After party recap

The dinner party went quite well. As I thought, the flat lends itself beautifully to celebration. Everyone comes in, walks down the very looong hall to spill out into the main room, where they then make a beeline for the patio, which overlooks the main town plaza. Here is our view:

We invited two couples (both of the men work with Rich) and our next door neighbors. Rich's work buddies are British. One of them, Will, is married to Mary, who is Indian. (They have two of the most gorgeous daughters you have ever seen.) Our next door neighbors are Norwegian (him) and Irish (her). So we had three Brits, an Indian, a Norwegian and an Irishwoman. (I swear, gatherings here always sound like the beginning of a joke. "Two Brits walk into a house..."). Mary came in and said she was caving a margarita, so I made margs for everyone. (Dangerous, that, as mine are STRONG.) After checking out the view, everyone hung out in the main room as it is already chilly in the evenings:



I had done most of my preparations ahead of time, so all I really had to do was bake the chicken and make the rice and steamed veggies. Of course, everyone migrates to the kitchen with offers of help. I don't know about you, but it's usually easier for me to do it myself than have help, as trying to describe where things are is always harder than just getting it on my own! (Plus, I'm still not 100% sure where stuff is, myself.) There's alot of kitchen for me to remember where it all goes:



God I love that kitchen. (Especially the lighting in there.) Plus, I have finally found a setting on the oven that just says "Conventional Baking" with which I can set the temp to my liking, so that makes me happy. This oven has so many preset options, it's scary, but of course, none of them are the ones I want!
The dinner turned out well. The chicken was really good, the broccoli a bit over steamed (still learning the cook top) and the rice was ok. I usually make really good rice, but whenever it's for guests, it's never as good as my usual. Not sure why that is. I like to think the slightly underdone bits added some crunch? But everyone ate it all up and there were NO leftovers.
The dessert kicked ass. Thanks, Tom Perini!
All in all it was a great evening. Got some folks drunk, fed them, everyone oohed and aahed over the flat, it was a fun time. I do feel like this flat is the coolest place I will EVER live, and I have a funny feeling I won't get to live here long. So I better live it up whilst I can. Livin' in the penthouse, dudes!
By the way, here is my office. I call it the Fashion Director's Office, for that is, to me, what it looks like.

I like my little office, packed to the rooftop with shoes and jewelry. Plus I don't know if you can see the calendar, but it cracks me up. It's a collection of photos of respectable looking British folk from the 50's, with insane captions. This month,it's of a guy looking smarmily over a woman's shoulder while she reads a large piece of paper, and the caption says, "Sam was mightily impressed that he'd been forced to use A-3 paper to photocopy his todger".
Tehee!