A Very Special Day and other good things too

The Academy Building yesterday:

Don't know why the Canadian Flag was up, but I was pretty excited about it.

I figured they were wishing me a happy birthday. Obvs.

Yesterday was my birthday, and it was a lovely day. I always try to keep my birthdays really low key, that way there is no pressure for there to be some sort of 'epic' event that doesn't live up to expectations. My last few birthdays have involved trips to Calgary's Heritage Park, Colour Me Mine ceramics, the Premiere of Pirates 3, casual dinners, etc. Last year I celebrated my birthday early in Mexico because we traveled about 18+ hours on a series of buses, planes, and cars to get home.

This year I had a final exam. This meant that I was up fairly early, studying until just before noon, then I went to write my exam. It took about 2.5 hours of constantly scribbling down answers. My hand was in such a cramp afterwards, but I feel really good about it so I'm certain I won't have to resit it.

Afterwards all I wanted to do was sit around. The rest of my afternoon involved a lot of 30 Rock and my new pink nail polish! It was actually quite lovely. I even did a little workout then showered. At this point in the evening I started getting "what are you doing tonight?" questions. Not many people liked my idea of a quiet night in for my birthday, you see, that just isn't what one does for their birthday here. When people have birthdays here there is generally a big party in a common room followed by trips to the city centre. I was not about to make any promises.

What did happen was that I had dinner made for me! Life win, because I was going to cheap out and have scrambled eggs for dinner, sad? Yes, but it was the only thing I had left in my fridge. So after some chicken parmesan and a few beers I was quite content.

It must have been close to 11pm when some lovelies that I hang out with rolled up singing happy birthday holding a rhubarb crumble! (made by two lovely Swedes) Loved it. I was so surprised. They also gave me a new charm for my Pandora bracelet! It is a tulip. How perfect is that?!

Mostly we just hung out all night until I was guilted/convinced/shamed that I should go out. But the thing that threw me off this the most was the all the girls I usually hang out with couldn't go out. Either they weren't in town or were catching the train at 6am. I ended up leaving the house at 2am, going into one bar where shots are 1euro, having a shot, then leaving. ha. I didn't really want to be out, but I could still say that I went out for my birthday. Ha, I'm such an old lady sometimes. It was raining lightly when I biked home but it was still quite warm. I really love it like that.

I had a really lovely day. It made me miss home and all the great people I know there but it also made me realize how little time left I have with the great people I've met here. From today I only have about 10 more days left in Groningen. Most of my remaining time here will be spent traveling, which is amazing, but at the same time I realized that it is going to be really hard to say goodbye to this - mostly awful - house and the people inside it.

When I got up this morning I discovered someone had vomited outside my door. The vomit is still there. Yes, student housing has its ups and downs. Hopefully it gets cleaned up soon!

Today after class I got together with my group to discuss our next and last paper over coffee. We tried to wait out the rain but eventually gave up. I biked home in the pouring rain. I soon discovered that the seams of my jacket were not waterproof. I was soaking.