Birthdays are exhausting…but oh so much fun!

So I've been 25 for almost two weeks now. And have neglected to blog about my birthday weekend of funness (<-- is that a word?) My flat is rather small so I had to have birthday parties in shifts. I invited my director and the ladies from my office over for lunch. Naturally, we had pizza...their choice. They came a little past 12pm; I stayed home that day cleaning, cooking and preparing everything. They got here and we had a SUPER fun time. At least I think they did. I made them birthday hats with poster board and made them wear them the WHOLE time they were here. They purchased for me a chai set. I drew it on a piece of paper earlier in the week when they asked what I wanted...I didn't know the word for it :) We ate lots of food and I was rather impressed with myself. There were 2 salads...I purchased those, fruited gelatin, pizza and cake. Then we had a photo shoot. And I made them take silly pictures...even when they didn't want to by saying, "it's MY birthday" <-- I'm kind of a brat like that :)

After they left, I immediately went to work cleaning, cooking and preparing for more guests. Yes, more pizza. These were my English teacher friends and they arrived around 6pm for dinner. They stayed until like 11pm and we had a good time just eating and chatting. I didn't have hats for this group, but it was still fun!

After they left. I went to bed. Cleaning could wait until morning. The following morning I went to cleaning, cooking and preparing everything <-- noticing a trend. Some teachers from my school came for early evening for dinner. and you guessed it, we had...MORE PIZZA! I was totally pizzaed out, but they really seemed to enjoy it. After they left I cleaned my flat one final time and put everything back where it belonged.

It was fun, but during the time I was cleaning and cooking, I remember thinking 'it's my birthday' and then thought back in America I would have gone out to a restaurant with friends, where someone else would have picked up my tab and the people at Olive Garden would have brought things directly to our table and then cleaned up after us. Here the birthday person is responsible for everything. Had we gone to a restaurant, I would have had to front the $$. CrAzY! But super fun when you get invited to a party :-)

Teacher's Day

This past weekend teachers in Kazakhstan celebrated a holiday just for them. This was quite an exciting day! We worked in the morning and then in the evening we went to a café where there was music and, of course, dancing! I tried to teach the “open mouth” picture which just erupted into LOTS of laughing. I love the teachers at my school. We said lots of toasts. My friend Rada assisted me in writing a Russian toast. Usually, I reuse, but think that eventually my school will catch on and demand a different toast from me. After reading my Russian toast the ladies at my table shouted, “Now in Kazakh.” I stood silent for about 2 seconds before my memorized Kazakh toast (for these particular moments came to mind) and with confidence I continued; I got lots of claps afterwards and then we celebrated with more dancing! The night ended at 1am when the café closed. Some of my coworkers continued their party at another place where they played billiards, I went home…I know, LAME, but we still had to work on Saturday!

Saturday is normally a work day in Kazakhstan. Teachers and students go to school Mon-Sat, this was a bit difficult to get used to, they have a 1 day weekend! Crazy! But this particular Saturday did not include any lessons, but rather a concert put on by the children for the teachers, although some teachers also had acts. I didn’t understand very much of it, but it was still super fun and one of teachers said something about me during his song (it was in KazakhI just smiled and gave the thumbs up sign). After the concert many of us went to lunch where, yep, you guessed it, there was more toasting! This time I did just say the same thing I said the night before.

Later that evening I went to the Theatre that was here at site called, Old Son. It was entertaining; there were some parts that I didn’t understand and was unable to follow, but when that happened I just made up my own plot. At any rate I was excited to show off my 50 tenge pearls, that clearly look like they were 50 tenge, but I didn’t care. I love them!

Pre Wedding Party

My SM was invited to the pre wedding party of his former site mate. Because I still have yet to experience the wedding in Kazakhstan, I found myself slightly jealous. But, I didn’t need to be because he called the bride-to-be and got me an invite! The woman who had been working on my flat (happy to inform that they FINALLY finished and my windows are Amazing!), assisted me with a Kazakh toast when I shared my evening plans with her. Skirt on, toast in hand, taxi I on the way I was excited! The evening started with eating salad and the emcee speaking. There was a man with a video camera wandering around, I tried to make it my goal to appear in the video as much as possible…that was my goal for the night :-) Salad was followed by, Beshbarmark, naturally. And there was more speaking and tons and tons of dancing! The night ended sooner than I would have liked it to, but I was happy to have been able to attend!