A Real Party

Yummy tacos with twelve beautiful women!
A special song for me! From right to left: Natasha, Olya, Masha, Katya, Oksana
Blowing out the birthday candles, thanks Blythe!

Yesterday was my 29th birthday and I can honestly say I had the best birthday party ever! I invited my Russian friends and my female teammates. It was the perfect mixture of people. My apartment was filled with love. The only difficulty of the day was cooking dinner, playing hostess, entertaining guests, welcoming everyone and listening to all their well wishes. You can tell if that was the worst it was a good evening. There were about twelve us in my small apartment, I think. As people came in they handed me my gift and wished me a "Happy Birthday." That wasn't all. According to Russian tradition you must wish many good things to someone one their birthday. All the Russians came with speaches of blessing prepared. It was wonderfult o recieve their blessings and well wishes.

I fixed tacos, mexican rice, and a fruit salad. For many of them it was the first time they ate tacos and I think they all liked it. After dinner I asked about Russian birthday traditions so we played a "traditional" game. Natasha collected a peice of jewlery from everyone and then she stood behind me. She would pick out one piece of jewlery and then I would have to say the person who owns this jewlery must... It was kind of like the dare in truth or dare. I had a hard time comming up with good dares. Everyone was a good sport. Katya started it off by reciting a Pushkin love poem to Blythe. Rebecca sang Happy Birthday to me on my balcony. Oksana found a stranger to come in and give me a birthday greeting and well wishes. Different girls had to do special dances for me. I even got a massage! I think you get the idea. It's a pretty great game.

After the game came the cake. Before the cake some of the girls decided to sing a traditional Russian song and dance for me. The entertainment was undending. Blythe made me a cheese cake that was wonderful and everyone sang C dnyom rojdenya tebya (Happy Birthday to you.) After cake and tea we continued on with the Russian traditions.

The table was quickly moved away to make room for a dance floor and we had quite the dance party. Yes, even I danced. Slowly people went home. After the dance party I broke Russian tradition and opened my presents. Russians never open presents in front of the giver. They are afraid that they will not be able to hide a negative reaction if they don't like a gift. I didn't have to worry about that because I liked all of their gifts.

It was an amazing birthday and cultural experience with lots of love, smiles, and laughter. I can't believe how quickly I have developed friendships here. Now I don't want to think about leaving them all!