I was nervous about spending my 21st birthday in a foreign country. I had this horrible image in my head of me sitting alone in my room eating an entire cake. I was drastically underestimating the awesomeness of the friends I have made in Seoul, however!
On my birthday Saturday, Vroni, Susanna, Philip, and I explored the Seoul Folk Flea Market, where they had guitars, giant urns, Buddha statues, cycling gear, turtle-shaped locks, and everything else that you could never want. That night, then, I was taken out to a delicious BBQ dinner by my friends. In the picture below, from left to right, there's Steph (France), Vroni (Austria), Clara (USA), Jussi (Finland), the birthday girl, Susanna (Finland), Anna (Sweden), and Philip (Denmark).
They embarrassed me with birthday sunglasses, surprised me with birthday bananas, and delighted me with a panda ice cream cake. They gave me an amazing Korean messenger bag, Austrian drinking chocolate, Finnish candies, a turtle incense burner, and the most amazingly atrocious fuzzy pink pants - which I wore for the remainder of the evening! The highlight of my night, however, was hearing "Happy Birthday!" sung to me in French, Swedish, German, Finnish, English, Danish, and Korean! I'm so lucky to have found friends who would go to so much trouble to give me an unforgettable birthday!
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| Vroni, me, Philip, and Susanna - my happy people! |
Thanks to everyone, near and far, who wished me a happy birthday! A special thanks to Mom, Dad, Grandma, Monmee and Dada, and Mr. and Mrs. Drake for sending me birthday cards and presents even though I'm half a world away!
With much love and happiness,
the 21-year-old
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