Birthday Girl

As I write this, it is currently 11:54 pm. That's 6 minutes left of my birthday.

I can honestly say that so far, this has been the best summer of my life. From mid-May to mid-June, I spent a month in Chicoutimi, Quebec.

Yes, I blurred out my friend's face 'cause I'm a Nice Person™

I not only strengthened my French that I had lost during this entire year, but I truly felt Francophone for the first time. In high school, I never felt comfortable with my french because of other classmates whose first language was french whereas it was only my second. They didn't have an ugly north american accent like I did, they didn't make the silly grammar mistakes that I had done over and over in presentations and tests.

When I went to Quebec, I was told by quebecoises that my french was so good and "pourquoi es-tu dans cet programme quand tu connais déjà le français si bien que ça".
Anyhoo, my trip to Quebec is for another day when I'm feeling especially quebecoise.

When I got back to Vancouver, the World Cup had already started. If you don't follow me on tumblr, I'm going to warn you right now: I am a huge huge fan of the German National Team. I love them with all my heart. I'm going to stop before I turn this into a 8-page essay on why they are very special to me.

Also, for those of you who live under a rock (how do you guys get such good wi-fi? let me know in the comments!) Germany won! WE FREAKING WON!!!!!!!! AFTER 24 YEARS!!!!!!!!! Not only that, we are the first European team to win on South American soil.

I got to see all of my favourite players (ok, not all of them; Reus was injured one week before the tournament started and I'm still incredibly sad about that) lift the Trophy, and I can say without any shame that I cried. A lot.

It's been over a week since the final against Argentina, and I still can't believe it. I don't think I'll ever believe it. But it'll be the only damn thing I'll remember about my life when I'm 94 and on my deathbed; I can guarantee you that.

And now, for the thing that you have all been waiting for: the details of my birthday.

It started out as any other day. I woke up to hear my mom open my door and point out impatiently that "this room isn't clean enough", then leave without another word. An hour later, my dad called down the stairs to tell me to get up. Half an hour later after that, I finally got up to the excited purrs of my cats who were starting to chew on anything they could in my room.

I fed them, got dressed, and cleaned my room as much as I could. It wasn't much, if I'm being honest with you. But nobody comes into my room except for me, anyways, so who cares really.

I went upstairs to eat, then spent the rest of my afternoon switching between surfing on the internet and cleaning.

Finally 6'o'clock came around, and one by one my friends showed up. We all sat outside under the tree, and talked while my dad barbecued our food.

We ate some damn good sausages and chicken wings, then we ate some really damn good homemade German cheesecake that my dad made.

After that, my parents brought out my present. There was a card with it, so naturally I grabbed that first. They protested, insisting I open the actual present first. So I did. The wrapping came off, and it was very obviously a poster. "Cool, a poster of the German team", I thought. Boy, was I wrong. It was a damn poster from my mom's university about separation anxiety. On the back, however, there was a message. It said to open the card. I did that, and in the card there was a paper. Because I knew this present had to do with soccer, my instincts told me that it was a ticket to a soccer game. And I was right. It was tickets to a Dortmund vs Bayern game on August 13th. I reacted the same way I did when the German team won the world cup; I cried.

Obviously this isn't the whole thing, but it's the most important part of the ticket.

So that's it, really. I also got some lovely presents from a couple of friends:

A "do something every day" journal; my mom loved this.

An absolutely gorgeous agenda that I will most definitely have a hard time using because it's just so beautiful. 

This super awesome t-shirt from my best friend!

After all that, we watched the movie "Attack the Block" which was absolutely amazing. My friends left, and I typed this up, still in disbelief. P.S.: if you're wondering why this is posted at noon on the 22nd instead of at 1am on the 21st, it's because my internet crapped out on me and I didn't have the energy to fix it, so I went to bed.