I'm legal!

It's my birthday and I can cry if I want to...or something like that. I turned 25 on Wednesday, October 13th, officially entering into middle age (or so my father tells me "as 25-49 falls into the middle bucket of an average 75-year life"). In Delhi, turning 25 means not only do I have an easier time renting vehicles, but I can legally drink again. Yes, the drinking age in Delhi is 25. No, I (nor the high schoolers I have talked to) have never been carded. But still: another it's legal party, amazing!

Given as I am self-centered, I declared it a birthweek and held 3 parties and made another one my own. Wednesday during the day, my team surprised me with a pizza party where they proceeded to embarrass me by showing a slideshow they created of me doing ridiculous things in pictures...turns out I take a lot of ridiculous pictures. My team is very cheeky (as my British friend says) and sweet. On Wednesday night, the expats and some Bainees accompanied me to Smokehouse Grille, one of the only place you can get steak in Delhi. I think it tasted all the better since I can't get it anywhere (plus I got to be a bit of a rebel for eating steak on India). Now I only need to figure out where I can get key lime pie. Anyways, below are some pictures from that party. We ended up going downstairs and dancing to hip hop music (Wednesday night is hip hop night at Smokehouse). I literally danced the night away and only went to bed at 4AM...the next day at work was very productive as I am sure you can imagine.

I did not let the festivities stop there. On Friday, I hosted a joint birthday party with my friend Mayuri (her birthday is October 8th) at Mannekin, a night club known for cheesy Bollywood and American music. I think I am getting better at my Bollywood moves though my hip swivels aren't very good (Lali, another friend, says I need to go around more instead of just moving back and forth like one of those Hawaiin dancers on the dashboards). On the way home, another friend from India convinced me to make a quick stop at Hype, a new night club. There we were serenaded by a singer called Raghav, who I am assured is somewhat famous here among the Indian expats. He loved singing to my friends (this is what happen when I hang out with a bunch of attractive girls) AND he sang a song about Reese's Peanut Butter Cups(bonus): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSMbt6Uz0iA

And Saturday night we played Americans and headed over the the American Embassy for Oktoberfest. Some fun facts about the evening: they served potato latkis and apple sauce (yay Jews!), Riesling, pretzels and potato salad; the American embassy has a baseball field and pool inside of it and has uber-intense security; there are some very interesting American characters in India.

PS: Josh and Matt- thanks for the birthday flowers! Yes, I put them in a "trash can" vase; I am very creative.