A semester in Espana: 21 in Spain

It turned out that my birthday is extra special because another girl from SLU also had here birthday on the same day. I was very happy about that because turning 21 on a Sunday night is kind of a strange night to go out on. We went to the Cave Bar, which is right by where I live and we had a decent sized group, which was good because we were pretty much the only people in the bar. At the Cave Bar you get a free bottle of champagne on your birthday and since it was both of our birthdays’ we got two free bottles. I think the bartender thought it was suspicious that it was both of our birthdays but we both had genuine ID’s which we showed him and then he had no choice. I also shared this drink called Agua de Valencia with my friends, which was pretty good too. My friend Tyler is the best and he basically bought all the drinks and bought three more bottles of champagne. I had a good night though. I was pretty low key and nice.

The next day was my actual birthday and was pretty uneventful. I did wake up feeling older though. I just went to school and saw all my friends again. I got lunch at VIP’s with my friend Samantha and had this brownie with ice cream so it kind of felt like it was cake. When I got home from school I just took a nap as usual and then woke up right before dinner. My host mom is the greatest and she made this really nice dinner. She had the whole family eat with us, (usually it is just me and my three roommate eating together in the kitchen) and she put out a tablecloth and nice china and we all ate in the dining room. It was really adorable. She made a giant pot of paella, these fried cheese ball things that I forgot the name of, tomatoes with olive oil and onions, cheese and bread. It was so cute I very much regret not taking a picture of it.

I figured after dinner we would just have our traditional “dessert” of fruit but she actually bought this cheesecake for me and had “2” and “1” candles lit in it. It was so, so cute. The cake cutter was also musical and played the tunes of happy birthday, here comes the bride, and other celebratory songs. She loved it and kept turning it on but I could tell her son, our host brother, hated it.

Then, when dinner was over and we were clearing off our plates and we were all thanking her for the dinner, she was like “WAIT! WAIT! I have a gift for you! SIT!” When she came back she had a bag from Zara, a really nice store that is very Spanish and she was like “Zara because it is a Spanish store”. She got me this burgundy red halter-top shirt that was really pretty that she said I could wear out to the “discoteca” and she ever had a gift receipt on it if it was the wrong size. It was so nice of here. I really do believe I have the best host family.

I kind of wanted to go out again but no one else did and everyone was tired from the weekend, but my roomie was just going out casually with some of her friend she she invited me to join. We all just went to McDonald’s but my roomie and I didn’t get anything because we were all stuffed from our dinner. It was a pretty casual night and then I just ended up going to bed at a decent hour and getting some sleep, which was probably what I needed. All in all it was a pretty good birthday.