My birthday is unconventional by default. Growing up, I would hear, “Wow, you’re so lucky. You get to stay up late on your birthday!” along with questions of whether people gave me the good old Christmas/birthday combo gift.
Being born on New Year’s Eve is definitely different. I’ve counted down to the new year while simultaneously lamenting the end of my birthday celebration. But when I was young, the significance of the day of my birth never struck me; it was just another day.
This last birthday was a little different.
After I got my free birthday coffee, my parents and I picked up my best friend Charlie, setting off for O’Hare International Airport.
After my parents dropped us off, Charlie and I did a few laps before getting the best food the airport could offer, and then we boarded the first of our three flights.
It was a little past 7:30 pm when we finally took off. This would be the longest hurdle: the transatlantic flight. This also meant we got the behind-the-seat TV screens, so we took advantage of that by playing several contentious games of Yahtzee.
As the new year crept closer, we put on one of the many movies from our in-flight selection: Elvis (2022), the Baz Luhrmann spectacle starring Austin Butler.
While I was for sure entertained, it was more like how I’ve felt watching fireworks shows after minor league baseball games. Sure, they were cool to look at, but after a while it got old and I just wanted to go home. Tom Hanks wearing a fat suit and touting a Dutch accent surely didn’t make this fireworks show any more bearable.
What happened next was probably a variety of things: the amount of crap I ate that day, the stuffy heat that’s inevitable in a fully-booked plane, or maybe I didn’t drink enough water. Whether it was one of these, a combination, or another factor I haven’t explored, I began to feel faint halfway through the movie.
I tried to tough it out, drink some water, but eventually I had to recognize that the fog tugging at my eyes was nothing close to exhaustion.
After stumbling to the bathroom and rubbing my face with cold water, I only had to go back to the bathroom once more to avoid fainting, which isn’t much of a win.
A few hours after that, we had the Elvis movie under our belts and landed at our first layover: Copenhagen. Luckily, this was an easy layover, as was our flight to Stockholm.
When we planned this trip months ago, it made sense to save some money and buy tickets with two layovers, but our physical and mental well being were dearly paying the price as we waited for our final flight while in Sweden.
The third flight came and went. It was longer than the second flight, but my audiobook made up for it and Charlie and I passed some time by going over some of the places we’d be visiting. I was already starting to get a feel for our destination since the plane was filled with people excitedly chatting in Italian.
By the time we landed in Milan, took a train out of the station, and walked to our hotel, we’d been up for over twenty-four hours. Our exhaustion didn’t stop us from making ourselves presentable before prowling the streets for some late-night dinner.
It wasn’t until we aimlessly walked around what looked to be a ghost town for five minutes that we realized that it was indeed New Year’s Day, and ten p.m. at that, so we settled on two vending machines tucked into a brightly lit alcove.
With all the packing, traveling, and trying to not let my sleep-deprived body get the best of me, it was hard to remember that I was leaving the country on my birthday. Even with the birthday texts that streamed in throughout the day, the festivities felt distant, not important compared with my impending trip.
My birthday had been well over as Charlie and I ate paprika-flavored chips and waffle-cream sandwiches in our hotel room. I had been twenty-four for over twenty-four hours by the time we finally went to bed.
While I did not get much sleep or relaxation on my birthday, the three grueling flights I went on took me to a country I had never been to before. It exposed me to a variety of cultures, foods, sights, amazing coffee and wine, and magnetic and welcoming people. My unconventional birthday made a week of overseas memories possible, so it was a good tradeoff, in the end.
Liana Hirner graduated from Calvin in 2024 with a bachelor’s in writing. She currently lives in her hometown of Aurora, Illinois and works full-time in a warehouse filled with books waiting to be sorted. Writing is her first love, followed swiftly by lattes and dark chocolate.
