Love from Colombia: Birthday Number Eighteen

Yesterday was my 18th birthday, and I'm finally an adult!
On Saturday night I went to some friends from school's new apartment to hang out and swim. When we came back from the pool they surprised me with a cake! I loved it. It's so nice knowing I already have people who care about me here.

My host brother left yesterday for exchange in the Czech Republic, so the whole family went to the airport to drop him off, and I finally got a picture with my whole family. He arrived around 5pm today, and is loving it. He lost his luggage too (I'm not the only one!) but his family is great and he's having a good time.

After the airport we went out to lunch with my host mom's brother's family. They have two daughters, Paulina, 5, and Mariana , 10 (she's actually 9, but her birthday is November 3rd and she considers herself 10 so I do too.) They are two of the best kids I've met, it's so much fun playing and talking with them, they teach me so much Spanish!

Paulina drew me a picture of the two of us at a water park, eating lunch, and I believe doing something in a tree together but I'm not entirely sure as I can't tell by looking and I couldn't understand what she was telling me. She thinks I am the cat's pajamas, I'm flattered.

Paulina took about 30 pictures during the car ride, this is one of my favorites.

At home I had a quick chat with my family through Skype but couldn't stay because there were about 20 relatives in the next room. They had pastries from the Patisserie with candles, it was very sweet, thank you family!

Everyone came back to our house and a few other families of relatives came by, as well as some exchange friends of mine. I didn't know I could invite people until the day before so only three of the six could come, but we had a good time. After the family left we went to the theater and saw Insidious. I spent at least 75% of the time with my ears plugged and my face hidden in the popcorn bucket, which did double duty of hiding me from the demons on screen and giving me easy access to tasty popcorn.