A Sweetly Different Kind of Birthday

Yesterday was my 21st birthday! If you'd asked me on my 20th birthday what I expected to do on my 21st birthday I never would've thought to reply celebrate with new friends in Spain. Two days before I left for my trip I was so blessed to have a fabulous birthday party with friends and family in Columbia, and so I felt as if my birthday had already come and gone before the actual day. However, yesterday was full of sweet little surprises in the way people here in Salamanca went out of their way to make me feel special! In my 9 a.m. grammar class, my professor left to make copies and asked my friend Irina to help her and then they both came back singing happy birthday and holding a little pastry with a candle stuck in it! So precious!





What are real birthdays without trick candles though? After I blew out the candle and absent-mindedly laid it on the table I was surprised/horrified/so confused to see the worksheet our fiesta had interrupted suddenly become engulfed in flames! Well, at least a small burning hole was rapidly expanding! Thankfully Ola had the presence of mind to grab her folder and beat out the fire before it burned down the table...what a fail ending that would've been to such a nicely-intended, peaceful fiesta. Besides charring a corner of my pastry, giving it a pleasant toasted marshmellow flavor, no damage was done. :) Lots of laughter of course!



The birthday celebration continued at lunchtime, when Isabel and Maria were so adorable to shower me with "Feliz Cumpleanos" and wishes thay I'd have many more and also coming up to me to pull on both my earlobes and counting my years with a double tug when they got to 21--a Spanish birthday tradition, I guess kind of like our birthday spankings? After lunch they surprised me with a delicious birthday "torta" complete with a 21 candle! Pictures are below--unfortunately the one of me with Matt and Marcel is rather dark; and then the third one is Isabel on the left and Maria (I'm thinking that's a birthday hurrah). :)







The day of little fiestas finished with a lovely evening of going out for tapas with friends. It was the first time I've tried this Spanish tradition, but I am a big fan! It was so fun crowding around a little table and ordering a bunch of appetizers for all of us to share. My favorite part about it was that we were such a diverse group of different nationalities--Zeneide and her husband Francisco from Brasil; Erin and I from the U.S.; Irina, Ola, Frederique, and Gabrielle from Canada (with Fred and Gabrielle's native language being French); and Fernando (or Ferdinand) from Germany--and yet we were all able to sit around and enjoy each other's company chatting in Spanish! The first photo shows the ecclectic birthday party group (from L to R): Francisco and his wife Zeneide from Brasil, Ferdinand, Irina, Erin (in the back), me, Frederique, Gabrielle (also in the back), and Ola.