Andrew's Indian Birthday, March 18th - All pictures for all posts now up! :)

Andrew's Birthday

The night prior to my birthday, the electricity wasn’t working at the boys house so we had a sleepover at the girls house. My birthday started at 12 o’clock midnight when I was awoken by the boys wishing me a happy birthday. When I woke up in the morning there was an awesome poster made by Alex and Chantalle that said Happy 17th Birthday. Upon the arrival to breakfast, all of the trip members and Lauren and Ashley were standing outside the canteen. They sang happy birthday to me and was the first of many birthday blessings. The inside of the canteen was decorated with colorful streamers that Alex had brought all the way from Toronto (Thanks again Alex, you're awesome). Also on the table were gifts for me which included, many packets of pop rocks, a Jamaica wristband and a beer. Don’t worry about the beer mom and dad, it was a non-alcoholic beer.
Throughout the day of volunteering many of the kids at FFC were told that it was my birthday and they all wished me a happy birthday and sang to me too. It is a nice change having my birthday with a group of my friends and many new friends, which differs from me having my birthday on a beach in a resort. It is the first birthday in a long time where I actually saw more people I know then my family.
Lunch was great as usual and I had my non-alcoholic beer with lunch and I don’t remember the rest of the day (just kidding). At the end of lunch I was presented a phenomenal cake that was baked by the infamous chef LAUREN!!! (thanks for the cake Lauren, I was full before dessert came but it was so good that I had to eat it)
After lunch everyone did more volunteering until 4 o’clock when we started getting ready for dinner. Why did we start getting ready so early? And why was everyone putting on clean clothes and why were people shaving? It was like we were going out for dinner that night. Don’t worry I never picked up on any of the hints. We walked to FFC and there was our bus and bus driver ready to go. As we got on the bus someone whose name I wont mention, cough Mr. JUSTIN MEDVED, yells out something about us going to Pizza Hut. I had NO idea that we were going there until it was yelled out. It’s ok though I would have found out soon after. The food at Pizza Hut was just as good as in Toronto except we can’t eat meat. After dinner Alex handed me the gifts from my parents (Thanks mom, dad and Jimmy for sending them over and thanks Alex for bringing them over) and also the card that was signed by everyone on the trip. Thanks everyone. Also Tahira and Chantalle gave me the giant elephant tea cozy that they had bought for me in Cochin. You may wonder why they bought this for me. It’s because I wore it as a hat and it’s a good look on me. (Thanks Tahira and Chantalle, it kept my head nice and warm the WHOLE night) I wore the tea cozy for the rest of the night which made me stand out even more than without the tea cozy. The Pizza Hut employees then came over with a cake and a candle in it. They made me stand on my chair (with the tea cozy on my head) and they got the entire restaurant to look at me while they sang their intense Indian version of Happy Birthday to me. It was a truly unique experience which I will never, EVER forget. Then from standing on my chair, I had to blow out the candle that was all the way on the table. It took me a few blows but I eventually succeeded.
After dinner we did some shopping and all the store clerks laughed at me (elephant tea cosy), and then we went back to the girls house to watch Mr. And Mrs. Smith. All in all it was a fantastic birthday and I want to give a huge thanks and cyber hug to everyone that was involved. I have to go now before I start tearing up in front of the computer because its just too touching writing about the whole day. THANKS EVERYONE!!!

Andrew Cupcake Cardinal