Birthday -ish

So. Darlene had been asking me all along what was it I wanted to do for my birthday, and I had been saying just to go out to 100 Monteditos since it fell on a Wednesday for a little bit, nothing big. I didn't even care if people were there or not. She decided that wasn't enough and that she was taking me out to dinner on Tuesday (the day that Obama began his presidency) the night before my birthday and also the night I have to teach English to my student Marvin. I really wanted to watch the inauguration so I cancelled my class and had it moved to Thursday instead. I went to Dar's house, she had found a nice Italian restaurant that she wanted to take me to and kept bugging me to see how much longer I'd be.
Earlier that day my roommate had sent me a text saying, "Hey its Anaola, what times is leah's party"... me thinking she's just silly decided she just forgot for the 10 billionth time that I had said Wednesday at 8pm at the 100 Monteditos in Tribunal. Then continued getting ready. I was suspicious obviously and thought that when I got the girls house they'd suprise me with them and the people that live there, which I was totally down for because I was tired. But no, Dar met me downstairs and we had a delicious, heavenly italian dinner! Sooooo good... with Tiramisu too! Then Dar had said she wanted to take me to this cool bar she'd gone on a date with one of her boys, that was really similar to this bar that we went to waaaaaaay back when we first got to Madrid. So we headed to the center and to the bar. When we were getting close to the bar I saw my friend Dylan and his friend Tomek skating in the plaza right next to it so I hollared at them to see what they were up to and if they wanted to join us at the bar. haha... They said sure and that they'd meet us inside. Then we got to the door and Anaola, my roommate and a few friends were smoking outside, I though it was really crazy how she ended up on her date in the same barrio as the bar we were going too! Then I turned and saw two of my friends, Pam and Marianna standing there too and thought, "well wait. Wtf?" and then I punched Dar in the arm. We went inside and a whoooooooooole bunch of my friends were there! Almost all of them! And they shouted suprise and said it had been planned for a couple weeks. And then when I thought about it it made sense that everyone in class on Tuesday had been asking if it was my birthday and I was confused and thought Facebook had messed up my birthday date on the upcoming birthdays tab. Haha!
That bar was really nice and really expensive, so me and Dar shared one drink while everyone else finished up theirs, then we went to the good ol' pubs just down the way. O'Connells. My favorite. And being girls we got a free round of shots just for going in on a weekday and somehow I ended up taking several of them instead. We drank and were merry and a lot of pictures came out of it and even a video too. Haha... Very fun! I spent the night at the girls place and took a long walk home through all the stores because my financial aid money had just gone through and I decided to find myself something cute. I ended up replacing a cardigan I had lost earlier that month with 2 more and a coffee from Starbucks.
The day of my birthday I met up with people at 100 Monteditos at around 8. Ana, my other really good friend here didn't make it out Tuesday night for the big party, but she made me a pillow and a card for Wednesday. Only a few people showed up Wednesday, mostly the people that weren't able to make it out Tuesday and their friends. Some of the WIP kids came out too which I thought was random and fun! Haha... Ana somehow talked me in to going out after 100 Monteditos closed and we found a cool swanky bar nearby and I spent the night at her house and skipped my 8:30am class, but we made it to our 10am class! Haha... the teacher got concerned for me when I got up to go to the bathroom bc, 1) I never leave the classroom during class and 2) I probably didn't looks too good at that time because of the hangover and lack of sleep. It was interesting having to explain to my La Mujer teacher why I had missed class Thursday, and my friend Janel too, because we'd gone out Wednesday for my b-day. He just laughed and congratulated me. Haha
That Friday Tai, british friend, gave me several calls about going out that night. He'd wanted me to call Ana, but she wasn't answering and wasn't online so I couldn't tell her, but apparently he was able to get ahold of her. We met up with him and a couple of his friends, Manuel and Paul, at Banco de España and went to a bar called AK Bar for the night where Tai bought us bottle service so we could chill in VIP for the night. Izzy met up with us a little while after we got there because she had had work to do.
The rest of the month is just kind of a blur. We had a welcome back event I guess for Ahab when he came home from Costa Rica and thats about it. Mostly school. Not too exciting.