Mi 21a cumple (My 21st Birthday)

So yesterday was my 21st birthday. Not an entirely culturally new experience (although I did have some incidents that I'll write about), but worth sharing on the blog, anyway.

So at 6am I was woken up by Austin, but by accident. She had set her alarm (on vibrate) to set up her surprise for me, and I screwed up her plans by waking up, too. Anyway, so I went to the bathroom and went back to bed. The sun was coming up and the birds were chirping outside. Pause. THE. BIRDS. WERE. CHIRPING. I heard birds on my birthday morning!!! First time in Spain!! A few hours later I woke up for real, Austin had put up signs all over my room with pictures and funny quotations that we've shared this semester. It was really sweet and very funny.

After the normal combinations of homework and class, I went to the center, where I had some very, very socially awkward interactions. I don't know if I was just out of it or what, but my kiss-kiss with both Pepe and Luisa failed miserably. With Pepe I thought we were going for a hug, but he definitely thought the kiss-kiss, which was just really, really awkward. There is a way to mess that up subtly and a way to, well, not, and I was definitely in the latter category. It was bad. Liliana commented on it after, too. And with Luisa, I was just slow and kind of blobbish, so she had to move herself around me. There was no mutual kiss-kiss interaction going on. All of this sounds stupid written out, but believe me -- it was not pleasant. It's MAY and I still haven't gotten it down!!

Antonio, my History of Iberoamerica professor remembered my birthday, which was really sweet. He sent me an email and everything (the email was quite funny, as he decided to write part of it in English). Actually, no, he thought it was Liliana's birthday, so he sent her an email and told her happy birthday in class, but then we corrected him, which just proved for an amusing situation. It was nice that he remembered someone's birthday, anyway!

The best part of my day, though, was probably dinner. We had a little party at Liliana's house. My friends made dinner for me, which took several hours and was a lot of fun. For appetizers we had tomato, mozzarella, and pesto, with olive oil and bread, obviously. Austin got tinto de verano (my favorite Spanish drink, half red wine and half sprite-esque stuff) and Amy brought wine. Then for the main course we had a very colorful salad (complete with arugula!) and gnocchi with homemade vegetable and tomato pasta sauce. The gnocchi was good quality and delicious. I hadn't had gnocchi in quite awhile. Plus Liliana's pasta sauce was delicious. Then, for desert we had a fruit salad (Liliana went to the fresh market near her house so all the fruits were great), complete with mango, and Anne (Liliana's french apartment-mate) made fresh whipped cream to go on top. Quite delicious. The food was incredibly tasty. Absolutely zero complaints here. It was a really nice way to celebrate my birthday and it made me feel really lucky to have friends that would bother doing all of that.

And now, here are some pictures that I took from throughout the day...

On Monday and Tuesday, I always have lunch with Liz because we have Anthro together, but yesterday I decided to take a picture after we finished eating to document it. I look like a shaggy dog (am trying to decide if I'm growing my bangs out or not; that's why I haven't cut them yet).

Austin and I at 8pm after the last class of the day. I really like this one because you can see the background well, which is one of the patios in the university building.

Later, at Liliana's apartment, testing out the appetizers.

Liz, me, Austin.

A picture of my meal! Mmm... I can still taste the fresh fruits and vegetables...

Before eating: me, Austin, Liliana, Anne, Shannon, Liz (Amy is taking the photo).

Me with my desert and candle (in the nata!) with the cruzcampo that Kristin bought me (here, cruzcampo = life in terms of beer).

Oh yes, I know, how artistic. But doesn't the fruit look good?!

So yes, my birthday in a nutshell. It was a good day, but now it is back to the reality of work, especially considering I put off so much of it yesterday. Ah well.

This weekend Liliana and I are taking a little bus ride down to the beach for the weekend. Her birthday is on Monday, so we thought it would be fitting to have a little getaway together. We're staying in a little town that's on a supposedly very beautiful beach (Canyos de Meca) and right next to a National Park, so we'll also be close to a lot of hikes and paths and stuff. We'll be gone Friday to Sunday. I'm really looking forward to it.