Joyeux Anniversaire à Moi!!!

Here's to the first of hopefully several French birthdays!

Sometime in July, Yadira and Gilles asked me what I wanted to do for my birthday, since I'd be celebrating it here. Now I told them they didn't have to do anything for my birthday because they've already done so much for me. But...... of course, about a week or so before my birthday, Gilles asked me what I wanted to do again. I told him again that I didn't want them to do anything, but he insisted so I told him to just make it a surprise. A few days later, he asked me for a list of my friends that he didn't know, which I reluctantly gave to him. They all ended up being from my church. Now I figured that it would have to be during the weekend, because we all had various different plans on the weekdays. So I knew that either Saturday or Sunday there was going to be some kind of surprise for me. It was ok. I didn't know what, so it would still be a surprise.

That Friday night, I asked JC if he wanted to go to church with me Sunday, since I knew he was looking for a new church. He said sure, and we went on with our conversation. Then he mentioned, "Hey madamoiselle, someone has a birthday coming up soon" and I was like, yeahhhh and he said, "Are you excited for it?" and I was like, "I guess so... I mean I really don't know much, Gilles just told me it would be a surprise." Then JC laughed and was like, "Hahaha I love it.... 'he told me it's a surprise'. Doesn't that kind of ruin it?" and I replied not really because I still didn't know what exactly "it" was. A few more minutes went by and then all of a sudden, JC gasped and stated, "Oh no, Gina, I just remembered- I actually can't go to church with you on Sunday. I'm sorry." and I asked if he had to work that day, and he was like, "Uhhhhhhh, not exactly......." and I gave him a quizzical stare, to which he replied, "You'll see.... it's a surprise." Well, that solved that mystery hahaha.

So I knew that there would be something done for me sometime Sunday after church with my friends from church. The thing is, my friends from church and I always hang out until dinnertime on Sunday. So in my mind there was no way that they were going to be able to leave the same place I was at and go to the same place I was going to without me knowing about it. I figured JC was just going to cook up a nice dinner for us all to enjoy and that would be it. No big deal, nothing special, just a sit down dinner with friends and then they'd leave and that'd be it. So I decided that it would just be most logical (since I already knew that my friends would be coming to our house after church anyway) for us all to go together. So after the service ended, I first went up to my friend Seth and asked him, "Did my friend Gilles send you an e-mail this week?" to which he replied no. I said, "Hmmmm that's weird he should have....." and then our friend Sonia came by and I asked her too if she had gotten an email from Gilles and she also said no. So I said, "Well, he must have just typed in your addresses wrong or maybe it got sent to spam or something, but at any rate, my host family's throwing me a *wink* "surprise" party after church today and you're all invited. I'd really like it if you came." They were both like, "ooo ok that sounds cool." Then our friends Lucas and Clarice came over and I went through the same speil (for those of you who may be confused with this word... it sounds more like sh-peel and it's that word that means you went through the whole thing you just did/said again. Not gonna lie I had to look up how to spell it =p) with them. Finally, Clarice admitted that they had all indeed gotten those emails, it was just that Gilles had said to keep it a surprise so they were all trying to pretend he hadn't. What good friends hehehe! I asked them what time he had told them to come over, and Seth said 5pm. But we still all had to eat lunch, so we went out like we always do and decided to get Falafel at the best place to get Falafel in Paris (near the Marais) and then went and sat down in a park to eat them. Then I led the troop back to the house. We stopped at a store after we got off the train because Gilles had asked them all to bring drinks (normally all the food stores are closed on Sundays, but this one was more like a corner/convenience store so it was open).

When we got to the house, I walked towards our door and saw no one there. I just assumed that JC, Silvia, Yadira, and Gilles were all doing their own things in various places of the house. When I got to the veranda though, everybody jumped out from behind my curtain and yelled SURPRISE!!!!!!! In fact, it was a BIG surprise party! Gilles had also invited all of the friends we had from his church too. There seemed to be about 40-50 people in the house, all there to celebrate my birthday! And of course, Gilles was standing there with a bowl of watermelon waiting to greet me =). I couldn't have been happier! And it was so so cool that my friends all got to meet each other- it was like three worlds (my church, the chinese church, and my family) all coming together. And everyone found someone who spoke their native language (we had conversations going on in chinese, english, spanish, french, brazilian, arabic, you name it, we had it!) Funny story.... I had been talking to my friend Seth when my friend Daniel arrived. Now Seth is from Puerto Rico, so he speaks Spanish and English. Daniel speaks French, some English, and when he introduced himself, Seth asked if Daniel knew any Spanish. Daniel said a few words (meaning that he knows the few words my Spanish-speaking host family has taught him, probably as much Spanish as I know), but Seth took that as meaning, "Yes, I'm fluent in Spanish" and started speaking in Spanish to Daniel. He was literally going off for a good 10 minutes and the whole time poor Daniel was just smiling and nodding with the occasional "Uh huh" or "mmmmm hmmmmm" but I knew he wasn't understanding a single word of what Seth was saying. And I stood next to the both of them laughing the whole time. Poor Daniel.

On the menu, we had lots of watermelon (DUH as if you all couldn't have guessed that already) shish-ka-bobs with duck on them, and then JC made his version of NY Chili hotdogs for the "main course" because it's very american. Hah. Actually, it wasn't bad at all. And then for dessert- Oh la la I had 4 cakes!!!!!!!!! Can you believe it? One had plums, apricots, and peaches in it, another one was one my friend Rachel (who unfortunately couldn't come but took me out to the movies later in the week) made for me since she couldn't come to the party and Yadira and our friend Irénée decorated with frosting and kit kat balls to look like a girl's face, then one that JC made which had an orange taste to it with chocolate covered bananas on top, and then one my friend Seth bought for me which was called "Crème Catalane". PLUS, I got "Happy Birthday" sung to me in 4 different languages (French, English, Spanish, and Chinese)!!!!!!!! It was too cool. Then we danced the Cha Cha Slide, Follow The Leader, and I taught them the Filipino line dance I've learned at various social functions where Ronnie Ani was there to teach it to the song "September" by Earth, Wind, and Fire. I thought it wouldn't get any better!

But wait folks, there's more! So then Monday going into Tuesday (Tuesday, August 31st was my real birthday) we all happened to still be up at midnight, so they sang Happy Birthday to me again and lit a candle for me to blow out. Then JC cut up a watermelon so I could start my birthday off on the right foot and he and I reminisced about when we first met 2 years ago and the other members of the Touch the World team until we decided to go to bed. I wasn't sure what to expect for the next day- that was a REAL surprise that I knew absolutely nothing about. I actually couldn't even guess on what to expect because I thought everyone was busy- Gilles had his first day of work, JC was going to visit his grandparents, Silvia had an appointment all day long, and Yadira was going "out". Plus, they had all been teasing me, telling me that they were going to wake me up SUPER SUPER early and to be sure I put on my jogging shoes because they were going to make me run a marathon.

Well they did wake me up, but not super early. I was woken up around 7am to Gilles and Yadira singing Happy Birthday to me. When I opened my eyes, Gilles was standing there with a tray that had Breakfast in Bed prepared for me. They said, "Happy Birthday, here's Breakfast in Bed to our princess!" I decided to eat it at the table that's in my room though instead of in bed, so that Gilles and Yadira could sit down with me. I hurried up and got ready while Gilles cooked and packed a lunch. Turns out, "Out" for Yadira meant going out with me lol. Gilles gave her money for all that we would need throughout the day, and Yadira and I were off. We took the bus to our usual train station, then I waited in the distance as Yadira bought our tickets so I wouldn't know where our final destination was. I didn't look at the ticket when she gave it to me so I wouldn't ruin my own surprise. We had wonderful conversation and I didn't even notice the time passing- we ended up going 3 hours outside of Paris! Where in the world could we be going?!?!

We got to the last train station, and then had to take a bus. It was such a picturesque village! Just like a stereotypical French village you'd see in a movie or a book. People were a lot nicer than they were in Paris too. Cars stop when you'd like to cross the street and smiled at you as they past you by. I took some pictures of the area from the train (they're the first couple photos in the photo blog). And then we finally arrived..... *drumroll please*..... La France Miniature! It's basically the entirety of France in miniature. It's was sooooooooooooooooo cool! When you walk in, it's by the Alps and you can hear a cow mooing and then you see the little mountain village right there. Keep heading south and you get to Marseille, complete with Mediterranean Sea and Lavender, which is native to the area. I even saw some of the same sites that I saw when I was visiting Michelle in Marseille last year, like the "cake churches" which have layers of black and white stone. Each region of France not only had the different sites/buildings, but also items native to the region and music native to the region. It was so so cool. And it was sunny, the weather was just the PERFECT temperature, and it was so wonderful to get to spend time with Yadira since she's studying abroad in Spain this school year and she was going to leave soon after that. We stopped and ate the lunch Gilles had made and packed for us- chicken with mashed potatoes, carrots, and onions, watermelon (he knows me so well =D), and Petits Écoliers (my favorite French cookies..... well.... more like the only thing close to a cookie in France) with white chocolate on top of them- by a pond that had duck families swimming around it. Oh it was just so wonderful! They even have a couple of small rides for children who are young enough and a gift shop. It was truly a special special experience. The only thing that could have made it better was if Gilles, JC, and Silvia could have been there too, but like I said it was very nice to get to have one last time to spend one on one with Yadira. Unfortunately the camera died about halfway through the day so I didn't get to take pictures of about half the things we saw, but trust me, it was awesome. Really awesome. If you're interested, you can take a "virtual tour" on this website.

http://www.franceminiature.fr/visite-virtuelle

We spent about 5 hours in the park, then headed back. Gilles had given Yadira extra money so we went to a shopping mall and I got to pick out a new shirt and sweater =D. I also bought Yadira two DVDs for her birthday because I knew she'd been wanting them and I wasn't going to be there for her birthday, which was on September 10th. Then we went back home and she made me Pesto Pasta (yum yum!!!!!!) while Gilles went to the Video Store and rented Hairspray at my request for us to watch. We also watched "Goodbye Lenin" (a German film I had bought for Yadira) and then we finished with Hairspray. Oh it was such a wonderful wonderful day. Here's to (hopefully) many more!!!! =)