Birthday and Thanksgiving

I know, I know, this post is almost 3 weeks late, but here I am (finally) to tell you about my birthday and thanksgiving. For those of you who didn't know, my birthday is always around (sometimes even on) Thanksgiving. Obviously, Thanksgiving isn't celebrated in Spain, so here I didn't have to worry about the two colliding. What I did worry about a little was the fact that I would be changing families just a few days after (see previous post). However, I ended up having an awesome birthday and birthday week!

In fact, the Saturday before a bunch of us AFSers got together and made our own Thanksgiving! Everyone brought food, and those not from the U.S. brought dishes more typical of their country. It was tons of fun, and the food was great. Cameron got stuck in the bathroom, and we ended up watching Mean Girls and sharing music. Afterwards, some of went to Sol because it was Ruby's last weekend in Spain! She's from Belgium, and chose to come to Spain for only a trimester. I hung out with Ruby, Ilhan and Ilhan's friend Adrian until 1 in the morning when I had to catch the metro home. We had a great time, and I miss Ruby so much now.

The next day my host family celebrated my birthday (it was on a Monday this year, and we were all going to busy). It was so wonderful, we skyped with my real family and Blake and both of my families sang me happy birthday! I don't think I've ever been happier.

going to celebrate Thanksgiving!

Ani with my birthday cake: a traditional Roscon de Reyes, usually eaten for Christmas or Three Kings Day

Both families!

Tuesday, the day after my birthday, was really fun as well. I went ice skating with my school for a field trip! I am so fond of my class, they are all so great. I also talked quite a bit with Cameron, a guy from Canada who is helping to teach English here. He told me it's true that most Canadians ice skate and know how to ski.

I think this is pretty much my entire class (:

 In addition, on Monday Melisande and I went into Madrid and I got my nose pierced, and she got her tragus pierced!

So that was my birthday and thanksgiving. I can't really believe I'm 16...In the U.S. that's a pretty big deal, with being able to drive and such. Here you can't drive until your 18, and that's the drinking age as well, so 16 isn't considered as important. Nevertheless, my friends and family made me feel very loved and celebrated.

And thank you everyone for the birthday cards! It's so fun receiving mail here in Spain. I have a whole bunch of postcards I've been meaning to send for over a month, I just have been to lazy to go buy stamps!

Happy Holidays! I'll do another post this week about my new family, don't worry.