My birthday festivities started with a Friday night out of the house! I went through Monoprix, bought some fried rice, some riz au lait, some eggs and some apples as part of my dinner/dessert//breakfast because I was having a night over at Hannah's!
We watched "Crazy Stupid Love" (so hilarious oh my gosh) and killed a ton of time waiting for it to be 1 am so that I could see the magical, last sparkle of the Eiffel Tower. What a way to start off my birthday! But the best part was hijacking her host kids scooters and scootering through Paris's streets feeling free and a bit like 10 year olds.
The wind in my hair, the deserted city streets, the laughs and leg kicks; it was amazing. Our thighs were burning from the unexpected workout, but that didn't stop me from taking laps around the street in front of the tower and bunny hopping and ballet kicking around while the romantic couples in their drive-in styled parking were watching. Clearly, I am so easy to please when it comes to a birthday celebration: a scooter and a tower!
It took every ounce of energy to get my booty off of Hannah's floor and get to the race. So tired!! But I made it to Port de Pantin for the Course de Saint Valentin and I felt right at home with my running enthusiast friends. It was a "love" race so naturally there were quite a few couples running either the 6k or 10k while holding hands the entire time. Umm, no thank you. But also, it was a race sponspored by the running club "Amour Pour Tous".... it was a big gay fest! In our running bags that we got, we got a granola bar, free rainbow sunglasses, and a condom. Well, always a time for firsts!
I ran the thing in 59 minutes and pouring rain and wind. Not bad for my first race in forever after an inadequate amount of training and a previous night's workout of scooter/lunges through Paris. Felt great!! After the race, I sped back home and showered/got ready to meet friends for lunch in a total of 16 minutes while my host family barely had time to say happy birthday! Its basically tradition to eat sushi for my birthday so, of course, I got my friends to go out and eat sushi with me! We went to Sushi Yaki near the Sorbonne/Luxembourg gardens and I fuflfilled my intense sushi need. So good!! There was a Valentine's menu where you could buy a boat of sushi for 40 euros and, had nobody been able to come to lunch with me, I probably would have bought one and ate my heart out! But since I have the best friends ever here, they made it and made my birthday afternoon the best.
After lunch, I went back home to do a little celebration with my host family. My host mom made a gluten-free apple tart which was amazing, but it was quite funny the way they went about it...After an hour of sitting and doing nthing, the kids yelled out to me "Julia! We're doing your candles now!" Hahaha okay... the three kids sang to me and I blew out my candles and wished for sunny weather:) We devoured nearly all of the tart and each kid gave me a homemade card which I will treasure forever. And then silly Julie was like, "Oh wait. You're gift! Of course I would forget that." They got me a really pretty blouse that I loooove. WhenI was thanking Delphine a little while later, she was saying how she was going to take it for herself at first but they didn't have her size. She's a funny lady hahaha
A Skype session with my mom, then my birthday-twin niece, and the rest of my family happened and I loved actually talking to them! My niece, Kennadie, was showing me the Legendary Donuts she was eating and Harrison was laughing and smiling and Juneau bug was laughing and smiling at me too and Billy was saying America was the best and it was fun to hear all their voices again! My birthday was just getting better and better.
Obviously, from the midnight movie/Eiffel Tower/scootering to the midnight of dancing and going wild, I can clealry say this was the best birthday ever! France, I love you!
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