Last weekend a few friends and I went to Marseilles, France. It is a huge, very cool port city on the Mediterranean coast. My friend Claire has lived there since high school, so the six of us were able to forgo hostels and somehow fit into her parent's small apartment that comfortably fits 4.

Marseilles had a lot of cool stuff going for it: good cheese, good wine, awesome food (Claire's brother is in French Culinary School :O!), a good "summery" city feel, and a sweet Cathedral at the highest point of the city that gives you a 360 degree view of the everything! Also one night we went to a charity function and met some of Claire's friends, Digna and Fred. It's fun to make friends with someone who doesn't speak your first language haha.

On Thursday I had a birthday party at a friend's house and I thought that was my real birthday party...but it turns out I was wrong because that was just a decoy birthday party to distract me from the real Surprise birthday party that I had last night in the cave! All week my friends were like "Hey you guys wanna watch a movie on Friday?" blah blah blah, making all of these fake plans to fool me into thinking there would be a movie and then actually have all of our friends waiting for me in the cave. It was highly successful because I just walked in like "huuhhh???" hahah. It was a great party and my friend Liz and I reigned supreme in beer pong all night (this is a picture of one of our opponents trying to throw the ball behind her back).

Roosters live in a park near Claire's house...?

This is a whisk.

My parents sent me 11 lbs of candy this week for my birthday. I don't really like candy that much (I've pawned off a lot of it off to my friends already) but in Spain, on your birthday you give to everyone. I know the teachers at my school love random American candy so I had my mom send a mixture of popular and obscure candies from America that you would never find in Spain (I'm taking it in on Monday):

Marshmallows
Reese's Peanut butter cups (I brought this to the kids I teach in my private lesson. They had never had one in their entire lives...)
Skittles
Candy Hearts with things on them like Be Mine and Hold Hands
Everlasting Gobstoppers
Nerds (I'm not sharing these, sorry)
ILUVU shaped Peeps
Swedish Fish
Jolly Ranchers
Sweet Tarts
Hot Tomales

etc etc etc

My birthday turned out really well this year.

While playing ping pong with two students a couple of Wednesdays ago:

Carla: We have a science test tomorrow.
Me: On what?
Guillermo: Rock and Minerals.
Me: Limestone and stuff like that?
Guillermo: Gypsum, coal-
Carla: Diamonds! *deadpan* Just like me. Guillermo, you're coal.
Guillermo: Carla, you are metamorphic rock.

Happy Birthday Shannon Lieberman!