[dix-neuf]

The day has come.
My Golden Birthday.

On 9/19/09 I turned 19 which, for me, was quite the big deal.

I really do like the number 9. It looks quite lovely to me and now I feel honoured hat I can claim it as mine for the next 12 months.

Joelle had arrived the night before, which was quite the excellent thing. It was great to hang out with her, simply refreshing. That evening, we went over to see Alice and we watched Moulin Rouge. We went upstairs for pizza, which was delicious. At 12:00, Alice had the honours of wishing me, "Happy birthday honey!" which wasn't freaky at all. So I was 19, I guess. That's it.

We never made it through the whole film due to a wee bit of exhaustion on all of our parts.

Joelle and I tottled on home and went to bed.

The next morning - birthday morning - we just chilled for a bit. Lazy day, well, lazy morning, which is such an enjoyable lifestyle. I like waking up, but not having to get up. Even better when you can converse with someone else.

We got up, ate breakfast, went back to bed.
Wrote postcards.
Surfed the net.

We did what Americans do best - hung out. Simply chilling. No purpose to it at all. There is no need to move on or go forward, no time restrictions. One person can just be on the computer while the other reads old magazines.

At around 11:00 it was time to head to France to go shopping for my birthday cake and for the rest of the week in the Coddron residence. Once again, my host mom was extremely accomidating and bought me things I was in dire need of such as lotion. I do so like lotion.

The recipe we were using was from Marina, and my third host mom used to also make it. I absolutely love it. It's a cream, sort of, well, cream. So it's lots of cream with berries and then roasted butter cookies and almonds on top. It is rather delicious. One of those deserts that you can't help but have seconds of.

We headed back to Switzerland, listening to Cake and the Beach Boys.

When we got home, lunch was served, we ate it. That was lovely.

Then Alice, Florian, and Geraldine came over. We all baked up the cake together, well, we didn't bake it. We creamed it up. We tried whipping the cream but it didn't whip but then we read the back and it said you had to chill the cream or bowl or something first. See, in Switzerland they don't keep their milk or cream always in the refrigerator. You can buy it in bulk and keep it in the cupboard for a while without it going bad.

We mixed it all up. Made it all up.

Then it was time to wait for the guests to arrive.

The question is, how many people can I count on to come after I've only been here for around three weeks.

Veronica showed up first, a lovely girl from my language course. She's from Germany. Christine came as well, who is a fellow au pair from South Africa. She makes me happy.

Then Alice and Florian came over and cake was served.

It was a great birthday and I really did enjoy it. I am so grateful for already having such amazing friends in Switzerland. I do feel blessed.

We had some enjoyable conversations, which I liked. We talked about the concept of hanging out, and I found some other folks who are up for nothing evenings at home.

We hung out some more and Oleann and Alex were quite entertaining. I think they turned their cute levels up to the max. They're good at enchanting people.

That evening, we had dinner, and then we were going to watch Moulin Rouge but Joelle and I were just too tired. We went back to bed and read, surfed, did what we wanted to do without doing anything.

I was glad that Joelle had the opportunity to come here for the weekend. I know what it's like to be with a host family in Switzerland. They can be wonderful, but being an exchange student is like a full time responsibility in which you feel an obligation to always act certain ways and conform to certain ideals. It is always a search to find the balance between being with the family, friends, and on your own. That's why I like being an au pair, I'm not expected to do anything but my job.

I checked my facebook and there were 91 birthday greetings. I feel the love people, feel the love.

And that was my birthday. My 19th birthday on the 19th of 2009.