I guess I should start from the beginning......."Monday night in my house in Argentina with all my family gathered in the kitchen with the sweet smell of fresh cake and ducle de leche." The night of the 15th I stayed up until midnight for it to officially be my birthday as is the tradition in Argentina. As the clock struck twelve, my family started in with the classic birthday song (only in Spanish of course) as I jumped and smiles and blushed from all the happiness. As we shared hugs and they told me congradulations, my sister Paula brought out a small white present for me to open. Inside I found a ring made from real silver and gold with a "J" place in the middle. Rings are a very popular and important thing in San Juan and my fingers have looked out of place the last six months being bare. But now I have a wondeful gift that I can wear everyday and think of my family all the time! The ring was a tiny bit small so some time this weekend we are going to take it in and have them make it a little bit bigger. As soon as that is done, I plan on wearing it every day so I never forget the love I felt that night. :) As I also learned that night, sending text messages to wish someone happy birthday the second it is technically the day is also very popular. I got many messages from my girlfriends here that made me want to tear-up from reading them. I went to bed that night content and excited to wake-up in just five short hours and begin again my birthday.
As my birthday fell on a Tuesday, I had to go to school. But I am happy to say that I got really lucky! We originally were going to have a large test in my Accounting class but the teacher didn´t show up so we watched a movie instead! We also got out of school and hour early because we had a "test" in English and as soon as we finished we could go home. As it was my birthday, I obviously wasn´t planning on going home just yet. Instead I had arranged a popular San Juan tradition with many of my classmates. Going to Mc Donalds!!!! Don´t ask me why but your birthday lunch at Mc Donalds with your classmates almost always a custom here and as I am currently here, I couldn´t miss out on such a fun (although not something I would ever normally do) tradition! Us girls (nine of us in total) took the bus to the little mall about ten minutes from my house while six of the guys got in cars and headed over as well. We also had some photo shoots where I took pictures of everyone and everything! As it should be, the luck was in my favor and it was a day where all my photos actually turned out good! The whole time at Mc Donalds was a blast! They sang me happy birthday a million times, we laughed at jokes, took random pictures in the bathroom, and had icecream to top it off. After I had said goodbye to everyone with more birthday hugs and wishes, I walked home with Mari and Juli.
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| Maria and I |
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Luciano, Pigna and I eating at Mc Donalds |
When I got home, I decided to open all of the cards I got. I had 20 in total!!! My friend Cary had arranged a day where 17 of my friends got together and all wrote me a card wishing me happy birthday. What I also found after opening the letters, was that they had sent me a message. In each of the envelopes was a picture of one of my friends holding a word and each envelope was numbered- 1 to 17. When all the pictures were lined up in order, I started laughing and smiling as I read " WE LOVE YOU JENICA. WE WISH FOR YOU BON-BONS, ELEPHANTS AND GOOD ------ ON YOUR SPECIAL DAY!" The blank spot is where letter number 13 should have been. Unfortunetelly dear Sumi´s card never made it to my house and must have gotten lost in the mail. After talking with Onalee yesterday, I learned that the missing word was "Fairies". Right now all the pictures are hanging up in our living room so all my friends and family can see them and I can be reminded of how much I am loved.
My papa got home at about eight-ish and he started making "asado" which is like a barbecue but a MILLION times better. I got dressed up, helped set the table, took more pictures, and asked a million questions about the asado and why he was doing this or why he did that. My whole family was supposed to show up at 9:30 and we had to get everything ready! By about ten o´clock everyone was there and we sat down to eat dinner. There was my grandparents (Elsa´s parents), my aunt and uncle and their two daughters, my other aunt, Elsa, Alfredo, Sofia, Paula, Paula´s boyfriend Federico, and my friend Fran from Tailand. We spent the next hour eating empanadas filled with ground beef, eggs, and jalepeinos, Steek asado and pork asado, potatoe salad, a tomatoe and dressing mix and lots of 7up! :) At about 11 they brought out the cake and sang Happy Birthday to me. The cake was absolutely amazing and I ate a LOT! Hehe. It was a three layer vanilla cake. The first layer soaked in peach juice and then a layer of dulce de leche, another vanilla layer with peaches on top, and then the final cake layer covered in hardened white chocolate. My favorite part of the last couple days is when we finish lunch and get to eat some of the leftovers! It is SO good! |
| Empanadas! |
By midnight (and the oficial end of my birthday) everyone said their goodbyes and went home. But I still had one more thing let to do. As my family gathered around in the kitchen, I went a fetched the package from the U.S. that my family had sent. Now this is the hard part. Not only has my English writing gotten worse but this in and of itself is a hard thing to put down in words. But I will do my best. Inside the package I found a tin box filled with 60 pictures. Each picture was of a friend, family member, teacher, or Sandra Bullock (that one was a joke) holding a sign wishing me happy birthday. I made it about six photos in before I started crying. I spent the next fourty minutes with my family looking and laughing at all the places my friends went to to take these photos and all the people who are growing older just like I am here. I saw my parking spot at MB, my Dad hanging up in the crane, my family gathered at the Guerrieri´s house, my art teacher, and my sister jumping on the tampoline. But even as I looked at all these photos of people I love, I didn´t feel sad. I was actually happy. Because in that moment I realized how trully lucky and loved I am. I still miss you all, but I didn´t cry because of that. I cried because I feel like my life is perfect with all of you. I still have challenges and hard days but if I can just think of those photos and how many people in the world sent me birthday wishes, I don´t think I will ever take friends and family for granted again. Thank you all for participating in such a great gift. I also want to put in this quote that I recently put on Facebook in order to try to better capture my gratefulness:
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| My Family (Sofi, Elsa, Afredo, Paula and Me) |
"It is not every day that you realize how lucky you are. And it almost never is the day of your 17th birthday. Unless of course......you traveled all the way across the world to find yourself, unless you discovered the family can be found anywhere, unless you have best friends all over the world and the thought of leaving them makes you cry, unless you have two counties, two cities, two families, and two schools that you can call home, unless you spent your birthday laughing at jokes, eating empanadas, having photo shoots, and getting hugs, unless you opened a package of pictures and started to cry from all the love. I guess what I am trying to say is, it doesn´t happen very often unless you are me. Thank you everyone for giving me the best birthday ever and helping me learn how trully lucky and special I really am."
In the end, my birthday was fantastic. From the second it struck twelve to way past then the next night. I was content and excited every minute and was suficiently loved even though many of my friends and family weren´t with me in person. I won´t ever forget this day as long as I live. And the parties aren´t even over yet! This Sunday I am having my Pajama Party with my girlfriends at my house. I am sure I will have lots to share about that as well so make sure to check back here later next week! Thank you all again for everything! And I hope one day you guys can (or already have) learned what I learned on my 17th birthday. The only important thing in life is love, and it can be found anywhere in the world. :)
