you're so old that your party's in Black in White!

I apologize for the lateness of this update.  Apparently free time is the worst time to get anything done.  All too often now, I feel like my days are efficiently unproductive and wonder where all the time goes.  I think I'll just maintain the theory that I'm still not used to the 7 hour time difference, but instead of a difference in time of day, I'll choose to believe it's a difference of the amount of time in a day.

I also got my first letters and packages from home this week.  Definitely a pleasant and delicious surprise.

the biggest birthday party you've had in years is planned by relative strangers.

Practically since I arrived in Sundsvall and started hanging out with people, the fact that my 21st birthday was sometime in February became common knowledge.  The typcial reactions (in order) were usually "you are so young!", "now you can finally drink...well, I guess that doesn't matter now", and "we should throw you a party."  The last response was the only one that had any particular interest to me, but nothing really came of it until about the first week of February.   I was hanging out with some of my friends after our weekly volleyball session when the normal birthday chain of responses came up.  My friend Tomáš mentioned his birthday would be the at the end of the same week as mine and that we should host a joint party together.  I was obviously a fan of this idea and over the next few days the two of us discussed possible themes, venues, and entertainment.

As some of you already now by way of the pictures that have already made it up to Facebook, we eventually decided on a Black and White theme and to have the party in the basement of my apartment building.  The basement as the venue ended up being a pretty big deal due to that fact it had been closed for the five months previous to the week of the party.  Apparently at some point last October-ish, some people that didn't live in the building came to a party in the basement (which is just a large room with a tv, some couches, and a small bar at one end) and gotten a little out of hand.  Push came to shove and the room was trashed both in terms of a hole in the wall and a large amount of empty alcohol containers with their contents coating the floor around them.  The basement had subsequently been closed, forcing the party scene to move to the kitchens of the various floors (the birth of the notorious kitchen parties) and making it impossible to host a party larger than 20 people comfortably.  Fortunately, some very insistent pressuring by a group of newly arrived renters convinced the landlady to actually make good on her sliding deadline promise to repair and re-open the basement only a few days before party.  With one of the residents volunteering to use his deck to dj and the promise of a laser light from one our mutual friends, our party was coming together and informally slotted as the basement's grand re-opening.     

It turned out to be one of the best parties I've had in a long, long time.  I arrived a little more than an hour late (which is some subconscious habit of mine with all parties, apparently even my own) and there were already about 20 people hanging out and helping the dj warm up the room.  Before long, we had close to 40 people between the main and side rooms, with the music and laser out in full force.  I had great time moving from group to group, talking to as many people as possible, enjoying the music, and being called by name and wished Happy Birthday by a lot of people I didn't know (and occasionally had never seen before).  Halfway through the night, my neighbors from my floor called me out into the hallway to give me a present and card signed by all of them.  Before I could really enjoy it however, the main room erupted in a loud chorus of Happy Birthday.  I walked in as they finished singing to Tomáš, and as soon as everyone realized I wasn't with him, moved me to the middle of the room, and started up again.  There was even a nutella heavy cake covered with candles for me to blow out.  It was really cool to have so many people there for my birthday.

Not too long afterward, a large group of friends from outside of Norrmalm arrrived, and I spent most of the rest of the party talking and spending time with them.  It was a great way to end the night. 

Also, my friend David made us another cake covered with cheesecake frosting and blueberries (which ended up in my fridge at the end of the night through a strange turn of events), and gave me a present that he said to save for a nice cut of steak. 
Mission accepted.

I was so grateful for all the presents, the people, and the party.

I plan to have the next post up in a couple of days (really, I do) and it will either be about ski slopes or something a little different. We'll see. I also plan to start mapping out my April Eurotrip this week.  Let me know if you have any suggestions about what I should try and go see.  The sky is basically the limit, and I'm getting more excited every day.