When I turned 16, I was on choir tour visiting various historical sites in eastern United States.

My host family found out that it was my 16th birthday and their kids wanted to give me a present but they didn't really have time to go to the store so they got a can of pizza flavored pringles and gave those to me as a birthday gift which, as an avid lover of food (especially junk food) I deeply appreciated it.

Our activity that day was visiting an Amish settlement. Now, when I boarded the bus at the beginning of the tour, my mom had this big, yellow bag that she said she had to give to someone, which had made me suspicious. I forgot about it for a while but as we were walking around the settlement, my friends suggested getting ice cream from a place visible up the road. When we got there, a bunch of random people (from my choir. Not just random strangers.) were waiting at decorated tables and there was the big yellow bag.

I have officially been thrown a surprise birthday party.

It was pretty fun! My mom had put in money for a few of us to get ice cream and there were decorations and all sorts of fun stuff my mom had put in for us.

On the bus back to our host families, I got to be in the awkward position where a bus full of choir kids is singing 'Happy Birthday' and staring at you and you're not quite sure what face to make because you're not really surprised; it's your birthday and you expected this much but smiling feels weird and you don't want to look mad/sad. I got back to my host family's house a bit late and had an early start the next day so I just read for a bit and went to bed.