Feliz Cumple

It's official, I am 23 years old, or in a direct translation from Spanish according to my kids: I have 23 years. While I would love to spread wild rumors that I lived up this birthday in true Madrid style, I can not. I was quite too sick to do so. The night of the 14th my co-worker Mary was in a play with her theater group so Lisa and I met up with a few other teachers to watch. The show was made up of mostly British people doing small performances from other works. It was great and Mary did fantastic. After, we went out for a few drinks because it was still pretty early. At midnight everyone sang in Spanish, and then again at 12:10 when they realized they could capture it on camera. It was a great night! And I even got a flower!
On my actual birthday I had a picnic in the park with some friends. It was a beautiful day with the temperature around 70 degrees. The sunshine was great and the park was filled with people. It was relaxing and a lot of fun just enjoying great food and conversation.

Now, on to the sickness. As I mentioned before I started to feel sick when Kristen was visiting. The Monday she left my body just decided to quit on me. I proceeded to take the next two days off because I could not stand without falling. If you remember my first interaction with the doctors here you'll understand why me staying home from school is a huge deal. When I miss school I have to get what is called a 'justificante', basically a doctor's note excusing my absence from work. The first time I tried this I ended up in tears after visiting three different places while being sick. So clearly I was nervous for this time as well. Luckily there is a doctor right across the street so I met up with him for my 1 minute diagnosis: Go get X-rays. Fair enough. I then headed up a couple blocks to the clinic to wait in a stuffy room for X-rays. The technichian was wicked nice, probably because I looked horrible, and even called me "Mi amor...". I wasn't able to get my results that Tuesday so I had to go back on Friday. I spent the rest of the time in bed. When I brought the results back to the doctor this was his reaction:
Looks at results and shakes head.
Says "Joder" (bad bad swear).
Looks at me, shakes head again.
Says "Joder" again.
Tells me I have a really bad sinus infection.
Prescribes me 5 pills a day for ten days.
Shakes his head.

Awesome.

By the end of the following week I was feeling much better, unforunantely not well enough to travel for the puente. Thursday was Father's Day here in Spain so I had that day and Friday off to make a four day weekend. Fortunantly for me the NCAA Tournament officially started and I was able to catch some of the early games at the pub. My medicine said nothing about mixing beer with pills.

Negative: My first and second round picks in my bracket put me last in all three of my March Madness pools.

Positive: Celebrating St. Patrick's Day at school by going out for beers at lunch.