Games

I spent last weekend in Leeuwarden for Anne’s birthday party. I dragged a weekender bag filled with airbed, sleeping bag and some other necessities with me to work on Friday, which looked ridiculous. Then after work Ingrid picked me up and we drove to Leeuwarden.

We made a stop at the Albert Heijn XL to pick up some stuff for dinner. I decided I might as well stock up on nuts for my breakfast ‘cereal’, and while looking for the various nuts, I came across the cutest packet of mixed peppers. Since we don’t have that in our AH around here, I had to take it. And then I also found a jar of harissa (spicy sauce/paste consisting of about 50% spicy peppers mixed with tomato and such), which I’ve been wanting to try out since seeing it on 24Kitchen.

We managed to arrive at Anne’s place exactly when she herself returned from the gym. We unloaded the car and got our stuff and the two presents inside. After a drink and some chat we gave her the presents, two Ikea lamps, exactly as she had wanted 🙂 I then built the lamps, while Ingrid helped Anne make dinner.

Dinner was a very tasty pasta with a spinach/mozzarella sauce with a few cherry tomatoes tossed in. Later one of Anne’s friends came by as he couldn’t make it on Saturday. When he left, we hung out some more with the three of us and then hit the sack. I picked the sofa for the first night as it’s very comfortable and it saves the hassle of blowing up the air bed.

The next morning we had a relaxed start, and then went into town to get groceries for the birthday. I bought myself some Greek yoghurt as I had run out at home, and I also wanted to eat it for breakfast the next day. So I ended up with a bucket, and a set of portioned cups. I also bought some portioned nut mixes, bacon, and a gorgeously sturdy canvas shopping bag which actually fits the crate on my bike. I hovered over a tiny wooden four drawer storage thing, but thought better of it and left it. Go me 😀

Back at Anne’s, we started prepping the rest as the first of her friends started to arrive. With the five, and later six, of us, we did the dishes, vacuumed and prepped the food and snacks and we’re nicely ready in time before the rest arrived. The afternoon was nice and relaxed, just talking and having fun. When the rest left, the remaining six of us had dinner. I went to the snack bar with two of Anne’s friends to pick up some food and got myself an XXL Meatstick and chicken nuggets. I’d seen it in our local snackbar but had not gotten around to actually buying it. It’s about 30 cm long, and I had them make it “special” to add the onion and sauce.

After dinner we got out the Halli Galli and started setting up a game when the remaining evening guests arrived.  With Halli Galli you each have a stack of cards with different fruits on them, both in number as in type of fruit. One by one, you play a card before you and as soon as there’s a total of 5 of one type of fruit, you hit the bell in the middle. If you’re first, you get all the cards.

If you’re out of cards, you can’t play the cards anymore, but you can still hit the bell. Once there’s only one person left to have cards, they win. If you hit the bell in error, you have to give everyone a card, including the players that have no cards. Because of these rules, the game can have really unpredictable results. At first, it almost ended with me and Esther being the only ones with cards.  The others weren’t paying a lot of attention anymore, so they didn’t really try to hit the bell, except Anne. And just as it seemed Esther would win from me, Anne made a come back. I then lost all my cards and couldn’t get my hand in fast enough to regain cards. In the end, Esther won 🙂

Then we played two rounds of Who Am I. First round was famous Dutch people. I turned out to be Bert Visscher, as given to me by Ingrid, which I figured out pretty fast. We went clock wise with this round, which means I had to think of someone for Anne. I gave her the dude from the commercials who plays the AH store manager. It was tricky, but she did manage to figure it out eventually. The second round was a What Am I round where we were usable objects. This time around we went counter clock wise and I got garlic press from Anne. This was harder to figure out, but I did manage. I turned Ingrid into a record player, which she also guessed. Both rounds were won by Esther, but we did give a lot of hints the second round 😀

After this, it was after eleven, and as two guests left to go home, Anne and the others made ready to go out. I’m not a fan of going clubbing, so I elected to stay home. I was pretty beat, anyway, the continuous presence of other people for two days is rather draining. So while they got ready, I inflated the air bed (long live electric pumps) and readied my bed. I couldn’t take the sofa this night as Esther was staying over, too. When they were ready, I saw them off, wished them fun, and crawled in bed. I played with my phone some, and ended up going to sleep around one, one thirty-ish.

The group came back around four, which woke me up. This was an excellent time to eat some cake before we all went back to bed. We slept in until about noon and then took it easy for a few hours. Esther then left, and a short while later another friend showed up to visit as he also couldn’t make it for Saturday.

Around five we started packing our things together so we could leave half an hour later, so I would be at the train station in Groningen in time for my train back home. This worked like a charm (last time we came from Leeuwarden it was more a nick-of-time thing :D) and I ended up home around seven.

I had a great weekend, met some new people, and had a lot of fun. I am glad, though, that I am free today so I can  regenerate some more.