27 November 2009

My Birthday! ~ November 17th

I didn't really start paying attention to the fact that my 20th birthday was coming up until I stopped in Stuttgart on my way back from Hamburg (another visit to the Albrods!), and saw a flower shop in the train station. At first, I was just going look at the flowers, to waste time while I waited for my next train. Ha. I should know myself better. It is *extreeeeemely* difficult for me to resist buying flowers when I am surrounded by whole clusters of them. So I made my birthday my excuse this time, and broke down and bough six gorgeous roses - three rich velvetly dark reds, and three silky cream and ivory ones. My room automatically felt more cheerful and beautliful to me after I set them in a glass on my desk.

My presents arrived in stages all along the way. Grandma and Grandpa's card had arrived before Budapest, and then Mom and Dad's card too. Up in Hamburg, Gisela Albrod handed me a pink-wrapped package before I left their house...it ended up being her lastest art history novel, which I am now in the midst of reading. Then Tuesday, my actual birthday, dawned with beautiful pink clouds and a pale blue sky.....a gift in itself enough for me. I was lucky to have a break in classes to catch the Hausmeister in the half hour he was around, to pick up the package that had arrived the day before, from John W. That was a fantastic surprise. Lots of little things that I'd been wishing for for the past few months. :-) Less than a week later, Bri's present of soap and a *hand-knit* washcloth came for me. Mom and Dad's came, too, this week, packed with my Christmas presents too. I was excited enough that I woke the house back home up at 6 am, having miscalculated the time change, to tell them it had arrived.

Later on, my friend Melanie and her boyfriend took me out downtown for dessert and drinks. Good conversation and really good dessert (I had chocolatey rich Sachertorte). Another surprise came when I returned to the dorm, and was greeted by a bunch of friends from my floor, who sang Happy Birthday to me in first English, then German, and finally French, and between the five or six of them gave me a dozen little red roses (which are dried and are now next to my books)

All around it was an absolutely perfect birthday. I am happy.

~E.


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