The "40s" brigade, whom I've mentioned before quite recently, had another event this Saturday when our good friend Shaun celebrated his birthday in some style.
Katie had been organising for some weeks for a surprise gathering at a new cafe downtown on the Saturday after the big day, so we were all sworn to secrecy, yet tasked with producing a photo with an associated sign. The Polish Nation boys decided it was a particularly sombre occasion and posed as such, while Cass and I tried to replicate the look and feel of Katie's original photo while posing in front of the god of martial arts.
Unfortunately (as it turns out), a group of golfers decided to go out and consume a zillion cans of beers while on the course during the day, so they were starting from a very sensitive point at 7.30 that evening! It had been drizzling non-stop through the day, so Shaun, Wol, Brandon, Ivo and others had been consoling themselves with more than a few beers as they made their way round the links.
We arranged to meet Gurecki and Wal to get a taxi downtown to the Maya cafe for the surprise, but Wal already smelt like a brewery and was getting a headache after his long day! In the Saturday night traffic jam combined with the rain, the trip was long and slow but when we eventually got there, and all the other guests arrived, it was easy to start getting in the swing of things with some margaritas and enchiladas.
The guest of honour eventually rolled in, but Aaron's gift of a super-large Margarita was the eventual undoing of the birthday boy. I took a shot at the start and the end of the drink and you can see the difference! We had a great time talking to lots of people who we like but don't get to see so often and thoroughly enjoyed the night.
The weekend was a shocker weather wise and we were glad for the invite otherwise we may well have not left the house at all. It was a wind-whipped dreary time, although we did decadently just lie around in bed for most of Saturday afternoon accompanied by two heavily purring cats and lulled by a gentle tinkling of rain on downstairs' verandah's tin roof.
I spent a good deal of time on Sunday organising our trip. We're making a Sasquatch style carbon footprint over the holiday break with a total of 8 separate flights! We are limited in time and couldn't rely on the Polish and Hungarian railways to get us around Europe within our schedule. As is our habit, were also eschewing regular hotels and I've booked us into apartments in Budapest, Berlin and Krakow we're we'll guide ourselves around what is shaping up to be a cold and snow-filled winter break. Anyway, we'll be in Budapest for Christmas and Krakow for New Year's Eve with Germany in between, so it should be lots of fun! I'm making massive use of the very useful application Evernote which is synching all my notes, comments and clippings between my phone, iPad, work computer and home computer with lightning speed and perfect accuracy.Here's a video of my kiddies doing their thing too. Peace out!