3/25/11- Austria

The playset my grandpa built for my cousins

3/25

It's my birthday! I woke up this morning around 7am and sighed happily. Another year had gone by. I looked outside the window. The sun was shining brilliantly outside, the mountains were in the distance, and everything was simply beautiful. Thinking about the exciting things that I would do today, I fell asleep again until 10am. Then, I had breakfast- bread and apricot jam- read more of Fang, and went to pick up Maximilian and Theresa from school.

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The little stones on the road crunch beneath my soft boots. Warm air surrounds me, yet a cool breeze blows across my face. The sun hangs brightly overhead, its heat radiating out onto my face.
The breathtaking scenery surrounds me: mountains standing proudly on the horizon, grassy fields around me, and a serene, little town.

I see my cousins walking home from school with my mom, who had caught up with them on their way, and I smile at them. I reach them, they shake my hand and wish me a happy birthday, and I hug them both.

We went back to our grandparents' house, Theresa and I skipping and laughing part of the way, and then we had some delicious food, as usual.

After we ate, Theresa, Maximilian, and I went outside to play in the playset that my grandpa built for Theresa and Maximilian a few years ago. It was so beautiful and warm outside, and I took around 80 pictures and short videos.

Theresa and my aunt, who came back from work around that time, invited me to stay at their house that night, so I packed some of my belongings together.

Then, it was time for my birthday party, which would take place at my aunt's house. I started getting everything ready, and then my other Austrian friends, Mathias and Theresa, who are twins that are around the same age as I am, came over. We started by having cake- there were THREE kinds that my grandma had made- and talking a bit. Then, while the adults stayed downstairs to converse together, my guests came upstairs to play games. At first, it was a bit awkward, but then everyone started opening up, and it was really fun. We played Charades, 20 Questions, Tabu XXL, and a few games that don't really have a name. For example, there's a game in which everyone, in turn, is blindfolded, and has to feel an object and guess what it is. There's another fun game in which everyone gets in a circle around a chocolate bar. Everyone, in turn, rolls a die. If someone rolls a six, that person has to put on an old winter hat and a pair of thick gloves, and then attempt to cut as much chocolate as possible off the bar. In the meantime, everyone else is still passing around the die, hoping to get a six as well- because that means that the previous person at work cutting chocolate must immediately stop and take off the warm clothing and knife. The objective of the game is to get as much chocolate as possible! I ended up winning, though I cut off so much chocolate that I would've never been able to eat that much, so I gave most of my pieces back for everyone else to have.
We also played a game that's probably my second favorite game we played (after Tabu XXL) in which one player gets a picture- of a room, an assortment of objects, etc.- that they must describe as well as possible to the other players, who draw the picture based on what the first player tells them. When the first player is finished explaining, all drawings are shown and compared to the original drawing. It's actually really entertaining: we ended up playing it five times!

Anyway, after a while of having fun, the twins had to leave, and Maximilian, Theresa, and I started getting ready for bed.