Party Time!

Today is our friend, Jake's, birthday. Last night we threw him a surprise party at our flat. Some of the people that we invited were bartenders at our fav bar (Thirsty) and were working but still wanted to come out with us after they closed up so as the bit at our flat was winding down we decided to just go meet the guys at Thirsty then we would go from there. When we arrived there was about an hour left until close so we all got drinks and just hung around. I'm not quite sure, but someone got it in their heads that we needed the whole bar to ourselves so they convinced Daithí (bartender...who I later found out used to spend his summers in Glensfalls, NY...small world) to start playing crazy metal music, then when that didn't clear everyone out they tried using Enya. After that there were only 4 people left in the bar except for us and that's when we turned it into a dance party!

Kelly kicked it off by step dancing to C'est La Vie (a song from when we were kids) but then it was time for closing.

Now, there are rules here (maybe the same back home, I wouldn't know since I've never gone to bars) about bars closing. Everything must be shut down at 2 am, but to stay open until that time you have to have a late license. Most bars, unless they are also clubs, dont have this license. So, on weekdays they have to close at 11:30 pm and on weekends at 12:30 am. The Thirsty doesn't have a late license so everyone was supposed to be out by 12:30. Now, there is a bit of an unwritten rule that you can stay in a bar past close as long as they stop selling alcohol (though they can give it away, you just cant be charging people for it) and close up so that no one else can enter. This is typically called a lock in because you're not supposed to be let out again until 6 am when it's legal to open a bar again. For the most part these parties are like the crazy things you see on tv with people dancing on bars and stuff like that...which is exactly what our night turned into. We only did a modified version of a lock in, meaning that we left at about 2 when all of the other clubs would be letting out so it was slightly less suspicious and no one had to stay out all night.

Now, back to the story. So at close they locked up the doors and pulled all of the shades shut on the windows and started blasting the music and we had a dance party. It was soooo much fun. The music sellection was quite interesting, but it worked for the group. Here's a bit of the playlist that I remember:

Walking on Broken Glass - Annie Lennox
Jump Around - House of Pain
Irish music.
Beverly Hills - Weezer
Beat It - Michael Jackson
Jump (For My Love) - Pointer Sisters

Naturally, I had my camera for all of this, so here are some pictures of probably one of the most fun nights I've had out in quite a while!


This is Jake in his Birthday Princess tiara and he's also wearing a Birthday Girl pin but you cant see it under his jacket. This was in our flat before we went out.

Kelly breaking out the step dancing!

Jake and Daithí discussing the music choice.



This is once the bar was "closed." Daithí is the one up on the table. I believe this was during Walking on Broken Glass.


The old guy in the middle is Robert, a Thirsty regular who left a couple of minutes later. The excitment was too much for him.


Andrew...not quite sure what he was going for there, but this was a posed picture.


Left to right: Jake, Tyler, Adam.


Laura and Alex dancing on one of the bench seats along the wall.

We dont know who the guy on the far right was...he was one of the people we didn't scare off. Nice kid.

I believe that on this point I was dancing while standing on 2 bar stools. Beverly Hills was playing.

Jake behind the bar choosing the next song with Daithí.

No one could quite understand why Adam (the one on the table) rolled his pants up. Daithí (the one pointing) was obviously baffled.

"Shhhh....wait for it..." (Daithí) He was "announcing" Beat It.

Air guitar on the bar.


I think I took this picture while I was dancing on the table.

Then Mrijan got ahold of the camera and got a couple of shots of me and Adam dancing. This was during the last song.

We chilled outside for a while waiting for Daithí and Gene (the other bartender on duty) to finish cleaning up. Gene ended up going home but Daithí came back to our flat with us.

I caught him eating the last slice of b-day cake.


We hung out at our flat listening to music until about 4 am then Andrew, Daithí, Jake and his girlfriend all caught a cab back to the other side of town where they live.

It was a great night. Sooo much fun. It's great to be friends with bartenders...