The One With My 21st Birthday

Birthday cake!

21/11/12. What a date, what a date. Not only was it a pallindrome, it was also my birthday, my 21st birthday to be precise. To Canadians, the 21st birthday means diddly squat, but it's a big deal in the UK and I was determined to make the most of it. Thanks to some incredible friends, it was a wonderful wonderful time.

You know you're old when you have to buy your own birthday cake, but I think I may have had the absolute best cake of my life. Loblaws did me proud. It was gorgeous and moist and chocolatey and there was fondant and sugar flowers and it was wonderful. Although, the waitress in Royal Oak did give me, Gabby and Lydia weird looks like she though we were going to eat the entire thing ourselves. Whilst that would have been well within our eating abilities, we only had a slice each - how restrained are we?



Cooper cuddles!

I guess 8.30am-8.30pm classes aren't the way many people would choose to celebrate their birthday, but those are my two favourite classes, and they have some of my favourite people in them, which was utterly joyous. In Jewish Lit, I shared around the cake, complete with Prof Mayne disappearing off to get napkins and forks. He didn't bring back the bottle of champagne in his office though, I'm obviously not his favourite student that much! Being in a billingual institution, I got sung two verses of Happy Birthday, one in English and one in French. It was glorious!

The day after was just an extension of my birthday. It began with cake for breakfast, which is always a bonus. I then got to spend the late afternoon with my favourite Canadian ever, Cooper the puppy and his owner, Sam. Okay, so Sam and Cooper might tie for favourite Canadian...Sam had even decorated her apartment in balloons and birthday banners and it was so heart-warming! Love her! Then we had a re-match of Disney Scene It 2, and this time she beat my ass big time. She wouldn't even let me have the birthday treat of winning. But I did get lots of Cooper cuddles!



Baby Jesus!

In the evening, I went to Zak's (obviously) for a birthday celebration. Team Exeter was complete with the wonderful addition of Jon; my favourite Dutch people in the world, Lisanne and Yvet came, as did Lihan AND we were joined by Emma. Emma I haven't seen since I was six and she was eight. We went to primary school and church together before she moved out to Montreal and it was so good to see her! But also so bizarre to hear her speak with a Canadian accent! Anyway, the evening was more than wonderful. People were so generous with their time and humour and cards and gifts and I felt thoroughly spoilt. Massive amount of love for the make-your-own Nativity set from the Dutch Posse, including the best picture of baby Jesus I have ever seen in my life.

Best birthday ever? I don't just think so, I know so.



Joy.