Yesterday was my birthday. It was very strange to be so far away from my family and friends with whom I usually spend the day. I had thought about taking a short weekend trip, but with the winter break only 2 weeks (10 school days) away, I thought I should save my money for the Turkish carpet I intend on buying!
I decided to have a nice, relaxing day. I started my morning by being serenaded by sister dear. She always sings to me on my birthday, no matter where she or I am. I usually end up getting it via voicemail or over the phone, but this year I got to watch her as she sang thanks to Skype. I truly do not know how I would be doing if I didn’t have that connection to those nearest and dearest to me. Letters or e-mails just aren’t the same. I even got to talk to Sara and JJ – JJ assured me that once you hit 30 your birthdays just stop. So, 30 it is! Although, if you have kids and they turn 30 I think that there should be an addendum to that rule, otherwise it would be very awkward…
After my morning of chatting Maddy and I went to the Hilton. I had booked myself a birthday massage there. The reason I picked the Hilton is because they have a lovely spa area with a spa pool, steam room, sauna, ice room and hot tub (with no bubbles). There are deck chairs where you can just lay out and relax. After our designated massages, Maddy and I hung out by the spa pool reading and waited for Rina to join us. We relaxed, hung out in the spa pool and the steam room before enjoying one of the most amazing showers ever! The locker room showers are wonderful there! We’re thinking about making it a monthly day of leisure. Why not? I would totally take one of those showers in my apartment!
We came back home and changed to meet up with the others for dinner. Rina, Maddy, Lindsay, Rick, Maria, Sophie and I met at Lindsay’s for birthday cocktails before dinner. I had heard really good things about a Lebanese restaurant here, so I decided to go there. We ordered a whole bunch of food and shared it. It was a delicious feast!
Fatoush, Babaganoush, Hummus, Taboula and bread! Oh, the bread! This was just the appetizers :)
We were going to go to The Chocolate Bar for dessert, but it was an hour wait. Lindsay had snuck out to check on it, and ended up ordering dessert to go. We took it back to her place then headed home shortly after that.
There was even ice cream, but it didn't make it to the picture!
I have to say, my new friends here are truly stellar beings. They wouldn’t let me pay for dinner or dessert, and Abdul didn’t charge us for our taxi rides. They also gave me some lovely gifts that I can use, like black beans (oh Lindsay – she was cleaning out her cupboards and thought of me – I had a really hard time finding them the first month I was here), Caribou coffee, delicious caramel treats, and some new drinking glasses. Very sweet and exciting!
I should have gone in to school today for a conference, but I decided to sleep in. Now I’m lounging around trying to decide if I should go to the grocery store, or just stay home in my increasingly chilly apartment…I’m thinking of using the Amazon gift card from the parentals and downloading a movie or two to watch…yeah, that’s probably going to win!
Side note: it has actually cooled off here. It’s been in as cool as the 40’s here. Due to the breeze off the gulf, it is actually a bit chilly. There is no heat in the building I live in. For the most part, it doesn’t bother me, but there are others here from less frigid climates who are suffering! Rumor has it they’re going to install central heating in our building, but we’ll see! And we do have space heaters. Those who have actually plugged them in and used them say they don’t do much. I haven’t done that yet.
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