicker. And the icing hardened after ten minutes in the fridge. Just in time so we could pack all the cakes into boxes and get them ready to go.
But before we left for the bowling alley, we did some taste tasting since I was unsure how cook cake mix cakes could taste and I was unwilling to serve crap at my birthday party. After some taste testing, it was confirmed that the cake mixes cakes tasted good but not as good as they could have been if handmade. Nevertheless, it was a compromise I was willing to make.
After some last-minute preparation and getting ready to go, we went out. Half an hour earlier since there were some things I wanted to prepare at the bowling alley. To get to the bowling alley, we took a rented car, which was a fun experience.
After the car was parked and we got out of the car, we made our way to the bowling alley. Much to our surprise the bowling alley was pretty busy, since not only was the bowling alley a bowling alley but a sport entertainment complex with everything.
When I say everything, I really mean everything, and I really am not exaggerating. They have any sports field you could imagine for you to rent. If you get hungry, there is a restaurant and a bar. Then there is also entertainment, such as arcades, laser tag, escape rooms, and not to mention bowling alleys.
Since the bowling alley was pretty packed, there was no point in arriving early since there was no bowling alley to prepare on. No putting out cakes nor getting the drinks served so everything was set for when everyone arrived.
Therefore, we just sat there and waited for half an hour since there was nothing to do but the half an hour quickly went by since soon enough my friends started arriving and all of a sudden, the bowling alleys I booked are free.
Upon the arrival of my friends, I also received a lot of presents. I don´t need presents but I just love receiving them. To be honest, I have no idea why, but I just liked to be surprised and presents are a good way to get surprised.
After sorting out the organisation details such as getting bowling shoes for everyone, arranging the food and the drinks, and putting out the cakes. The fun started. We split onto both bowling alleys and the games began.
Funnily enough, my worst fear of hour-long discussions of who goes on which lane was avoided. There was no discussion whatsoever and people somewhat even automatically split into two. It was honestly a relief since I wouldn’t have wanted to discuss who is going on which lane. I have favourites but that shouldn’t be too obvious.
I don’t know if I mentioned this before, but I am slightly competitive which meant I love to win. Nevertheless, I am also somewhat mediocre at bowling, which meant that I can’t win against other people. Those contradictions led to the funny compromise that my boyfriend shouldn’t win. If I can’t win then neither, should he.
That funnily enough was also a contradiction of some sort since my boyfriend wasn’t all too bad at bowling the last time we went together. So, I was kind of excited to see who would win in a fun, non-competitive game of bowling with my friends.
If I can be perfectly honest, during the first round of bowling I always suck. I am never good at bowling during the first round. In the first round, I always get five to six points if I am lucky and I am not, it goes into the gutter both times.
But the second round and following are the rounds where it is my time to shine since I always get solid sevens across the board throughout that round and if I am incredibly lucky, I can get one or two strikes here and there.
Also luckily for me, my friend/roommate who was on my alley and her boyfriend both are very good in the first round while relenting for the next few rounds. Which is exactly the opposite of my bowling skill level.
Knowing that I somewhat had a good feeling that my boyfriend wasn’t going to win. Full disclosure, I have nothing against my boyfriend, I just wanted to take his ego down a peg since he is just as competitive as I am and after some time it can get annoying.
As predicted and hoped, my friend/roommate´s boyfriend won the first round, and I won the second round. I am so glad that my boyfriend did not take it badly and to be honest, I am somewhat very happy that I won against my boyfriend for once.
To be fair to him, he did not have a good run because the bowling balls at that alley were very odd. Either the ball was too heavy or the holes where the fingers should go are a bit small. I struggled with finding the right ball as well.
During the two hours, the food and drinks came, and I tried my level best to talk to each and every one of my guests but it was only two hours and I was kind of clinging to my boyfriend so I couldn´t spend as much time I wanted with all them which was a shame.
It was just amazing to see everyone happy and entertained because I was so scared that some people will feel left out but then it occurred to me that I have invited enough people so no one could feel left out and if they did feel left out, it was their problem for not talking to others.
After the two hours and everything was packed, there was an awkward state of not knowing what happens next. I didn’t know how to end parties, I just know how to start them. So we awkwardly stood around wondering what we are going to do.
Since everyone was nice and not too dominant, they went along with every suggestion made. So, it was kind of hard to end the party and send everyone home. Therefore, I suggested staying for drinks and they went along for it.
The issue was that it was awkwardly silent as I had feared. Therefore, to keep everyone entertained we did a little toast, and I unpacked all the presents. However, I did not know how long I could keep up smiling through the silence.
Luckily, my friend/roommate toppled over the first domino so to say by telling everyone that the party is over, and I just took it from there and bid everyone goodbye. After everyone left, we went to the arcade for some games.
After some time playing classical arcade games such as basketball and air hockey, we went back to the dorm. Unlucky for us, it started raining and the car, we came in, was rented by someone else so we had to take the bus home.
In the rain, some things got wet as they should but nearly everything arrived back home just fine. So, in our dorm, we hung out everything to dry and freshened up a bit since we arranged to do a bit of a double date evening.
First, we had a bit of chocolate fondue with grapes and bananas since we had a bit of an excess of chocolate easter bunnies from easter. Then we just laid on the floor and talked a bit while resting since we were all a bit beat.
Then we played some games on the Nintendo Switch. First, we played some Mario Kart, but we made it into a drinking game. We played with prosecco and the birthday cake Bailey´s I got for my birthday.
The rules we played by were simple. After every round, you had to do a shot but if you were taking a shot, you were not allowed to drive because no drinking and driving. Much to everyone´s dismay, my boyfriend stayed in first no matter how many shots he took.
After some Mario Kart, we just played some Wii sports. Funnily enough, we bowled a bit before we did some golfing. It was barely 10 and we were already exhausted and decided to call it a day. We just went to bed, exhausted from an amazing day.
That was my birthday party in summary. In the future, I would want to invite fewer people because it was hard to juggle five or more conversations. Maybe next time, I would just celebrate small with some of my closest friends. When I turn 30, I would think of celebrating bigger again. Until then…