Birthday in the middle eastern style

So finally a delayed blog post. But since the living here is just becoming more and more normal, theres less and less outstanding things to share. Now all the outstanding things are just part of my everyday life.

So almost a month ago I had a birthday. Birthdays here are long and special celebration, especially for the girls. Girls seemed to celebrate birthdays much more and make it a bigger thing. The celebrations normally last for the whole week. And so did mine.

I ended up organizing 2 birthday paries. One middle estern style and one western style. Middle easter style party for the friends that don’t drink alcohol and who don’t really appreciate or feel comfortable to be around people who drink. It was a great night at our flat. Inviting mainly Jordaninan people who have been special and nice to hang out with. We ended up having so many cakes and soft drinks that we could eat them for the rest of the week. But the winner cake was definitely this one:



A big yellow smiley face with my name written on it. And on top of that, it actually tasted as sweet black bread back home J.

The other party was with drinks and clubbing and mainly with all the interns over here.

It also turned out to be my first time to be turned down by the night club. Since it is low season, some night clubs are closed for renovations and some just closed. Which pretty much leaves Amman with just about 3 night clubs. And out of the 3 only 2 are for “decent girls” . and I was warned before that you should reserve places before to get in since they will be crowded. But my western mind couldn’t believe the fact that a club would just not accept peoples money and turn them down. But so it happened. No reservation, no place. Anyway the night ended up to be a great one, with a house party at other interns place.




The birthday week and month is over now. For the first time after 17 I actually feel like I am loving and living the age I am exactly now. It might also be because people here are “youngster” for a longer period of time than in the western world. So being 26 and not married with kids and still living at home is more normal here. Most of the 26 and older people still live with their families and are very close to them. You normally move out only once you get married. While in Estonia, you probably couldn’t really find people older than 25 still living with the family. You might not be married with kids, but at least your moved out of home and connection and communication with friends is definitely more intense than with your family.