Cumpleaños

So I turned 26 this past weekend and celebrated my birthday on Saturday. The original plan was that I was going to return to my house after salsa lessons for some cake with some of my host family and a couple of friends and then head to a disco for the evening. I was a little bummed because not many people were going to be able to make it ... asados going on, sickness and I even thought about trying to move the event to a better day. 

However, when I returned after salsa I was surprised by my host family and all the other antofagastan volunteers at my house. Just like my 24th birthday this caught me completely off guard. We then proceeded to eat cake (chocolate and manjar) sushi (prepared by my host brother Alex) potatoes on toothpicks that you could dip into a peruvian sauce (at first I thought they were cut up pineapple) beer, rum, homemade bread, and chips. I also opened my presents in which I received a t shirt, a book of Karl Marx in Spanish (an inside joke), some chocolate, and some nice rum. At 12:30 we left for the discotheque where we danced until 5.

The funniest incident of the evening was when it came time to cut the cake. Apparently its the tradition for the birthday boy to take a bite of the cake before it is cut (and someone will push his head into the cake) but I misunderstood what was being explained to me and instead put my forehead into the cake.