My birthday and New Year's

What exactly my left hand was trying to do in this picture escapes me, but here I am on my 27th birthday. The celebration we had was rather quiet, in compliance with my personal birthday custom ever since God knows when. As soon as I got out of bed, my mom and I walked to Carrefour to buy a birthday cake, strawberries and ice cream which we would later discover was lemon sherbet. I cooked paella again, garnished it with a couple of lemons we had picked from trees outside the flat, and brought out some leftover wine from New Year's. My mom sang to me happy birthday.

I didn't stumble upon life-changing epiphanies on my birthday, neither did I see the light at the end of the tunnel. My body was too tired from all the holiday rush. I was just thankful for all the good things that had come my way in the last 27 years, and I started to watch TV on the couch, wishing I could do more for myself and for others in the years to come.

NEW YEAR'S EVE
In Spain, doce uvas is a tradition observed on New Year's Eve which consists of eating consecutively twelve grapes at every strike of the bell in the countdown to the new year. People normally gather around a plaza with bags of this fruit taken from home, to await the striking of the cathedral bells. The 12-second countdown starts with the first strike. One grape must be swallowed for every strike if one is to have good luck in the following year.

In Malaga, my mom and I went to the Plaza de la Constitución to see how this was done. We didn't know that we had to eat the grapes while the bells were being struck, starting instead to chew just when the countdown had finished! As soon as the clock struck 12, couples kissed, champagne bottles popped, cameras flashed. My mom and I were busy spewing out grape seeds on the floor.

There was a live concert at the plaza where we stayed for a while to dance (my mom danced, too!), light some fireworks and just immerse in all the revelry. We reached home at 2:30 am and I sneaked my mom into the flat under the security guard's nose, and we resumed pigging out on the night's fare.