This past weekend was my 21st birthday! It is funny to think about, but in the US, someone's 21st birthday is a really big deal because then they can drink legally and go out to bars. However, in Spain we can all already drink legally and one's 21st birthday means that lots of things get more expensive because we don't get the youth discounts anymore.
I considered Paris my birthday present but still did a little celebrating here. I hadn't really mentioned it to my host family much because I didn't want to make a big deal out of it, but I mentioned it at lunch and Maria's son and Maria both got very excited for me. Maria said that we would celebrate that night when Pilar, her daughter, got home. Dinner is usually small and I can ask Maria to make something for me but usually just do something on my own. But tonight she made chicken Mexican fajitas which she had made before and were absolutely delicious. Better than some I've had in the US before. I think it is the salsa she has and the very fresh veggies and her use of spices.
She also gave me a little gift which is a silver necklace with the Tibetan symbol for peace on it. It is very pretty and that was very cool. Then after she brought out a cake she had bought for me from the bakery and dessert shop near by that had candles with the numbers 2 and 1 on it. It was in the shape of a flower and had lots of different layers and different types of chocolate. They sang me Happy Birthday in Spanish, and I was surprised, although I shouldn't have been, that the words were different than the English version just translated into Spanish. Her daughter was also very excited for my and gave me lots of birthday wishes.
Then Thursday night I went out with some friends to dinner. I decided not to on Wednesday because most of us had class early the next morning. I met up with Rachel, Emma, Kevin and Jaja and we headed to Peggy Sue's American Diner which I had seen before and seemed like it would be really fun to try. There were only people at 2 of the tables when we got there and so I was really surprised when she asked if we had a reservation. It was on a back street and a little hard to find, and a Thursday night, but I guess they were all booked up starting at 9:30.
A disappointment but we headed out to find somewhere else. There was an Indian restaurant near by that looked good so we went in. All the people working there were Indian and it had a really cool ambiance. We ended up sharing 4 dishes and naan and rice among the 5 of us and it was delicious! The food in Spain isn't spicy at all (they mention how spicy something is when it doesn't seem spicy to me at all) so it was really nice to get more strong flavors and spices for a night.
In Spain everything is a lot more relaxed and they take their time at meal. And they don't bring you the check- you have to ask for it. Therefore we got to just hang out for a long time just talking and enjoying the food and it was a great night and a lot of fun.
Harry Potter also comes out on Friday, so with some other friends from the school, we bought tickets for Friday at 00:20. One would think that this means 12:20 am on Friday, but I guess here it actually means 12:20 am on Saturday. I went to the theatre at midnight to meet up with people there and get my ticket from Charlie who had bought four online. However, I didn't know at that time that it was for the next night because the last I heard was that we were going to meet at the theatre.
I called them and they were all somewhere else so I took the metro and met up with them (Audrey, Thea, Sophie, Brinna, Charlie, and Ross) and found them at a jazz club where we had to pay a 6 euro entrance fee but it came with a free beer. So my first drink as a 21 year old was a beer in a really cool jazz club. The funny thing to me though was that I didn't realize that it was my first drink of legal US age until about half way through. We stayed there until just before the metro closed at 1:30 just hanging out, relaxing and having fun.
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