Birthday and Halloween Fun

Monday was my 21st birthday and it was a really special day. Starting somewhere around midnight I began receiving a multitude of text messages to say "happy birthday" and the following day, got to talk to my best friend and my parents. My friends got me a balloon that looks like a small creature with eyes that move back and forth (see Flickr photos) and one of them got me a mug that looks like a cow, which I love. My roommates got me a manicure and a massage at this spa near our apartment, and that is such a treat! At night, my four best Italian friends and I went to dinner at my favorite pizzeria and talked and laughed. It was a perfect night spent with them.
The next day, October 31st, was Halloween!! In Italy, Halloween is not as big of a deal as November 1st, All Saints Day, when everyone takes off of work. Still, as early as 5:00 there were both kids and adults out in their Halloween outfits ready for some fun. I went over to my good friend Alexa's house, because she was sick and brought her some medicine. She didnt want to go out so we decided to make the night fun staying in. We went down to the Standa (Roman grocery store - the biggest one they've got...Ill take pictures sometime) and we got 2 pumpkins, which we carved. I should say, which Mel and Alexa carved, because I was rather unsuccessful and using the very fat kitchen knives to round the edges of my pumpkin's eyes...but I think Im okay with that failure. My contribution was chocolate chip cookies, which burned on the bottom (the ovens here are insane) but their roommates (8 of them!) thought they were good. Wahoo! When we tried to turn on the oven, which is a gas oven and lights from the bottom, I put the lighter in there and it looked like an A bomb had just exploded and a plume of fire came up momentarily, threatening to melt my face in one poof. It didnt happen, fortunately, but we had a good laugh. Why Italians refuse to come into the electricity age is beyond me. Alexa had some movies and we watched those until the wee hours of the morning and then fell asleep. Those are the nights when you really feel that it doesnt matter if youre at a party or burning your face with the oven fire or scraping seeds out of a pumpkin or doing nothing at all - its completely about who youre with when youre doing it.