Birthday #24

Another birthday flew past me about 6 weeks ago.  Once again it shot upon me unexpectingly as I was still on a family high from my aunt and grandmother coming to visit just a fews weeks prior and adjusting to a new work schedule. 

I followed the same theme as last year- simplicity.  Like I explained, summer months are usually tight on the wallet especially later in the month.  So I invited everyone to my apartment (my 2 wonderful roommates made absolutely gracious hosts), I cooked a variety of American dishes and bought liters and liters of beer for everyone.  My apartment is substantially bigger than the apartment I was staying in for my last birthday so I got to decorate and invite a lot more people.

I got a much better turn out than last year... especially considering I've made a lot more friends over the course of this year.  However, something still wasn't the same.  Dani, my Spanish best friend, didn't come and some other close friends that I was expecting had other personal reasons that kept them away.  But those who did, had a very good time if I dear say. 

ME AND MICHELLE

I spent hours preparing all the goodies.  One of my best friends here, Michelle came over a little early to help my prepare.  She also brought me some goodies including my adorable birthday cake.  My amazing roomie, Nikki helped my cook and clean all day too.  When everyone started to arrive, they were met with an incredible assortment of snacks like pigs in a blanket, spicy chicken dip, deviled eggs, pasta salad, all the essentials.  To top it off, for dessert we had Michelle's cake and tirumisu and mini- French Toast bites.  A breakfast food in our culture.... but a complete culture shock for all the foreigners! Everything was a big hit!

 I spent majority of my party in the kitchen but it was well worth it to see everyone having a good time. The beer and liquor flowed steady for the next 3 hours or so. When all the food had been administered, one of my favorite students asked me about a promise I had made to teach the Spaniards some American drinking games. haha! it was hilarious watching them trying to master flip cup and understand the rules to beer pong. We were all laughing so hard that it actually brought my next door neighbor over to complain about the noise level. Oops! I mean c'mon.... it's Saturday night, my birthday and the first time we've had anyone over at all. But I told my nosey neighbor that we'd be leaving soon and we'd try to keep it down until then.

I kept my promise as 20 minutes later we ran out of alcohol.  So obviously it was time to move on.  I didn't have a specific after-place in mind.  I figured we'd take suggestions and see how many people actually wanted to head out after.  Majority we still wanting to party and my good friend Martin knew a place not far from my house that played decent music and was a fun but chill place.  Everyone supported his choice and we headed there.  It was a really fun bar that played a mix of american rock and pop with some spanish singles.  We stayed there till I'd say around 530-6 when the place closed down.  I still had some energy left but everyone else was pooped so we called it a night and went home.

Overall, it was one FANTASTIC birthday.  The actual day was nothing special. I had work all day and called my family at night.  A lot of my friends and family sent me cards which is always a nice suprise :)  The party beat all my expectations... so than you to everyone who was apart of my special day! MUCHOS BESOS Y MIL GRACIAS A VOSOTROS!

Birthday Celebrations

Well with the month of September flying by so quickly, I didn’t even realize that my birthday was the next week. It’s kind of a pain having a birthday at the end of the month here in Spain because no one really has any money left to throw a big shindig. Therefore, I decided to have a pretty low-key night. In Spain, it’s tradition that the birthday person buys the drinks when everyone goes out. Well, not being made of money and knowing how much my friends can put away, I decided just to have a few friends over to my place and buy some beer and calimocho stuff. Simple, easy and affordable.

My friend Dave came in on Friday from Talavera for my birthday weekend which was a lot of fun. It had been the first time he’d been back to Madrid since he studied here some months back. So Friday, we walked around downtown and hit up a bar that was in the basement of a hostel he had stayed in awhile back. At first the idea didn’t seem that fantastic, but it turned out to be a crazy, fun night. Plus, I loved watching how excited he got seeing everything again. It’s those emotions I miss the most; it’s so hard to explain but I love watching people when they have these moments of “Damn, I can’t believe I’m actually here! I can’t believe that I followed through with it!” Madrid and well Spain in general lost its zeal some months ago. Not that I don’t love it; but now it’s just… home, not that distant magical place it once was.



Anyways, Saturday was crazy hectic. It was the night of my “party” so I had a lot of cleaning and prep to do. Plus, I was in the middle of apartment searching because the girl, who I was renting the apartment from, was returning to Spain that weekend. On top of it, the girl was not happy that I was having people over to the apartment for my birthday… so it caused a lot of unnecessary drama that I didn’t need. But whatever. I spent the afternoon running errands and making my final piso decision. Late-afternoon, Dave and I stopped in at this going away party/ rummage sale for one of the ALA teacher that was moving back to the States. It was simple and a good way to socialize with some of the teachers outside of work. We couldn’t stay long because we were meeting Dani and Xandra for my birthday dinner. I hadn’t seen either of them in a long time, so I was really excited about it. I was told to pick the restaurant so I found this cute little Mexican place a few blocks away.

However, Dani and Xandra failed to tell me that neither of them likes Mexican food. Well, that dinner ended up being a big disappointment haha. But it was a nice gesture from them to let me get what I wanted while they suffered through it in silence.

With little time to spare, we returned to my apartment to get set for my birthday get-together. I didn’t have as big of a turnout as I had expected. People that I was sure would come, didn’t. And people that I didn’t think would come, did. In the end though, I couldn’t have asked for a better crowd.
Dani and Xandra left a little early to catch the last metro to their part of town. Nikki, a new teacher at ALA, came and I soon realized that she and I were going to become really close friends… which we did in the weeks that followed. My friend Emilio came and also Tisha and Devin, other teachers from ALA made an appearance. Dave stayed that night too and we all had an AMAZING time. We sat around and talked and joked about anything and everything. Then when all the booze was almost finished, he hit up Malasana (local street with lots of great bars). I don’t remember much about the bars but from what I’m told, I had a great time. When things closed down, he headed back to my place for a few more drinks before we passed out for the night.

Overall, it was the least pizazzed birthday I’ve had in a while but there’s nothing really special about turning 23, I guess. The people definitely made the birthday and I couldn’t have been happier! Thanks everyone :)