Anyone who knows me will know that I take my birthday very
seriously – I once fell out with two of my friends because they’d booked a
holiday to France on the weekend of my birthday party (sorry Maddy and Beckie but at the time I thought you were being very selfish, I can now see that I was wrong) - so when I first realised that I’d be spending my 21st birthday in
Spain I was pretty upset to not be with my best friends and family. However, I
started coming round to the idea of celebrating this monumental birthday
(although I’m not even sure myself why it’s such a big deal) in Spain because
this whole year has been unforgettable, and how many other people get to spend their birthday in a foreign country?
Luckily, I have amazing friends here who surprised me with
some amazing presents, a personal favourite being the One Direction card, and a
delicious cake. I also got some lovely cards from my friends and family back home, so I didn't feel too forgotten. After dinner, we made some really nice cocktails and headed out
to a club with some other friends. Although my memory of the night is quite vague, I do remember having a great time. The same can't be said for the next day.
My birthday fell on a Thursday this year, so on the Saturday
one of the English teachers, Silvana, kindly took me on a mini tour of the
Basque country, along with her husband, her son, and her son’s girlfriend. The
first stop was Gernika, famous for the Nazi bombings which destroyed the whole
town and inspired the Picasso painting. The only thing that remained from the
bombings was a tree, and my reliable tour guide informed me that people come
and pay their respects to this symbol of peace by posing like so…
While in Gernika we also visited the parliament of the
province of Biscay, and the peace museum. We then went on a road trip to see
some more sights. I’m not exactly sure where we went but we visited lots of
nice castles and scenery.
After the trip, we went back to Silvana’s flat to pick up her
two daughters and their partners, and her sister before we went to eat lunch at
a sidrería. A sidrería is a typical Basque cider house where you can expect to
find huge cider barrels, wooden tables and chairs, and food cooked in a big
chimney. Silvana’s son described the experience to me as being in the ‘Flinstones’,
if that helps conjure up a better image. During the road trip we’d built up
quite an appetite and we’d definitely come to the right place. We ate so much just for starters – bread, ham croquettes, cod tortilla, tuna and asparagus salad,
chorizo – and then the waiters brought out the main course of chuleta, a
grilled rib eye steak. The steak comes out very rare but you can leave it to
cook on a hot plate for as long as you want. After all the savoury food I
couldn’t face dessert (weird) but there were lots of creamy goodies on offer as
well.
I had an absolutely amazing Basque birthday, with some
amazing people, but I’m now ridiculously excited to go back to England tomorrow
and celebrate with my family and friends there. If anything, being in Spain has
just given me a good excuse to drag the celebrations out for as long as
possible.
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