To sum it up:

I don't quite know where to begin, but I had an incredible birthday and everyone here in Rouen, and at home in Urbana, and in Chicago, Pennsylvania, and Arkansas (thanks for the fudge, Aunt Jean!), made my birthday absolutely lovely.  I rang in my birthday on Skype in a twenty-million person conference call.  Literally, my mom, brother, and gramma were all on one computer, Donnie and occasionally his mom, brother, and dad were on another, Gram (Donnie's grandma) hopped on her computer towards the end, and Amy all the way from Pennsylvania.  It was so wonderful, and we all talked for over an hour.  On the call, I opened a present from Amy and it was real real good.  There were some socks and some things that only Amy and I think are funny.  Which was nice.  Then I went to sleep and slept in until around 1, I think.  And I cleaned the apartment a bit, went with Fabi to the grocery store and the post office.  The post office was an adventure and this woman next to me in line told me that some of the people who were sending packages must have been socialists because only socialists send packages because they are government officials.  (?)  After waiting in line for half an hour or more, I picked up my package from mom (who is clearly a government official/socialist. duh.) and went back to the school where two more packages were waiting for me.

I skyped with various people (thanks for the iTunes gc, Hillary!) and Donnie gave me a concert (see previous post).  Then the roomies and several others went out for dinner at this really yummy Indian restaurant, Rebekah (my American roommate) and her friend treated me for dinner which was super super nice, and then we all went back to our apartment.  Lots of people came over, Lisa (the other assistant, not my mom's friend this time) made cookies, and I kind of made an instant cake.  All quite tasty.  Then we went out to a bar, I kind of fell asleep, and Rebekah and I left at 3 am.  The others went out dancing til 5:30.  Guess I'm getting old, because I just couldn't do it...  :)

Anyways, it was really a wonderful day and I was so happy to share that day with so many great people, both in person and far far away. 

And now I'm off to get cleaned up, run to the grocery store, and go to a dinner party thing this evening at one of my teacher's.  Until the next time!  (And don't forget to check out all the new photos I've uploaded in the posts below.)