Adult Under Construction: How I Spent my 25th Birthday (and more)

It's been a while since my last blog post, so here's a few recent highlights:

October 2 was my birthday, and the first time I've spent two consecutive birthdays in the same country since I turned 18. My coworkers and I had a pot luck dinner before heading on to one of the two bars in Arthur's Pass. I've spent several birthdays around people I'd only just met, so it was nice to have a group of people who actually know me. I accidentally scorched a surprise cake by preheating the oven for someone else, but the cake was still delicious. And they even bought me a present - a fern carved out of greenstone from the West Coast, which is around my neck right now. I don't usually wear accessories, but I like this one (although I still forget to put it on in the morning).

The weekend after my birthday was Canadian Thanksgiving. I briefly mentioned it to a few of my coworkers, and before long the entire village was involved. We had dinner on Saturday night, and most of the people I've met here attended. I managed to make a pumpkin pie from scratch for the first time, something I will definitely do again. And after dinner, I played "Alice's Restaurant" through the speakers. That might have been mixing American and Canadian traditions, but my Thanksgiving traditions have always been confusing.

This past week has seen two snowstorms that have closed the highway, turning this village into a bit of a ghost town. Despite it being October, which is well into spring here, a few friends and I had a long walk through what might be the last big snowfall for a while. We made snowmen and snow angels, threw snowballs, went snowboarding, ate snow candy, and invented the snowjito (a mojito with snow instead of soda water). It hasn't been a very normal winter here, but we certainly made of the most of a very wintry day.