My 18th Birthday!

Today was one of the most memorable birthdays of my life. I have now experienced a lot of different traditions and also a real RCN birthday all for me :)

It all started a little before midnight when Sam and two other guys kidnapped me and blind-folded me. After getting me through small challenges they finally carried me to the Boat House where they took the blind-fold off and a bunch of people were yelling "HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!" A little while after Evelina, my neighbor whom I am happy to share my birthday with, arrived and the same happened to her :) Lots of birthday songs and hugs lead me back to my room where my roommates had prepared tea and fruit salad and a cozy evening. All this before Sam brought over a couple of my birthday presents and I could go to sleep full, happy and loved.

I think one important thing to mention is my unbelievable dislike of birthday songs. It is not that I don't like the songs or the sweet thoughts behind it; it is the fact that I have absolutely no idea what to do and where to place myself when people start singing to me! A lot of my good friends here knows that I had nicely asked a couple of weeks ago to not make my birthday a big deal and not let everyone know, so I could just spent it with good friends and avoid all the attention. But traditions are traditions and apparently there is no such thing as a low-key RCN birthday.
(For all the Danes out there: the weather was AMAZING! åhjaåhjajaåhjaja! <-- watch!)

This morning, as the traditions mentioned in Birthdays followed, I was woken up by singing Danes and "I dag er det Mettes fødselsdag..." and a clear message that I had 2 minutes to be in Kantina (I didn't manage). In Kantina I was met with pancakes, buns, chocolate buns, chocolate, "rugbrød" and more Danish singing ("Mette har fødselsdag og det har hun jo og det er i dag... I chose the sounds/instruments: cow/muh, banjo and trumpet)

In English, after yet another birthday song, that my sweet friends made sure would come, because they know "how much I love it" (# 5 of the day) Pete (Britain), my teacher, thought he should also do some cultural sharing, so with a little help from Alonso (Peru), Olve (Norway) and Diego (Bolivia) they each took a leg or an arm and lifted me up and down 18 times! So I went to lunch and told my table about this, which just lead to Nikita (Russia) sharing their culture and pulling my ears upwards 18 times - the last time pretty hard! After that I was pretty happy to be Danish :)

After school I had Leirskule (which I just posted about) and I had a great group of kids; 7 girls and a boy. I had of course introduced myself as Mette from Denmark and after a while one of them asked if today was my birthday. I said yes, and asked how she knew and she said the she'd seen the card in the Kantina and remembered it being for a Mette. (The Danish flag probably also busted me a little). In the end, the girls decided to sing me a Norwegian birthday song (#6), and they all wished me happy birthday before they left. :)

After this I went back to my room with my second year Kathrine and opened presents. Nothing less that earrings, american dollars and a drivers licence! My family must be crazy! I did not see that coming :D So watch out on the road now, because I can afford taking the licence now. (Big thank you to Bedstemor, mor, far, Mads, Klaus+family, Laura, Mette and Sam for the presents! - And everyone else who made the day special of course! For all the baking, hugs and wishes!) 

At dinner, my friend Ahmad (Palestine) announced my birthday to the whole Kantina and as the tradition goes everyone stood up and sang for me (song #7!) and once again my awkward, blushing, "can I dig a deep whole now and jump into it, but still awwww thank you guys" face came on :)

Later, Sam picked me up to go for a walk, but when he suddenly told me that he'd forgotten his gloves in A-building (this coming from the boy who'd been wearing a t-shirt and no jacket all day) I realized that something was going on and I was right. A surprise birthday with my closest friends from here including way too much cake, games, and some of those moments you will always remember!

And after finally Skyping my parents, I was more than exhausted from a long day and when the date changed to April 20th, I could go to bed with a big smile on my face, feeling extremely lucky to have friends and family like this.

(And yes mom, I did wear the mouse socks all day, because I guess some names you can never run away from)

P.s. I think I reached a total of 10 songs!

<3