Birthday!

A couple days ago I celebrated my birthday for the first time in a foreign country! It was delightful, actually. The night before my roommates and I had gone out to a Chinese place for dinner and scrumptious desserts. When we got back it was already 12:15 so they sang "Cumplianos Feliz" for me and lit a candle for me to blow out. They're so sweet. Oh, and my one roommate's name is Bea (as in Beatrice), not Bear, or whatever I said earlier :).

I came to Biz's the morning of my birthday to check my email (she has internet and I don't!) to find a pot of beautiful lantern-like flowers for me from Seth--he had gotten Biz to go out and buy them for me. I love when people scheme behind my back to do sweet things... Biz and I went to class then went out with some people for the best kebabs in the world (for only 3 Euros) and sangrias. Mmmmm...

It's been a month since I've been here--I can't believe it's been that long, but in some ways it feels like it's been a year already. Biz and I noted that we can suddenly understand some of the dialogue on Spanish TV--that's really remarkable! At first I was completely lost--now I understand some of what people are saying. I need to be much more bold about speaking Spanish with people. Sometimes it's just easier to speak in English. And some people would prefer to speak in English with me. But, like my teacher said, if they want to speak in English, they can go to the US. I need to speak Spanish here.

I miss y'all back home! Hopefully I can come home for Christmas? We'll see.