Birthday wishes: An embarrassing ordeal.

Yesterday was my 21st birthday. I celebrated in England back in February with my family and friends so I didn’t really do much yesterday. But it did offer me a little insight into a Russian birthday.

Observation number 1: ‘Happy Birthday’ is not enough. In Russian there is a phrase for Happy Birthday but after it has been said it is normal for your friends to ‘wish you’ lots of things. For example, ‘Happy Birthday Sarah, I wish you happiness, I wish you love, I wish you success, I wish you health, I wish you to have money and I wish you friendship. It’s very nice for people to ‘wish me’ these things but it gets a little embarrassing when I have to stand there for 5 minutes continually saying Spasiba (thank you). A simple Happy Birthday will do for me.

Observation number 2: If you’re a woman, you will get an abundance of flowers. It’s common for women to receive flowers on their birthday, something that I had forgotten about until yesterday. Now I have a small garden on my desk. I love being given flowers though! They’re pretty, they smell nice and they look beautiful… what’s not to like? Oh and in Russia if you go to a restaurant and you have flowers they put them in a vase for you on the table. I was VERY excited that I finally got a chance to do this on my birthday lunch!



But alas my birthday is over and it’s just dawned on me that I am officially in my 20s. I had expected by this stage in my life that my career as a popstar would have really taken off. Britney Spears had released 3 albums by the time she was my age… I must catch up.