Gelukkige Verjaarsdag

One of the cool things about living in Brussels is the extremely interesting and multi-national social circle in which we find ourselves. Case in point, our good friends Cornelle and Serge— Cornelle hails from South Africa, while Serge is a native of the Netherlands. They threw a dinner party recently for Cornelle's birthday, and we were lucky enough to be on the invite list, along with two of their other friends—Cecille (French) and Stine (Belgian). In addition to enjoying the company of this intelligent and witty group, I found it fascinating that three of the partygoers spoke language-variants rooted in the same tongue -- Afrikaans, Flemish, and Dutch. The title of this post is actually in Afrikaans, and means 'Happy Birthday'. Though I am usually able to pronounce things (owing to the singer's ear I presume), I must admit that Dutch frequently confounds me.



Here we are enjoying nibbles and some nice bubbly in C&S's pretty living room. (I'm sitting on the birthday girl's left.) Despite meeting the other two for the first time that evening, the conversation flowed easily, following interesting tracks and resulting in a lot of laughter. (You'll notice that we're laughing in nearly every photo!)



This is one of several toasts over the course of the evening. Us girls hung out in the dining room while the menfolk cooked up a gourmet feast in the adjacent kitchen. Troy makes a pretty decent sous-chef when he sets his mind to it.



Our adventure for the evening came when Troy picked up my heretofore beautiful cake, neglecting to think about the effect of metal-cake-pan-on-glass-cake-stand...and proceeded to launch it halfway across the kitchen. By some miracle of quick reflexes and a bit of gymnastics he was able to save both the cake and the stand! All that butter helped the cake retain its form remarkably well despite everything. Only a slight countertop-edge-shaped divot and a broken side. No matter, it tasted divine. Everyone was practically purring.



Here's a nice shot of Serge and Troy in their kitchen domain, offering up their glasses to a successful evening. My, but don't they look pleased with themselves.

We had a wonderful evening, and wish everyone many happy returns.