Feliz Cumpleaños Kath!

Another of the girls who came from Birmingham University is called Kath, and her 22nd Birthday was on a Sunday, so Claire and I, who are the only other people from Birmingham here decided that we should celebrate! We had already agreed that we would all go out, so we decided to host pre-drinks at my flat in Plaza de Mina, as it was close to La Punta. Then at midnight when it officially was Kath’s birthday we would surprise her with cards, a small gift and a cake. We thought that it would be good to do something as we are all away from our friends and that must be hard on your birthday when you would usually spend the day with familiar faces.

Claire and I headed off on a secret trip to El Corte Ingles earlier that day, as neither of us had a cake tin in our flats we decided instead to buy cupcakes, that would save on the washing up and mess from cutting up a big cake, and we wouldn’t need to buy more cookware. The cupcakes came with plain white icing and we purchased sprinkles and some pink glitter pens to decorate the cakes with. We decided to write Feliz Cumpleaños Kath on the cakes, although it took us a while to work out how many cakes we would need for that. Once we had decided on cakes we moved on to a present, we found a Dora the Explorer book and decided to buy that as Kath’s friends in England sometimes call her Dora, and the vocabulary would also be useful.

We then picked up a card, for some reason Birthday cards are quite hard to find, not like at home where we have shops just for cards, there was only one small stand dedicated to cards in the whole of El Corte Ingles. I also picked up a card for my Nan, so that I could post it in time for it to arrive on her birthday. Satisfied that we had purchased everything that we needed we headed home to begin making the cupcakes and immediately realised that we had forgotten to buy eggs and butter in addition to the cupcake mix, but luckily my flatmates had some that they were willing to lend us. So we set about making the cupcakes, however when it came to the baking we had to google what gas mark the oven needed to be on as neither of us were familiar with gas ovens. Throughout the early evening several people dropped in to sign the card, I was very shocked at one point to pick up the intercom and hear Kath on the other end, she wanted to drop in her drink for pre-drinks as she was in the area, rather than carrying it home and back again. So there was a mad rush to hide all the birthday paraphernalia before she made it up to the flat, thank god we live on one of the top floors!

Once Kath had gone home we all got ready for the night out and finished icing the cakes, even though our flat came with a ‘no fiestas’ rule we had invited most people that we knew over for pre-drinks, in the end about 15 showed up, but we were nice and quiet of course, no trouble to the neighbours. Everyone started having a few drinks, and at midnight Claire and I snuck out to light the candles on the cakes and bring in the cards, everyone sang Cumpleaños Feliz, or at least the words that we knew! Kath seemed pleased and learnt some new vocab from her Dora book so all was well, apart from a couple of the cupcakes which were a little bit burned on the bottom, ooops!

After we had all eaten a cupcake we headed down to La Punta, equipped with some of our own drinks to have on the top terrace area where all the locals congregated. We spotted the Erasmus flag and so of course the birthday girl had to have a photo with it! Lots of people got to hear about how it was Kaths birthday, whether they wanted to or not and we chatted to quite a few people. Later on we headed downstairs to the clubs, hoping it was a more respectable time to do so and that they wouldn’t all be empty, we decided to start at one end of La Punta and work our way along, first up Kings and Queens. We had some birthday shots for Kath, and the DJ played happy birthday followed by some classic English pop such as uptown girl and we all had a great dance.

After a while we decided it was time to move next door, to Sala Supersonic, a couple of drinks and dances later it was getting much busier. We stepped outside for some air and a sit down, before deciding it was time to head on again this time to Aki Te Quiero which was by this point completely rammed. Being girls we were ushered to the front of the queue and straight into the club, where there was no space to move, but great music so we had a good hours dancing in there. Although something I must suggest is that you take your own toilet roll to clubs in Cádiz, as most clubs only have one toilet and no toilet roll whatsoever, or soap so hand sanitizer may be a good call too. By this time it was nearing 5 and a few people decided that it was time to head home, my flatmates and I stayed in Aki Te Quiero for a while longer. We met some Spanish guys who couldn’t speak English which was great for us to practise, even if we were a little drunk by this point, but they were very understanding. We finally headed home in the early hours of the morning, completely knackered but it was worth it to celebrate Kath’s birthday. I think it was good for us all as it was a bit like home, headed out on the tiles for a birthday. Next up is Anissa’s birthday, more excuse to party – not that we need it!

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