Birthdays Abroad

I turned the big 2-9 (!) this past Sunday and lucky for me it was another holiday! The Prophet Muhammad's birthday is technically today (Thursday) but the work holiday was moved to Sunday just last week (reminiscent of the last minute daylight savings time snafu). I heard the following two reasons for this: elections were on Wednesday so the government wanted workers to come in today to count votes / Sunday was also the prime minister's birthday. Whatever the reason, I was okay with it! The surprise holiday meant that a bunch of my building mates were up for dinner and drinks the night before my birthday.

Rami, Alysa, Kaitlin, Aoife, Me, Zarlasht

I had a lovely day which consisted of a manicure/pedicure and Mexican food! We went to Fatty Dab's Mexico in Abdun which serves the lighter, street style Mexican food. We had tacos, guacamole, and CHURROS! They are incredible. In talking with the man who runs the restaurant, we learned that his cousin actually went to Mexico to learn how to cook the food. And apparently they all grew up in Chicago in Lincoln Park and had a few Mexican neighbors who taught them to cook. In case you were wondering, we got our churros for free!

Lisa and I

Kaitlin and Alysa

Tasty Tacos

Trading Tacos -- sounds like a euphemism if I've ever heard one

Amazing guacamole and salsa

CHURROS!

Another delicious close up!

After a nice day, I had a building dinner (with a few non-building friends in attendance) cooked up by the lovely Kaitlin. It was a delicious dinner and so nice to have a lot of my favorite people here in Amman in the same room together. The beer and confetti cupcakes didn't hurt either!

Lovely flowers from Lisa

Confetti!

Kaitlin, Rebecca, Zarlasht

Zarlasht ruining another photo

With Jeremy and Sarah!

Roze and Alex

Aoife and Zarlasht

With my boo, Alina

Birthdays abroad can be a mixed bag, especially being so far from family and longtime friends, made even harder in a country where it is difficult to get mail (it takes about 6 weeks for cards and packages to arrive here). The only other birthday I've had abroad was turning 21 in Lyon, France during my semester abroad. As you can imagine, turning 21 was extremely anti-climactic because the drinking age in France is much earlier than age 21! I lucked out, though, thanks to some great friends and had a great 21st and a great 29th. Huge thanks to all my wonderful friends here in Amman (some who've I've known for 2-3 years (!)) that make the time fly.