It's the Final Countdown

I turned 29 this week. It was a bittersweet day. On one hand, I'm one step closer to the big 3-0, which I'm looking forward to. On the other, I know that this is a yearlong goodbye to my twenties, a decade of firsts, triumphs, and innocence.

There have been many changes in my life over the past few months. I moved out of my dad's house, quit my job, and flew to Spain to begin my year as a Fulbright English teaching assistant. I had the most life changing three days of Orientation with incredible and inspiring people. I moved into an apartment with three kindhearted, hard-working, northern Spanish girls. I became single. I started teaching junior high and high school kids.

The night before my birthday, I treated myself to a concert held at the Conde Duque, a cultural center in the heart of Madrid. The concert was part of this years International Jazz Festival. My students said, "You're too young to listen to that kind of music." Whatever, children! I DO WHAT I WANT!! The O'Sister concert was all sorts of lovely and nostalgic. They sang "Harvest Moon", which I hadn't heard since I performed it with my Young Americans New Kid group back in 2003. I went home happy.

I got up on Wednesday morning and went straight to the kitchen. My roommates and I have created a tradition where we make a birthday plate made out of breakfast foods. We made Nerea a tower of mini donuts with 2 and 4 candles at the top. Waiting for me was this beautiful concocction of breakfast sweets:

                       

I hugged and kissed my roomates and got ready for my two class workday. I walked into my first class where the students greeted me by singing "Happy birthday" and of course, I cried. 

For dinner, my roommates and I decided we would do an intimate dinner just the four of us, at a restaurant of their choosing. At 9:15pm, Maria is making sure we are all ready to go because the restaurant was expecting us to be there on time at 9:30pm. We walked into a beautiful Thai restaurant and Maria asks for our table. The waitress points upstairs. As we start heading up I see Lauren, one of the Fulbrighters, and I think, "What a coincidence! I wonder who she's here with." When I reached the top, I realized she was sitting at our table alongside some of my other closest Fulbright friends. They were there for meeeeeeee. I immediately started balling and went into shock from the sheer joy of being surprised. 

It was a great night of catch up and delicious food. My birthday gift consisted of things to cure my homesickness, like salsas, Mexican candy, and Reese's peanut butter cups. Though the thing that cured my homesickness was the moment I realized how surrounded I am by people who love me. That my friends, is the greatest gift of all.

And so, it begins... The final countdown to the big 3-0 starts NOW!