Jack turned 8 last Thursday -his birthday is always a reminder of how long we have been away from the USA, since we moved when he was 6 weeks old. I can't believe how long it's been!
We weren't really sure what to do for his birthday party since there isn't a big selection of places in Krakow - he really really wanted to have it at a trampoline place like the one he visited in Boston, but there is no such thing here. Last year we had it at a Go Kart place and this year we considered having at the LaserPark (where everyone else has their parties), but we thought it might be a little too dark and scary for a few of the younger kids in his class. Finally we decided to have it at a bowling alley in Kazimierz. While everyone seemed to have a great time, I thought it was a pretty disorganized event. I had asked the woman in charge of the booking to give me some guidance as to how best to do it (how many lanes to reserve, how much food, etc.) and she wasn't much help really. I told her I was inviting 20 kids so she had me reserve 2 lanes. The day before the party I realized that probably wasn't such a good idea so I went online at the last minute and booked another lane. Then one of our friends who was also coming to the party had booked another lane, so once we got there the lanes weren't all together. It's not that big of a place (6 lanes), but they put us in the middle in lanes 2, 3, 4 and 6, which were not even near the big table/bench which you would think they would put us near since it was a party with pizza and cake. It wasn't busy when we got there, but another party came in after us and luckily the nice woman who was assigned to lane 5 switched with us and took lane 2 instead, so we could all be together. We had already given the front desk the names of the kids so this caused the guy working the lanes a bit of stress since he had to change all the names around (and he was already annoyed with us because we didn't speak Polish!). Then at the end of the party no one could find their coats or shoes because we had moved everything around, it was pitch black in the place, and 2 more birthday parties came in causing mass confusion. All the kids seemed to have a great time, so maybe it was only me who was stressed out so I guess it was a success. And at least we got to eat the pizza and cake on time, as apposed to last year's Go Kart party when they never brought the food out, then finally brought the cake out as the parents were coming to pick up their kids. One nice thing was that as soon as we started singing happy birthday, the music stopped and these funky disco-type lights came on - so I guess someone in there was on top of the party!
Another frustration I have around birthday time is the lack of decorations, favors, favor bags, invitations, thank you cards, etc. available here. I was on a mad hunt for invitations then finally found a cute downloadable one on the internet (from here). Thankfully a friend had told me about a store I could find cardstock in, because I would have been lost otherwise (there is no Staples or Office Max here!). I bought a bunch of random paper bags to use as favors bags, but a few days later I found some cute striped ones in a different store that I decided to use instead. Now I am on the hunt for thank you cards, I went to the big card store and of course they didn't sell them in packs - there was literally one card in the whole store that said thank you on it (and it was in Polish). Looks like I will be back on an internet search tonight.
Here are some pictures:
We weren't really sure what to do for his birthday party since there isn't a big selection of places in Krakow - he really really wanted to have it at a trampoline place like the one he visited in Boston, but there is no such thing here. Last year we had it at a Go Kart place and this year we considered having at the LaserPark (where everyone else has their parties), but we thought it might be a little too dark and scary for a few of the younger kids in his class. Finally we decided to have it at a bowling alley in Kazimierz. While everyone seemed to have a great time, I thought it was a pretty disorganized event. I had asked the woman in charge of the booking to give me some guidance as to how best to do it (how many lanes to reserve, how much food, etc.) and she wasn't much help really. I told her I was inviting 20 kids so she had me reserve 2 lanes. The day before the party I realized that probably wasn't such a good idea so I went online at the last minute and booked another lane. Then one of our friends who was also coming to the party had booked another lane, so once we got there the lanes weren't all together. It's not that big of a place (6 lanes), but they put us in the middle in lanes 2, 3, 4 and 6, which were not even near the big table/bench which you would think they would put us near since it was a party with pizza and cake. It wasn't busy when we got there, but another party came in after us and luckily the nice woman who was assigned to lane 5 switched with us and took lane 2 instead, so we could all be together. We had already given the front desk the names of the kids so this caused the guy working the lanes a bit of stress since he had to change all the names around (and he was already annoyed with us because we didn't speak Polish!). Then at the end of the party no one could find their coats or shoes because we had moved everything around, it was pitch black in the place, and 2 more birthday parties came in causing mass confusion. All the kids seemed to have a great time, so maybe it was only me who was stressed out so I guess it was a success. And at least we got to eat the pizza and cake on time, as apposed to last year's Go Kart party when they never brought the food out, then finally brought the cake out as the parents were coming to pick up their kids. One nice thing was that as soon as we started singing happy birthday, the music stopped and these funky disco-type lights came on - so I guess someone in there was on top of the party!
Another frustration I have around birthday time is the lack of decorations, favors, favor bags, invitations, thank you cards, etc. available here. I was on a mad hunt for invitations then finally found a cute downloadable one on the internet (from here). Thankfully a friend had told me about a store I could find cardstock in, because I would have been lost otherwise (there is no Staples or Office Max here!). I bought a bunch of random paper bags to use as favors bags, but a few days later I found some cute striped ones in a different store that I decided to use instead. Now I am on the hunt for thank you cards, I went to the big card store and of course they didn't sell them in packs - there was literally one card in the whole store that said thank you on it (and it was in Polish). Looks like I will be back on an internet search tonight.
Here are some pictures: