¡Felíz Cumpleaños!

Chopping vegetables for salad.
My family is helping me learn to cook
 for when I return to the USA, and I´m
probably going to get a book of recipes
 before then as well.

Learning to iron! My mom was utterly
shocked when I said I didn´t know how,
and I´mlearning all about the house right now.

My mom blowing out the candles on the
last of her many birthday cakes.

A quiche thing that my mom made for
 dinner the other night-- very yummy!

The Argentines but a lot of salt on food and
 almost no pepper. Guess which one is which.

The ladies´ table, complete with some of
 the many delicious dishes we had.

I don´t know if you can see these or not, but they are tiaras.
That you can buy in bulk. Yes, they sell tiaras in bulk
but not stationery.

My mom holding yet another cake, a cheesecake
with red jello on top and a strawberry filling.

One of the glorious cakes we had a taste of. That is meringue
 on top with crystallized sugar, with dulce de leche
in the center as well as crisp cake.

Another thing that they sell in the stores we went to
 in search of stationery. Those are glass blown swans.
 And they don´t know what stationery even is.

Another glorious cake, chocolate and dulce de leche.

The men´s table, with lots of beer and peanut shells.

Thursday was my host mom´s birthday and we had a party on Friday. The Argentines really know how to party as well as their food. There were six birthday cakes, empanadas, pizza, two different types of sandwiches, brownies, ice cream, pie, cherry tart, peach tart, peanuts, lots of alcohol, four types of soda, five types of bread, four different salads, crackers, mate, tedede, noodles, and three types of cookies. There were   maybe forty guests in total. All the cakes were handmade, from scratch, and all had dulce de leche, since this is a law in Argentina. I also went on a fruitless journey for stationery so I can actually write all of you real letters, but this literally doesn´t exist in Latin America. I have gone to at least twelve stores in the past week, and everyone sort of looks at me like I´m insane. I eventually got colored paper and envelopes to just write on substitute stationery.