Birthday Party #2

As I mentioned in my previous post, my birthday coincided with Rosh Hoshannah this year so it was a bit of a non-event. Not much happened at all. Sarah said Happy Birthday to me in the morning and I had a chat to the whole family (Mom, Dad, Brother, Gran and Aunt) on skype but that was about it.

I had an interesting Rosh Hoshannah though. I went to Hillel which is a Jewish student organisation on campus. They had a dinner at their house which is just off campus and then held a service on the campus itself. At the dinner I met a variety of interesting people - one guy asked where I was from to which I replied 'South Africa'. He then asked where in SA (which is all fairly standard, I think I probably get asked this at least once a day) and I said Durban. He then said "Where in Durban?" and I think I must have done a fairly good impression of a goldfish at that stage! No one has asked me that while I've been here so I wasn't expecting it from some random American! Turns out that he spent some time in Durban last year - working on research to do with the new Stadium. So he knows people I'm friends with in Durban - it's such a small world!

Given that Wednesday evening was Rosh Hoshannah I delayed my birthday party till Thursday evening. I invited some of my friends from class as well as the guys from the building over for South African drinks and snacks. Drinks-wise I'd organised some Windhoeks, more Nederberg Chardonnay, Excelsior Cab and Appletizer. There was quite a variety on the food side of things - stuffed peppadews, Safari dried fruit roll, dry wors, samoosas, chilli bites, koeksisters and milk tart. I was quite impressed with my selection! As for how I obtained all of this... that would be telling! (and no I did not bring it with me - could you imagine squashed milk tart in between my t-shirts in my suitcase, yuck!) Although I would like to, I can't lay claim to having made the samoosas, milk tart and koeksisters. They were made by a couple who do South African catering here who I found on the internet. I was very proud of myself for making the chilli bites and the stuffed peppadews though. I must confess that I did manage to kill a spoon in the process - no one told me that you shouldn't put non-stick cooking implements into hot oil! We now have an interestingly-textured cooking spoon!

I only finish lectures on a Thursday at 6:30pm so my university friends and I just walked over to my apartment after class. When I walked into the apartment I got such a nice surprise - Sarah and the boys had decorated it!

It was so pretty! There were streamers across the ceiling and helium Happy Birthday balloons all over. They'd even put a Happy Birthday banner up on the wall! It was such a lovely surprise! They'd also all signed a card for me. It made me feel very special.

The Windhoek was definitely the star of the evening - all of the guys agreed that it was good! Most of the guys drink light beer here but it's strange - US light beer is light in term of carbohydrates and calories not alcohol like in SA. I thought that the alcohol contained all the calories so I'm a bit confused.

Generally people were rather scared of the food. They're all sissies! I persuaded everyone to try a bit of dry wors. I'd cut it up into really small bits so it wasn;t too intimidating. The problem was he everyone thought I was saying 'try some dry horse'! Which added to the sceptisim I think.
The samoosas went down well. Anuar from the 1st floor and Dave from the apartment below us enjoyed theirs. Some people found them a little spicy, particularly the potato ones, which I found a bit strange as people here eat tonnes of chilli with their Mexican food. The thing is that I tried them and they had virtually no bite. Not that it matters much - they still vanished!

Almost everything else disappeared as well (with the exception of the dry 'horse'). The general consensus was the the stuffed peppadews were 'bomb' which means really good I think. The name chilli bites scared people initially but they too disappeared - they were already half gone by the time I took this pic! Sarah wanted to hide the dried Apricot roll she liked it so much. The koeksisters were really sweet - literally dripping in syrup! There was some milk tart left over so I kept a piece for marge. who liked it very much.

So all in all I think it was a great success! I certainly enjoyed myself and all the guys thanked me profusely. Below is a random selection of pictures and people from the party.

Hien and Lindsay - friends from economics. Please note the tumbler for wine! We ran out of wine glasses. Not that that's surprising seeing as we only have 3!

Jaren - the son of Dad's best friend from University who's also in my Economics classes. He was lucky - he got a wine glass!

Ted from the floor above pointing at his cousin Scott, from the ground floor, for some unknown reason! In the background is Sarah and Pasha who lives on the floor below. We tried to persuade him to have a pic taken all evening but it didn't work - so there's only a distance shot of him!

Cheers! Jen from Economics and Anuar from the ground floor. I met Jen at orientation - she came up to me and told me that she'd been to South Africa and had really enjoyed it. Turns out she did what's called 'Semester at Sea' where they literally spend 6 months of university travelling around on a cruise ship. How cool it that?

So that would be pretty much it! All in all a really good birthday!