Welcome back to my blog. Love that you're here. :)
This weekend I had my 22nd birthday! It was so cool to celebrate my birthday here in Spain, not going to lie. I do have to admit, it was pretty difficult to not be around family and friends, but my friends here in Spain did a great job celebrating with me. They loved on me.
I will thank them for ya.
It all started Friday October 5th at 11pm. I got together with some of my friends and we went to a local bar for some cokes and dessert at midnight. I mean, you can't celebrate a birthday without some dessert right? Here is a picture from that.
It was a lot of fun. But in all seriousness though, I am obsessed with Sprite with lemon. I can't tell you how much I love it. Seriously though. So good.
During the day, the Veritas girls and I had a Bible study with the local missionary here who is our mentor for the semester. It was a great time fellowship and sharing our burdens as well as our praises. That afternoon, I was able to experience my first siesta. If you know me, I am a big napper, so you should be surprised that it has take me three weeks to finally take a siesta. I don't know what it is, but I just love naps. Maybe I am a Spaniard and not Irish/German (kidding Mom).
That night a few of my wonderful friends and I went out to the oldest restaurant in Sevilla (founded in 1670). It was such a task to actually find the restaurant because of the lack of knowledge of the city. Sevilla has so many small, winding roads that it is literally impossible to not get lost. Holy cow. We asked like 3 or 4 times where this miniature restaurant was. It was a struggle.
We finally found it. The place is called El Rinconcillo and it was awesome! It was packed out and so full of lively people. We finally got our table for the 6 of us and we all got to experience some real, authentic Spanish food. Let me correct something, I do have authentic Spanish food at my host home, but the things on this menu were different, but also authentic. I had this egg, asparagus, onion, and ham dish. Sounds gross, but it was pretty awesome. Here are the photos.
It was a great meal with awesome company. But one of the coolest parts about it was the waiter that we had. His name was Pepe and he was awesome. He found out it was my birthday and he gave me a birthday kiss. No big deal. I took a picture with him. We're friends now. Boom.
After dinner, we needed to indulge in our newly found love of ice cream. Granted, I have always loved ice cream, but I don't think I have had ice cream so consistently. I now have a favorite ice cream shop. Yeah, it is that serious.
So, as I have said in a previous post, my birthday tradition is that I have my wonderfully handsome dad bake me my favorite banana cake every year. So, of course all week I have been craving banana cake, knowing full well that I would not be getting any. Well, what did my favorite ice cream shop provide?
Banana Ice Cream.
It was glorious. It was just a little taste of home.
After a wonderful evening of friends and Sevilla's best, it was time to go rest my little head.
But it doesn't end there.
Today (Tuesday) I received a post office slip to say that I needed to go pick up a package. I knew that my friend Mrs. Hillary Underwood (see what I did there) was sending something but I didn't know it was going to be a package. So fun!
So, after class today, I hurriedly went to the post office and was so giddy to get my package. I got to the post office and I had no idea what door to go in. There were like 50 different doors. One for Western Union and 49 for other things I didn't know. So, I politely asked the man at the desk if he spoke English to see if he could help me (which he didn't) because in all honesty, I didn't even know what I was looking for. He smiled and got me a number stub and all I could say was sorry for not being able to speak in Spanish. He was so kind and told me it wasn't a problem. He loved to smile.
My number was called and I went up to the lady and gave her my slip. She was not happy with me. She was talking so fast and I had absolutely no idea what she was saying. I know I had a confused look on my face because she kept repeating it over and over again in the same speed. I just kept saying I don't understand. Then she started to point to the slip and I could read it. Supposedly I wasn't supposed to come pick up my package until the day after I received my slip. But she was so nice, she gave it to me anyways. Word.
All in all, it was an experience and now I know how the post office works.
It was an amazing package though. Not going to lie, I shed a tear or two. Or maybe like 12, but that's beside the point. It was a few cards with people from SNU who wrote to say happy birthday as well as my favorite candy and a beautiful scarf. Being homesick and not being able to celebrate your birthday with the ones you're closest with can be difficult. But it was an amazing day and this packaged made it that much more amazing.
Here are some pictures.
Oh and I mustn't forget. I share a birthday with my lovely sister in law Sara Mardock. So, I feel as if I need to give her a birthday shout out since we share the same day. Sorta. Kinda. Not really. But a little bit. Yeah.
To end this long, drawn out post, I had a great day. Definitely can't get this anywhere else, that's for sure. I am so thankful to be here and have the encouragement from people here as well as those at home. I am going to be honest, it is hard at times when you just want to crawl back into the norm of what you know, but it is also such a growing experience to be constantl pushed out of the box.
I love you all and thank you for the birthday wishes! You guys are the best!
Until next time!
Love,
Ang
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