Twenty-Four

I have a confession. I was sort of absolutely dreading kind of nervous about this upcoming birthday. In my head I had this idea that at 24 I should be a "grown-up", and anyone that knows me knows that is a curse-word. But I woke up on my birthday feeling really excited. Mostly because I knew there were presents awaiting me in some hidden cabinet somewhere in the apartment. After presents, Luke and I headed straight off to what turned out to be one of the biggest super bowl parties in Sydney! It was at the King Street Brewhouse. It was absolutely jam packed with people drinking beer at 10am. When we went up to the bar to order coffees the bartender grabbed a bucket and asked how many beers I wanted. I had to correct him and ask for my coffee. It was a great game with an even better outcome!

Then headed over to a local pie stand to get meat pies with mushy peas on top. YUM.

After a quick lunch Luke was off to work and I was off to lay in the apartment trying to digest my ever expanding pie.

When I checked my emails on my birthday to see how many people loved me I had received one from Luke's Mum saying how lucky I was that I was spending my birthdays in a new country every year. Last year was New Zealand, this year Australia, and who knows where next year. You know I read that and I actually couldn't believe I had not come to this conclusion on my own. I was so grateful that someone had reminded me of how lucky I am (thanks Jill!).

After reading that and finally getting up off the floor I put on my new running shorts and headed off to enjoy this years birthday location. I was going to run across the Sydney Harbour Bridge. I had to walk there because I'm no ultra marathon runner, but once I got to the bridge I ran over and back and realized I still had loads of energy so I ran all the way back to my apartment building! Running across the bridge I tried to take in where I was and remind myself how cool this is. I may be away from home, from family and friends whom I miss very much, but I was running across the Harbour Bridge looking at the Opera House and the city's skyline thinking: how frickin cool is this?! (yes I say frickin in my head)

After this runner's high, Luke returned from work and we were off to gorge ourselves once again! There is this food court in Chinatown that we have been eyeing for sometime now, so we thought my birthday was a perfect excuse to head in. There are so many choices, which obviously meant we were wandering around aimlessly looking at pictures of food for ages until we finally decided. I ordered Mongolian Lamb and Luke got chilli soup with chilli, beef and chilli. I mean there were whole red chillis floating in the soup. It was hot. The food was amazing as we expected it would be. It even came with rice and soup. We waddled back to have Chocolate Mud cake.

A perfect day. What was I so worried about?