Buon Compleanno! Happy Birthday!

Hello Everyone!
Well, I'm sure many of you know, I am now back in the United States. Do not worry though, there will still be a few more blogs! I have to catch up on the last week in Italy as well as giving you all updates about how the readjustment to American life is. So, do not get sad yet. So the last place I left you all was on Monday morning, April 29, my birthday.

I’m 21!!! Well, as I’m sure everyone knows, your birthday is almost like Christmas day, and on Christmas Day, it’s literally impossible to sleep in. You’re usually so excited for the day that you get up well before you alarm. Well, my birthday was no exception. I woke up almost an hour before my alarm went off. So I had a leisurely morning. I showered, got ready, cleaned up my room, and even updated you all on my blog! I also had breakfast with my mom, who was very excited to be the first one to wish me a happy birthday.

My breakfast: I had my usual cereal, which I’m going to miss a lot, my chocolate yogurt (even more delicious), my chocolate filled brioche, blood orange juice, and THEN chocolate cake!! It Was a flourless chocolate cake, but it tasted more like a delicious brownie than a flourless cake. They are really similar, but still a bit different. The cake made me really excited to go home and make a big pan of gooey brownies. J Well, after all of that food I was stuffed! Which was a good thing though. Because Monday was the beginning of our last week of class, I had my “final” for Literature. We didn’t have a written final, rather we all read our final stories that we had written. (These were the ones that we drew names for and we each killed one other student in the class.) All of the stories were amazing! It honestly was a great end to the semester. We all incorporated what we learned about writing and different genres as well as little inside jokes from throughout the semester. Despite us all getting killed we were all laughing as the stories were being read. In addition to reading our final stories, we had a little pizza party. Which was even more exciting because it was my Birthday! So we had pizza, chips, popcorn, soda, oranges, and chocolate!

Our feast!

I got quite a few cards in the mail for my birthday! This one was exceptionally big! :)

The death count from our stories. I really didn't think it was fair that I was killed the most on my birthday. :( Oh well.

Then after class was over, I had to go to a one hour review for my Art History final that would be on Thursday. That finished at 6pm and then I had to rush to my bus stop because I was instructed by my mom that I needed to come home right away after school was over. So I finally got home around 6:40. I walked in the door and they were all ready, waiting and said “are you ready?” I wasn’t exactly sure what I was ready for, but I said yes! So we all headed out and we went to a very famous pizza place in Florence for my birthday dinner.

It was delicious! First we had some antipasto with 3 different kinds of meats, and crostini with liver pate.

Then I had a sausage and cheese pizza.

Then afterwards we got to choose from an extremely delicious sounding dessert list. I was debating between the chocolate cake and the chocolate cheesecake. I went with the chocolate cheesecake since I had chocolate cake for breakfast. It was very good. There was a piece of cheesecake with a very rich chocolate sauce on top. Yum!

My family got me a little present for my birthday. The earrings are beautiful, and my favorite color! Barbara saw them and she said she instantly thought of me. J So sweet.

There was a little note wishing me a happy birthday to the best American girl they have ever had! Reading that made me extremely happy.

This isn't the greatest picture of us. It was very hot in the restaurant, so forgive the crazy looks. :)

After dinner we headed home and I was able to skype with a few people from home. It was a great birthday, but I can’t wait to celebrate with everyone at home as well.