Party People

 

Pre-Covid, I used to always celebrate my birthday in a restaurant or bar with a pretty large group of friends. I still managed to do so in 2020, but in the subsequent two years my birthday fell into a national lockdown and so this meant that it was a very lowkey affair, i.e. I celebrated with Highflyer and met friends for a chilly walk with to-go coffee when they would give me presents. 

Back in the "party days" I would typically choose a Friday or Saturday night as close to my actual b-day as possible. This year I played with the idea of re-launching the streak of dinner-parties, but as my birthday coincided with an MBA module and the subsequent weekend fell into the Viennese semester break when most of my friends would be away, I initially decided to postpone it to next year. Well, the Empress and the Pampered Princess had other plans and both tried to convince me that I MUST properly celebrate again...so I did last weekend and it was really nice to try out a new restaurant and see the "gang" (plus the addition of one of my friends' boyfriends who had not been around in 2020 yet, minus two people who fell sick) together again. People still tell me that our wedding last summer was their "highlight of the year" and it's so evident that most people's hunger for socialising is back.