Birthday Celebrations and Personal Clarity

I am aware that I left my last post at something of a dreadfully exciting cliffhanger in which you were all dying to know what I ended up doing to celebrate my birthday. You may all breathe easily now, for I will give you the next installment of the thrilling life of Bob Weatherford and recount for you all the details of a wonderful celebration of the day I came to this earth. (If my sarcasm didn't come through in this introductory snippet, I will state it explicitly here: this was supposed to be sarcastic. But I did have a wonderful birthday.)

Me, bright and shiny thanks to a nice flash, with my
five-cookie birthday cake and a monkey candle, all thanks to
Ana.

My birthday this year landed on a Thursday, and it was not just any normal Thursday but a Thursday in which all of the teaching assistants in the Community of Madrid had to attend one of our training and informational meetings. These things aren't the most thrilling gatherings of one's life, but they are a mandatory and important part of our assignment here in Madrid, so I always happily go. Plus, they are a great chance to get in touch with old friends from orientation with whom I haven't stayed in touch. Anyway, knowing that I had a full day of classes at school and then this meeting, I was just planning on doing something really small for my birthday. I just wanted to get a drink and some light food with some of my friends after our night meeting. So I ended up going out with Kelly (my roommate), Ali (you all know her sparkling face by now because of my frequent mentions of her on this blog), Ricardo (a brilliant and wonderful art teacher at Kelly's school), and Ana (a counselor at my school with whom I traveled to Granada). We decided to go to a nice rooftop/terrace cafe in Chueca, Madrid's gay neighborhood and one of the trendiest places in town. There, a few of my friends (Ana and Ricardo) surprised me with gifts. Ana bought me a book of writings by a Peruvian author named Eduardo Galeano, and Ricardo bought me a feminist book called El asalto al Hades. Ana also brought five small cookies and a monkey-shaped candle, and my friends sang to me and then we cut the figurative "cake" by distributing one cookie to each person. It was a night full of joy and celebration, and my friends made it absolutely incredible. Ricardo, Kelly, and Ana had to work the next day, so we called it quits early on Thursday night, knowing that we would reunite on Friday for more festivities.

I spent Friday morning doing things that I love to do--running in El Retiro park, reading books, and relaxing. On Friday night, I had told my friends that I would love to cook something for them and then go out dancing since it had been awhile since I had done that. My friends were acting a little funny (each of them in their own way, some by making excuses, others by simply being furtive), and eventually the secret spilled that they had planned a surprise party for me at a Mexican restaurant! So dinner was at a delicious Mexican restaurant here in Madrid. The guests included the same people from Thursday night plus two additions, Ángel, Ana's husband, and Mike, another good friend from the Fulbright Program. Dinner was wonderful. The food was delicious (and Mom, Ana ordered molé, just like you always do), our table was in its own room so we had plenty of privacy, and the evening ended with a host of surprises. The first was a homemade carrot cake that Kelly, Ricardo, and Ali had made for me. It was moist, sweet, and exactly what I needed, even though it caused a couple of the waiters to glare at our table or at least look at it with suspicion. Next came a round of poetry reading. Ali had proposed that, because of my love of literature, everyone prepare a poem to read. I had amazing words read to me--a poem about gypsies by Federico García Lorca, for example, or a beautiful one about gratitude called "Gracias a la vida" that Ali prepared. When it was finally Kelly's turn, she started reading slowly and dramatically the following words:

Music stops (Kelly pauses dramatically)

Listen, hot stuff (another pregnant pause)

I'm in LOVE with this song

So just hush, baby, shut up

Heard enough

Stop ta-ta-talking that BLAH BLAH BLAH!

Yes, Kelly had chosen the profound poem written by modern culture's poet laureate Ke$ha, such a renowned bard that she requires only a single name to identify her striking work. I was almost peeing my pants laughing. No one else at the table got in on the joke, and since the language of the evening was Spanish except for this brief English interjection, the poor Spaniards had no idea why I was heaving and sobbing with laughter. That is Kelly--witty to the bone, hilarious, and perfectly well-timed. I loved the contrast of sobriety and levity, of sheer frivolity and also poetic profundity of the whole experience. It was a marvelous dinner.

I was also given gifts at this dinner. My friends pooled in to buy me the board game Manzanas con Manzanas (Apples to Apples), which I have been wanting for a long time. Ali bought me a framed replica of Picasso's "Guernica" since I find it such a moving piece of artwork. And Mike bought me a book about the value of reading and literature. (Wow, I make my interests and passions pretty well known, eh? :) ) It was such a beautiful moment of celebration and gratitude, and when the great dinner was over, we all went out to dance! We just found a dance club in the center of the city that I entered first to make sure the music seemed like our style, and we danced our hearts out. "I Like How It Feels" by Enrique Iglesias came on, as did numerous other pop songs that got my little butt shaking on the dance floor. It was so fun to be surrounded by friends in such a fun, carefree environment. It was, all in all, a fabulous and unforgettable birthday.

The beautiful souls who made my birthday magical,
from left to right: Ricardo, Mike, Ángel, Ana, Ali, Kelly.

Life has gone back to normal since then, although I made a couple of really important decisions regarding my romantic life a little more than a week ago, and that has brought about a sense of pride, self-empowerment, and happiness, which have all been welcome gifts. I am moving forward with my life, and it's a great feeling.

El Palacio Real de Aranjuez

Briefly, this past weekend, though I wanted to do a little traveling, Madrid got hit with a cold front from Siberia that caused winds that could almost rival some of Laramie's (which, as we all know, is really saying something). Instead of traveling far, therefore, I decided to tour a ritzy mansion of a former marquis here in Madrid called the Museo de Cerralbo. It was a stunning mansion filled with ornately decorated rooms, each with its own distinct style. I then also went to Aranjuez, a small town in the very southern part of the Community of Madrid where there lies yet another royal palace. Though it was quite windy and cold down there, it was wonderful to get to tour the palace and walk around some of the other royal grounds. The consistent impression that I had during my trip was that the Spanish monarchy was so vastly wealthy. I pondered Felipe II, the king who had this castle and El Escorial built, and the man who was also the king of all of Spain's American possessions (i.e. all of Central and South America and a good chunk of North America, too), many territories in Europe (since he was a Habsburg), territories all along the coast of Africa, and territories in the Indonesian islands, as well. I can hardly imagine all of that pomp and power. It's unbelievable to consider and fascinating at the same time. Relics from these ages, like the various castles in the Community of Madrid, survive like giant reminders of the lavish riches of the aristocracy.

All is very well here. I will be travelling to Valladolid in a couple of weeks for a work conference, so I will post again soon about that city as another part of my exploration of beautiful Spain!