Happy Birthday, to me!

This past Saturday was my birthday!  It also happened to be the day that we threw my friend M a bachelorette party, as she and her Swede are leaving today for the US and will be married by this time next month.  In short, it was a fun and busy weekend!

We threw the party in Skövde and had a blast with it.  We had a friend pick M up from her house, and then we led her around town for a little over an hour on a quiz/mission thing.  At each stop (which she had to figure out herself where she was supposed to go by us giving a clue) there was another person waiting for her to give her a question about her man.  So that way it was a surprise for her about who was able to come to her party.  If she got the quiz question right, she got a "prize" item to wear, and the same for if she got it wrong it was her "punishment."  It was hilarious to see her all dressed up with a cat tail, cat mask, hot pink boa, and all sorts of other silly stuff.  By the end of the mission we were smack in the downtown mall with tons of people gawking and staring at the loud gaggle of women laughing, and the one looking outrageous.  Even the bus drivers going by waved at her.  After that, we made a taco lunch at her house, went to the Skövde Arena for some relaxing spa time, got ready at her house then went out for a nice dinner and some dancing afterwards. All in all, a fun day with girl-friends!

They even surprised me in the middle of the day with birthday cupcakes, flowers, and a gift bag!  It was so sweet of them I did not expect it at all.  The flowers were bright and happy.

On Friday night, J surprised me a day early for my birthday as he knew I would be gone all day (my train left at 8am Saturday morning).  When he came home from work he rang the doorbell which is just odd, who rings their own doorbell?  So I opened it expecting his hands must be full for whatever reason, and I was right!  He surprised me with a giant flower arrangement (it must be nearly 3 ft. tall).

All of the lilies have bloomed now, or at least are opening.  They smell absolutely wonderful, and still look just as healthy!

He proceeded to tell me "Oh, you have 25 minutes to be ready, we have to be at Redbergsplatsen at 6:00."  So I got ready, assuming we were taking the tram somewhere for dinner, and I was right.  He had chosen a Greek restaurant over in Linné by the name of Kalimera, and the food there was absolutely delicious.  I suppose he has paid attention when I've said just how much I love Mediterranean/Greek food.  Sadly we were in a rush (well we had practically an hour and a half to be there but it took them nearly an hour to get us our food), so we couldn't relax and enjoy it as much as we might have liked to.  J had reserved us tickets to go see the new Spider-Man movie, as it was the "only good one" playing.  I didn't have super high expectations, but I ended up deeming it much improved over the movies from 10 years ago.  I rather enjoyed it!

By the time we got home it was 11pm, I had to pack for the next day (I stayed the night at M's place Saturday night) and I knew I had to get up just past 6am on Saturday.  Needless to say I was exhausted heading to Skövde and throughout the day but as stated, it was a ton of fun.

Now I'm trying to be good and focus on writing a paper that isn't due for my Swedish class until next Friday the 20th, but I had to take a break and write a catch-up post.  This weekend we'll be traveling to Norway to visit some friends in Kristiansand, and then next week it seems J is going to take the week off work, so we may decide to travel elsewhere on a mini vacation, depending on if we can find something decently priced.  That would be why I need to get back to writing this paper!