Yesterday...

... was my birthday. Yesterday, was no special day, but it was still like no other. Not because of my birthday but because none of my days look like each other. But I still wanted to be a birthday girl and act like a kid, happy to receive gifts and calls and messages... I got the first one live at midnight... then the morning began with some unnecessary ones, reminding me how hypocritical families can be. Not caring a bit, I went to work, where I received presents from my dear colleagues (thanks guys for initiating me to dutch literature... after French, English, Spanish and Turkish... I'm finally going to read a novel in Dutch! I'll let you know how it went on in a next- not soon- post).

Going back home with my arms full of yellow flowers, I celebrated my birthday my own way in the streets of Saint-Gilles, first by offering a flower to the neighborhood's homeless who immediately shared the gift with his dog, then by stopping by the café where the owner (I guess he's Italian) immediately greeted me... the Italian way :)

Arriving to my final destination, home, I found myself covered with other gifts; my little brother's presence and outstanding mark for his French exam (8/10 for a kid who doesn't like to read ... that's an achievement!); another bouquet (white flowers, thanks again sweet, I love them) and a Marcolini pastry (no need to mention anything about this!!), and and... you don't need to have the whole list. Yes, I agree, I am lucky. But wait until you hear the end of the story... The next step for the evening was going to my dad's place, but when we arrived at the car, nothing seemed to work, the battery had been emptied! Our fault, we forgot to switch off a light inside the car. So we called dad so he could help us out with this... he played hero-dad of course and tried to push the car down the way... well, it didn't work out and we finally got to call a cab to help us fill up the battery with a bunch of cables (don't ask me how it works... I simply don't care). And we were finally ready to go at 9.30pm. What we did? Just hang out, stay together, have some laughs, playing with the kittens... just be together, for a not so special but still very nice day.