First Birthday Abroad

Yet another first...I told you this would be a summer of firsts. Let me give you a little timeline of the madness that was my 23rd birthday.

6:30 AM - Woke up 15 minutes earlier than I wanted to.
6:40 AM - My host/coworker knocks on my door and informs me we need to be at the Fiscalia (Attorney General's Office) for a meeting and need to leave at 7:00.
7:05 AM - I'm dressed and ready and waiting for her so we can leave.
7:15 AM - We're in the car and on our way.
8:00 AM - The meeting begins. Due to some recent problems my office needed to make a presentation to the top prosecutors to get them to recommit to a pilot mediation project hosted within that Fiscalia office. Thanks to Ricardo, who I am now calling the Mediation televangelist, everyone in the room was converted and their souls (and the pilot project) were saved.
8:45 AM - We leave the Fiscalia and head to the office so that I can go to another meeting. Along the way Ricardo sang "Happy Birthday" to me a la Marilyn Monroe (it's on youtube if you somehow don't know what I'm talking about).
9:00 AM - We are preparing to go to the Procurduria (Public Defender's Office) when Delmy surprises me with a birthday gift. A lovely necklace! Thank you Delmy!
9:30 AM - The meeting begins. This was the wrap-up meeting to end a week-long workshop/evaluation of the mediation process in the Procurduria. I'm not going to lie, I couldn't/didn't follow most of the conversation. I was distracted by the thought of going to the beach for the weekend.
10:30 AM - Break and snack
11:00 AM - Back to the meeting
12:30 PM - Break for lunch (Salvadorans feed people well at their meetings).
1:30 PM - The meeting begins again
1:45 PM - Eva is finally released from her simultaneous meeting with the Procurador (Head Defendor) and we need to rush out in a vain attempt to get to USAID on time.
1:57 PM - We call USAID to tell them we will be late for our 2:00 PM meeting.
2:15 PM - We finally arrive at USAID for our meeting.
6:00 PM - We leave USAID more because the Embassy is closing for the day than because we ran out of things to talk about in regards to the specific projects Mark and I will be working on. Not going to lie, by this point I was pretty tired and had a definite headache.
6:30 PM - We stop at PriceMart (it's like a Cosco's or Sam's) because there was no food in Eva and Mark's apartment.
7:30 PM - We get back to Eva's to put away the food and so Eva and Mark can change clothes.
8:10 PM - We FINALLY leave for a nice quiet birthday dinner for the three of us.
8:30 PM - We arrive at the restaurant Eva picked out and after mumbling something about a reservation she leads us to the back of the restaurant where I find the entire office waiting to celebrate my birthday. Needless to say they were very hungry by this point.
10:00 PM - We finish dinner and Luis takes me and Mark out for a few drinks. The bar is supposed to be one of the best in San Salvador. There was live music (which was really good), beer (which is always good) and plenty of drunk people dancing (which made everything even better).
12:45 AM - We decide to call it a night. After the long day of meetings I was pretty wiped out and it was clearly written all over my face.
1:00 AM - I finally get home. I read all the birthday greetings sent to me (thank you everyone!) and pass out within half an hour.

So, that was my first birthday abroad. In a few hours Mark and I will be returning to that beach we have posted so many pictures of for a weekend of relaxing, swimming and other fun things. I am SO ready!