How to celebrate a postponed birthday

I finally celebrated turning 30 this past weekend. If you didn't already know I postponed my birthday by a week so that I could celebrate with some close friends.

So, how does one go about celebrating a postponed decade changing birthday?

Hm, this way:

Have coffee with a good friend (sadly, no picture of this part of the process).

Make dinner for some friends.
We had vegetable stir-fry with peanut sauce...delicious.

Also, make a weird coffee drink that you've never tried before for those friends.
It is called "European Coffee" and includes whipped egg whites. That is not whipped cream on top...

Have 'Happy Birthday' candles on top of a cake. Thanks Mom and Dad for the candles!!!

Ah yes, the picture of some of the friends that came over for dinner.

Have your housemate make yogurt and strain it as a substitute for cream cheese. That process has to be planned out because it can take up to a week to get enough. This is serious from scratch baking.
Then make a delicious mango cheesecake.

See a tree like this, hugging a rock, reaching desperately for more sun.

Enjoy a beautiful hike through some Tanzanian countryside and pick a hilltop to try and reach.

I will say it was kind of odd having a week where I was no longer in my 20s, but not quite 30. I would say postponing your birthday is a fun activity if you want to mix it up a bit, but shouldn't be a regular occurence.

I'm 30...sort of

This past Friday I turned 30. I have been looking forward to turning 30 this whole year and it finally has happened!!!

Well...actually I am writing this post the Saturday before I turn 30. It will go live after my birthday, but for now (at the time of writing) I am 29.

Ok, why am I writing this so early?

Because I spent my birthday on the largest island in the largest lake in Africa: Kerewe.

This is no island-get-away vacation. No leis greeted me as I disembarked from the ferry.

I've been working with a team of surveyors. We are looking at incorporating the Kara and Kerewe language communities into our translation work at the office, but before we can do that we have to have an official survey of these languages and then report back regarding our findings. So, I am part of a team of 4 who are spending 9 days on the Kara and Kerewe islands surveying these languages.

I don't know if I will have internet access while I am out there, but wanted to be faithful to posting a blog on Monday. So, if you sent me a birthday message and didn't hear back from me, don't worry, I haven't seen the message yet. Hopefully, I'll be able to respond later this week.

Officially, I postponed my birthday to the 26th of this month (check facebook, you'll see), so if you didn't send me message, you still have a few days ;).