My 27th Birthday in Kalmar, Sweden

Hey, another gruelling week in Kalmar and just dropping a note to tell a little about my birthday fete. I invited my classmates and some of the other international students who frequent our gatherings. Estela and Rodrigo assisted me with going to ICA Maxi(a big hypermarket) and we bought some food supplies for the recipes I collected and decided would be the evening's treats. It was raining cats and dogs but we walked back to the party basement in Estela's building, Smålandsgatan 4a. It is a really big room with comfortable sofas and adequate space for dancing etc. Rodrigo and Estela helped me prep some of the food items, arrange the room and set out the candles as we wanted a 'chilled' environment with no lights except for candle light.
Then I began to prepare the food which was a lot more than I anticipated...quesadillas, deviled eggs, vegetable sticks with a dip concoction of peanut butter, cream cheese, garlic etc., cheeses, crackers, cuban fried pork and Lord alone knows what else...lol
It continued to rain all night and so people came little by little a bit later than invited but that was no problem as I was busy cooking and Trini time = late so I am accustomed. The biggest surprise for me was that when people arrived they brought gifts...something that I did not expect at all. Catherine brought lovely chocolate treats and Lisanne a great banana bread. The next day we had class at 8 am so I knew it would not last very long so before it got too late I did what I have done on many birthdays past and is becoming a tradition - when I studied in Brazil in 1999 one of the things I brought back with me is the love of the Axe (means positive energy in an African language) music. There is one dance I remember in totality taht I learned while I was there "Rala no Pezinho" by Patrulha de Samba. So I taught everuone the dance and they seemd to all enjoy it and called for an encore even. Overall, the evening was really well spent and I ended by heading home in a taxi with lots of food stuff, pots and pans in the pouring rain...blessings I guess. Thanks to all who made it aa special evening. Seee some pictures on the link in the "Sean's links" section below