I blinked

and nine months have passed. My birthday – with the most memorable house party – was just a minute ago. I decided to celebrate myself quite spontaneously: my apartment full of friends, me doing what I love most (hosting and spoiling my guests, more on that another time), and my friends spoiling me right back.

An unusual gift

A bunch of my friends gifted me the most unusual voucher: a photoshoot of my choice, with another friend, Andreea. I loved the whole gesture of it, friends pooling together for something so personal. I loved the packaging even more: the coolest card, me on a Vespa, collage style, no AI involved in the making. And I loved that they delivered it to me in person, in my hallway, all of us talking over each other at once, laughing, switching between German, Romanian and English mid-sentence. I got so excited there’s an imperfect, shaky, home-made video of the whole thing somewhere.

Almost a year later

Somehow, life got in the way, and I didn’t use my voucher until… last weekend. Almost a year later! But it was worth the wait.

I had a few ideas, but it ended up being mostly a go-with-the-flow kind of photoshoot. All I knew was that I wanted to wander the streets of my second-favourite neighbourhood in Berlin: Charlottenburg. I wanted as much sunlight as possible, I brought good mood, my new porcelain jewellery (a gift from my mum from a visit to Cărturești), and my brightest smile.

Warming up to the camera

I started out a bit shy, but Andreea helped me warm up to her and to the camera.

This was such a heartfelt gift. I felt beautiful, seen, loved. I’ll treasure it forever, along with the memory of that warm autumn Sunday. Thank you, friends, you know who you are! It’s moments like this that stay with me through the years.