23 YEARS OLD!!!!

I just had my birthday on Saturday, and I have to say, it was one of the best birthdays of my life. I was up until midnight the night before just hanging out, so I got to ring in the first few seconds of the big day, which I have always wanted to do. Then I got a 7am skype call from my family after which I met Adam at the American Home for breakfast. There Boris, Artem and Sasha found me around 10:30 (the fact that Sasha was up before noon STILL amazes me) and presented me with the most glorious, absurd, humongous, beatiful over-the-top cake I will ever, ever get. I'm not kidding. This cake was a cake to weep over, a cake to put wedding cakes to shame. It was two layers and pink and white and green, it was covered in rice paper butterflies and swirls of frosting and edible pearls and glitter, 23 sugar roses adorned the sides and top and made the "i" of "Rosi". I stared in astonishment, shock even, while they sang a round of 'happy birzday' and the security guard looked on. I thanked them profusely, but only in English, having temporarily forgotten Russian. We busted that cake out that night and there is still some hanging around. It was a marvel of sugar and cream and butterscotch and crunchy stuff, really a unique experience.

So, then I hit the sauna at 11am and on the way back stopped at the local market. We picked up fresh vegetables and pickles and a pomegranate and basil and soy sauce and hauled all of our loot back to the American Home. Everyone was there cooking and prepping for Thanksgiving and listening to oldies but goodies, and I made stir fry while dancing the twist. The security guard even came in in his super quiet unassuming way and started helping peel potatoes.

Then, after we had the birthday cake experience, Emily and Adam brought me upstairs to give me THE CRISTAL WINE DECANTER FROM ST. PETERSBURG!!!!! It was the one that I saw in the market there, hand engraved with the rest of Queen Ekaterina, which looks so much like my parents' wedding present. I had even got back to visit in on our last day there, but couldn't quite bring myself to buy it for myself. I've been mourning it ever since. I really can't remember being happier getting a gift, it is exquisite. I'm terrified at the idea of taking it downstairs, much less getting it back to America. Pretty unbelievable...

THEN, around 5pm, me and Emily put on our fabulous dresses and put our hair up and headed to the theater with Adam and Alex to meet Adam's student. I had been REALLY excited about the play (Three sisters) because I had a long discussion with Nelli about it in my Friday class. It ended up being AMAZING, though the beginning was really strange. It wasn't traditional theater at all, there was dancing and aerial parts incorporated. The first half was extremely overacted, almost irritating at points, and then the second half SLAMMED into a really serious, dark ending. The imagery was amazing, we've been talking about it for a couple days now. (I also saw one of my older students there and she complimented me on being a serious girl, not out in some club for my birthday like she would have thought.)

So, of course, immediately after that we hit the bars. I got hilariously dorky birthday cards and chocolate from the gang here, and the Vladimir English teachers who invited us over last weekend couldn't make it, but one of them came and dropped off a rose and a birthday card for me while I was at the play. I finally got home around 1am, where I found a little birthday bear and roses from Kamila, and we had shots of vodka with her boyfriend until 3am.

On Sunday we had our big Thanksgiving dinner (which was AMAZING), and Galina Petrova gave me a really classy hand painted fillaq necklace (decorated with...roses) and everyone toasted me with champagne.

Sunday night Sasha, Artem, Kamila and Boris went to a restaurant with me and gave some Russian toasts in my honor, which is another unique experience. We had a blast talking about some silly stuff and some serious topics (Russians are obsessed with who did more in World War 2, Russia or America). Monday morning, I had class with Nelly and got a stone pendant made by a friend of hers, followed by an hour of talking about the play we saw. I finally dragged into my English class on Monday afternoon to find....my teenage students waiting with balloons and chocolate and two AMAZING handmade birthday posters covered in pictures of me and wishing me happiness, success, love and...welfare????

Then on Tuesday, I got birthday cards from my grandmas and in class my more advanced students gave me a postcard from 1971, a hand made scarf/shawl, more roses (the connection to my name is too good to pass up), a hand warmer (it's already 15 below), birthday cards, REALLY nice champagne, and some killer French chocolates. We talked about how Russians give lots of gifts for birthdays but expect the birthday person to organize all the activities and cook for everyone, and I pointed out that I had the best of both worlds since I have American friends here, and then we took pictures and ate chocolate while watching Forest Gump....it was quite the string of partying. I think the best thing is that, at every step, I thought, ok this has already been enough to call his a fantastic birthday, but the people around me kept doing more and more to make sure I had a good birthday in this country. And I haven't known any of them for more than 4 months!! Plus, I really like the number 23....