"A good time was had by all..."

27 September 2008

Apologies for not having posted anything for a while. Excuse though it may be, the time I had available for posting was limited because of recent blizzard of activity: we moved up from London to Norwich on the 18th; I had to set up house in my flat in the University Village, get to know my flatmates, and prepare for another year of college. (It has arrived!) Hopefully, I'll have more time for posting since I don't have classes four out of the seven days of the week and I'm not planning on traveling anywhere for a while.

So, with all that said, let's begin--my birthday was yesterday, and it was fantastic! It began early enough. Roughly between two-thirty and three that morning, I awoke to loud series of thuds on my door accompanied by a cacophany of drunken voices. Recognizing that the voices belonged to Greg, Dwight, Sara Verhalen, Annie, and a few of their flatmates, I hurred to the door and ushered them in where they proceeded to sing the Birthday Song to me. I have to admit that I was rather surprised by it all, so I wasn't certain how I should respond. I thanked them of course, but I'm sure that my gratitude seemed rather "lukewarm," shall we say.

Once everyone departed from my room, the celebrations of my birthday stopped until around six o' clock that evening since I had my first seminar for "Modern Germany, 1866-1945" later morning and obviously needed to sleep. The festivities resumed eventually when my flatmates and I (with Emma whom we've adopted as an "Honorary Seventh Flatmate") went to dinner at "Mambo Jambo," a restaurant in Norwich. Advertised as a "Mexican" restaurant, it was nestled on Lower Goat Lane, a tiny pedestrian alleyway located behind Chapelfield. While the food was about as Mexican as I am in many respects--the menu, for instance, called tostadas "Mexican blankets" and the waitresses said "tor-til-lah" instead of "tor-tee-yah"--it was incredible.

I ordered the beef chili enchilada which consisted of spicy beef chili wrapped in a tortilla smothered with mozzarella cheese and tomato sauce. The sauce on the exterior of the enchilada was pretty much thickened tomato soup, so it wasn't terribly spicy, a situation which I corrected with the liberal application of the restaurant's salsa which was pretty spicy. This was not the most opportune time for me to be reminded that in the United Kingdom, servers don't really refill your drinks as often their counterparts in the States, because usually refills aren't free. Crap.

While we were waiting for our server to bring the check, Zack presented me with a small plastic Borders bag that he'd been carrying with him since we left the college. (N.B. Through a freak accident on the part of UEA Accomodations, Zack is one of my flatmates.) In it were two books: The Pianist by Wladyslaw Szpilman and A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini. My birthday presents. Again, I'm not certain if I expressed the full extent of my appreciation, but I was still delighted. I have been so blessed in my flatmates: Zack; Tom Kirk (near Ashdown, Kent); Bethan Collins (Devon in the South-West); Cat Grint (Reading near London); and Domneek Smith (Harrow-West Acton in London). Everybody has been so laidback, and when I'm not in a particularly misanthropic humor, it's wonderful to spend time in their company.

Returning to our flat, we proceeded to relax for a while, as our stomaches mashed and massaged our meals into something that could be passed along to the intestines. I had a bottle of Leffe Blonde (which I bought at a Tesco Metro in Norwich for ninety-nine pence), briefly ducking into my room to visit the lavatory before Tom, Beth, Cat, and Domneek brought forth this lovely little chocolate cake they'd prepared for my birthday. "I know it looks absolutely store-bought," Beth said as they laid it on to the tabletop, "but we made this ourselves." Cutting it into eight pieces, I began to tell everyone a story about my Great-Grandma Wunder's "small" slices (which were roughly a fifth to a third of a pie or cake) when everybody started to crack up.

"What?" I asked, confused as I continued to balance a wedge of cake with my fingers and a knife over the table. "What did I say? Was there a punchline anywhere in what I just said? I don't think so."

Zack smiled, patted me on the shoulder, and laughingly explained, "It's just when you went to the bathroom, we were just talking about how you seem to have a story for everything! It's great, so don't worry about it. It's a good thing, Chad. It's a good thing."

Once it was explained to me, I had my own laugh because Zack wasn't the first person to have told me of the great number of stories I have stowed away. Serving the last of the cake, all of us enjoyed every morsel. We had no sooner finished than people began to show up for the main event, my twenty-first birthday blowout. Dwight walked up from his flat downstairs. Tristan, too. There was a low buzz as my mobile began to vibrate. It was Leah. I trotted down the steps to the main entrance which I opened to find Leah and a party of three or four Americans, including Will Schaffenberg who was wearing an empty Bud Ice box that Greg had earlier carved into a kind of space helmet. "Happy Birthday, Chad!" Will cried for the first (and not the last) time in the evening, grasping my hand and shaking it vigorously even as he stabilised himself by placing his other hand on my shoulder.

"Howdy, Spaceman Spiff," I said. (What else could I have said?) "The party's upstairs. Please follow me."

Rob and his flatmate Stuart, Greg, Ben, Jen, Katie, Alana and her flatmates Max, Jess, and Ibrahim, Shannyn with a birthday card and Cadbury's Chocolates in tow, Lauren Deitz, Lauren Martin, Chris Castillo, Meghan Blickman, and a host of others arrived shortly thereafter. What transpired then was one of the best nights in my life; certainly, it was one of the best nights I've spent drinking. And while I'm happy to say that no truly bad decisions were made, there were a few pretty dumb ones; for instance, when Ben and Will convinced me to go shirtless for a while after they saw me takeoff the sweater and dress shirt I'd been wearing all day. Or when Rob and Stuart finally arrived and, without pause or hesitation, instructed me to get on knees at which point they made me take the business end of a makeshift funnel--it was really an empty plastic of Strongbow whose bottom they'd cut away--in my mouth and chug the icy cold contents of a can of Stella Artois. There were also the moments when I randomly started to dance for a minute or two before stopping. (Fortunately, thanks to the presence of Lauren Deitz, I wasn't alone in this regard.)

The party started around nine-thirty, so by twelve o' clock, everybody had tired and gone elsewhere. Tristan, Lauren Martin, and I went over to Shannyn's for a while and watched an episode of Family Guy on her computer. Bidding her and everybody else a fond good night, I then returned to my flat where Max and I chatted and bounced a balloon back and forth for a good twenty to twenty-five minutes. I then thanked everyone in my flat for a wonderful day and "for putting up with so many loud, obnoxious Americans" and went to bed. The room was spinning for a few minutes when I initially laid down, but it eventually stopped when I went to sleep. All and all, it was a remarkable birthday, and I hope that it's accurate of me to say that a good time was had by all.