My 27th birthday festivities

Hi there. A couple of people recently have referred to going to my blog to see if there were any updates and being disappointed that it was still just me, ranting about Roman men. Whilst frankly I think anyone should be thrilled by the opportunity to re-read some of my incisive and relevant feminist cultural analysis, I'm capitulating to the demand so here are some photos from my birthday meal last saturday. Enjoy!

It's me and my ex-housemate Lorenzo!! It was so nice to see him. He said my italian's really improved since we lived together


Lorenzo and three of my friends who are students at the school, Sara, Andrea and Claudia.


This is Liuba, another teacher and a good friend, and Anna, my conversation exchange partner who is teaching me Italian.


Me with Anna and Elena, my roommate from kid's camp in the summer. She's the one who introduced Anna and me.

We had a fantastic set menu meal of fish - I chose the restaurant because it's good for big groups; you pay a lump sum per head and they bring you a smorgasbord of seafood delights, basically. I was very happy to have 18 people...it was really lovely. So we had mussels, calamari, frutti di mare, copious amounts of white wine, and then a mixed grill of plaice along with other fish, bread, salad, and finally lemon sorbet and coffee. Everyone was chatting and pretty much everyone was sitting with people who spoke the same language (I was a bit worried about the social dynamics since we had lots of italian speakers, lots of english speakers, and not everyone has the fantastic bilingual fluency of myself (ha)!) I was bought several roses which was a treat. I also got some fantastic cards and presents. Certain members of the party tried to convince me to make a speech but I dodged that bullet (me making a speech after alot of wine is not a pretty sight as, unfortunately, quite alot of you probably know). Then a select crew went dancing afterwards, to a club which bizarrely had a London band on! all good. I love birthdays.