Flowers and Cake Make the World go Round

Life has been interesting these past few days, in both good and bad ways.  It can only be expected though, that's life after all-a mix of ups and downs, lefts and rights, beginnings and ends, bitters and sweets.  I have been thinking about my return home a lot, and how I will transition from Madrid to San Francisco and then to Humboldt County.  I consider myself a city girl, but love the slow-paced vibe that Arcata gives, and miss it, but dread going back at the same time.  Bittersweet! 

My 21st birthday was incredible, so much more than I had expected!  It was a great turn out, good vibes, beautiful people with beautiful personalities, and decent Thai food!  I wasn't expecting so many gifts and suprises, it truly made my 21st in Spain an even more memorable experience.  We went to eat dinner at this Thai restaraunt I came across and they had the tables set up to accomodate all 16 of us!

Although the Thai Ice Tea was a let down, and the Pad Thai, everything else was declicious and great service from our poor waiter who was the only one working.  He kept a smile on though!

The couple days before my birthday I did a bunch of fun stuff!  Friday our USAC program took us on another trip to La Mancha/Chinchon-where Don Quijote takes place.  We spent most of our time on the bus, and only got to explore on our own for bits at a time, but nonetheless saw a cool castle

we also saw loooooots of windmills, a beautiful scene especially with the view in the background, we had to drive up pretty high to get to this location

 

Our lunch was at a Don Quijote restaraunt and was delicious as always, we tried baked monchego cheese which was heavenly...I wanted to take some back with me!

On Saturday me and some friends went to picnic in Retiro, which we have done many times before, but this time was special!  We actually had blankets, vino, a lot of food and cookies, Kimi was able to join too so that pretty much made my day!  After our picnic and a short stop at Greg's apartment we went on the boats (barcas) in the Retiro lake, it was really fun and we all took turns rowing...while running into other boats.

I also found two ducks and made them my own by feeding them bits of baguette, their names are Wanda (the brown one) and Willy (the colorful one).

My friends Nasim and Kerry also took me to a Chocolateria where they have the BEST churros con chocolate, although I prefer barros to churros, which iswhat you see in this photograph:

 

It was an overall great weekend/birthday, I'm lucky to be living in the beautiful city of Madrid and be surrounded by amazing people.  I miss those back home of course, it was nice skyping with my besties and Watson and Dad.  I think I'll wear my fun pants tomorrow...