3 Days to Celebrate a Quarter of a Century

This year I turn a quarter of a century old. Am I old? Am I young? Who cares! Live life and have fun! The birthday celebration this year was just that!

Friday

To jump start the birthday weekend, we had our official October FIPDes Birthday dinner on Friday night. The rule is, whenever someone has a birthday, they have to cook something from home for everyone else. 
The treats from Indonesia this time were: 
a simple dish of Nasi Goreng (our everyday fried rice :9 ) and Pisang Goreng Coklat Keju (our everyday banana fritters, albeit with Chocolate and Cheese :9 ) 

Despite my indifference to this dish when I'm at home, I am proud of one of the main ingredients Kecap Manis (Indonesian Sweet Soy Sauce). A specialty only found in Indonesia! You can’t even find it in the Chinese Quarter here in Paris! (if anyone proves me wrong, please tell me about it. I have eager mouths for Nasi Goreng).

The humble dishes also got the privilege of being served alongside the exotic Polish dishes. Pierogi (Dumplings with Smashed Potatoes/Sour Cabbage with Onion bacon stirfry) and Placki z Cukinia (Zucchini Pancakes with Yoghurt). This Polish Indonesian team made a spectacular show and was all gone in about 15 minutes! My Nasi Goreng and Pisang Goreng have never felt so proud of themselves. Happy Birthday to Ada Balazy and Me!

What kind of birthday would it be without presents? 
Each birthday girl must submit a wish list before hand so the others could buy them a present. I got the first item on my list! A black Swatch watch!
Thanks guys! It's so pretty. Simple yet classy. More than I even expected!

Side story: The day before, I practiced making the Pisang Goreng. Only there was something wrong with the bananas. The ones I bought were incredibly hard and starchy. I cooked a small piece, then a whole banana trying to figure out what was wrong! Wrong batter? Wrong recipe? Wrong type of banana?

Can you guess what was wrong with them?? (It’s actually super obvious. I’m such an unexperienced green chef.)

I paid the price though, what a lunch of fried raw bananas. So yummy -__- !

Saturday
Saturday was India Day! We start by having Indian Dessert for breakfast. Followed by shopping at Indian Quarter & Supermarket. Took a break and ate lunch at an Indian Restaurant. Stopping at the sweets shop to buy Indian snacks. Coming home and cooking Indian Dinner with Indian Friend (tag Sarabjit Kaur!). Lastly, massaging Indian hair oil into my hair after dinner. Hooray for rocking it Indian style all day long!

Saturday was also fireworks night! Have you ever heard of a Pyro-musical Show?

Somehow the French decided that a wine festival deserves a pyro-musical show (read: fireworks show orchestrated to music). But I’m glad. How lucky we were to watch that. Green Red Purple Yellow lights lit the sky, in my head they were just especially for me 
(\(^^)/).

The night ended at a bar.
Not the first place we came to though. We had walked through red light district, queued for a bar, only to get rejected by the bouncer because we were on the phone when our turn came up! Geez, all hail the all powerful bouncer. This is power abuse if I ever saw it. 

So we headed home, but still hoping to go out, we ended up at a sports bar, ordered a liter of beer, and talked too seriously till morning came. Intense stuff my friend, intense. Before we leave, I manage to throw up a little bit of that beer (yeah I need more hours for one liter. Not drunk, just damn full stomach!). Then we found ourselves navigating our way home by night bus. Fransisco displayed some El Savadorian hospitality and was so nice to share his frozen pizza for all of us.  After pizza, we all had a date with our beds. Nite nite!

Sunday

9 o’clock the sun is out, and I am up. By 12.30 me and roomie Amelinda head out for church, then stroll to the banks of the Seine. Good weather leads to good ideas, we decided to rent a bike and explore Paris on 2 wheels.

Challenge number 1: How to rent a bike. We had a hassle with the bike renting machines, but after trying, trying, and trying again we made a success. I guess 3 time’s the charm! The next challenge:  Reach another machine station in 30 minutes, or pay an extra Euro. On the first stretch we did well, timing in at 26 minutes. The second stretch, we didn’t find the station till 4 minutes after. Turn's out, we had passed the bike station 3 times by 10 meters away at the adjacent crossroads. Oh no!

Oh well, so we decidedly ditched the bikes for a while and tried to find some snails (Escargot!) or roast pork/chicken in the Latin Quarter (Oh la la so fancy!). Okay snails are yummy enough for appetizers.

Next: ICE CREAM! Time to try famous traditional ice cream of Paris, Bertoulli’s, on the island next to Notre Dame’s. Nice, not number 1 on my list, but might hold a place in the top 5.  We feel it’s getting cold outside as well as in our stomachs as we eat the ice cream.

We go home on bikes!

Okay no. We took the RER(train) because it was getting late and it was so cold.

When we get back, we arrive at the weekend finale!

Dinner celebrating the epic Indian holiday Dasara celebrating the victory of good over evil as Lord Rama defeated Ravana. Happy Dasara!

The Indians (Sarabjit, Priyanka) dressed up for the occasion.
Stitch, Mocan the minion, and Sarabjit's Sister threw a private party.

Daniella cooked traditional Portugese pasta with olives, tomates and anchovies. Yum!

The Spanish Coalition (Fransisco, Adri, Gaby, Silvia G) broke out in song and sang a happy birthday song in spanish. 

Ada and I finally made our birthday wishes and blew out candles.

I can't tell you my wish, but even if it doesn't come true, my birthday was already a wish come true anyways.

..(^,^)/)