I’ve stopped celebrating birthdays.
I mean, don’t get me wrong .. I always have at least one bottle of champagne.
But I have stopped trying to pull off the best and most impressive parties the day I left Shanghai (and man, were there many !! )

Since I got back in 2011, there is only 3 birthdays I remember. One when I visited my friend in France and her (now already ex)boyfriend was hitting on me the entire night. Super ackward .. and plus it was freezing. In August. A day hard to forget.
The second one was when my friend Jane from Hong Kong showed up and turned this city upside down. Like a tornado. Lol. It took me two weeks to recover. Also hard to forget.
And the third one was two years ago, when I got this strange wild animal disease that kept me home for three months. No real food, no wine, no fun … My boyfriend at the time took me to our favourite restaurant in Vienna. I wore my flamingo dress (before flamingos became a thing), sat at the table in that fancy resto with the best view in town. Had one glass of bubbles and a half a glass of Chardonnay .. and was happier than ever. That simple evening was the highlight of that Summer I will never forget.

This years’s birthday was also very special, but not in the classic, obvious way. Since the morning nothing was working out the way it was supposed to.
I scheduled two parties that day – one for my family at home at noon and dinner in the city with friends in the evening.
Everyone was so stressed to be on schedule that everyone ended up being off the schedule. Nothing was working out and the later it got, the more stressed I was. Is my fam gonna make it? Am I gonna be late for dinner? Is my hair going to stand this heat? Are they gonna cancel my reservation? And is all this really necessary?

Due to an unfortunate event I met up with my family so late that after 10 minutes with them I had to leave to get ready for the evening. I was sad and stressed at  the same time and suddenly feeling so down that if I haven’t had 8 people coming, I would have totally stayed at home. I felt like being at home sipping on a cold Chardonnay was the right thing to do.
I pulled myselff together and got ready. The place was all set and me being me (meaning late) by the time we got there, everyone was there already.

The venue of the dinner party was the real highlight of that day. Auspic is a restaurant I literally discovered a couple of days before the party and is located by the riverside in Bratislava. With the castle right in a front of you and the boats passing by .. you don’t get better view than this. The setting of the table was so beautiful that everyone started taking pictures of everything before we even sat down. We came right for the sunset and the view was just magical. It’s like the moment has stopped right there and then and I realised, that I am very blessed to have friends like this. I was doing this mainly for them – especially for my friends with babies that do not go out that much. I realised it doesn’t matter what was yesterday and what will be tomorrow, all that matters is NOW.

After this birthday I came to this conclusion: I won’t be throwing big (dinner) parties. Small sessions – yes .. but the whole week I felt extremely exhausted and it just was not he right ending to that week. Why? I don’t know .. but one “spiritual” friend of mine told me, that on the day of your birthday one year of your life cycle is ending. Naturally, you feel drained, your energy levels are low and you should just chill and wait for the new year (your year! ) to start. Your energy levels will rise up and you are ready to celebrate one, or two weeks after … Somehow it all makes sense to me.

It doesn’t matter where you are or what you do, but who you have around you. They say you are the average of the five people you hang out with the most. If I am the average of these guys, then I must be the smartest, funniest and hottest person ever! 😀

Love

PHOTO by JOZEF KROVINA & MY FRIENDS
DRESS by CUPLE
RESTAUARNT – AUSPIC RESTAURANT BRATISLAVA