Hare krishnas, mariachis, squished/melted cake, and more?

How did I get to this place in my life?

I’ve been keeping a secret.

As we all know I spend a lot of time on my laptop. When it broke a few weeks ago I didn’t know how to fill my days and wondered from my usual daily routine and met a really amazing & beautiful woman.

Lupe is from Venezuela, she’s 26, loves to sail, intelligent, and generally pretty amazing.

Well her birthday was yesterday and I managed to totally destroy it. Lupe’s English is not great, and my Spanish is pretty bad. We can communicate well, however many of the details get lost.

Lupe is a vegetarian and often eats at the Local Hare Krishna restaurant (Food’s really Good) and they wanted to throw her a birthday party. I thought she wanted to go but she really didn’t. She said she did, but really wanted me to take her to dinner with a few friends. Do you see what I mean about loosing the details? I realized it at the last minute.

Okay, so its crunch time to do a last minute birthday thing, and when I mean last minute, I mean it’s 4pm on her birthday, and I’m in a country that I cant really speak the local language.

So I manage to find one flower shop (on the phone) that’s open that late on Sunday, no roses though. I beg them to deliver a birthday bouquet to the internet café that we are at. It shows up 30 minutes later. It’s a pretty bunch of flowers but it looks like someone stole it off of a grave stone. She was very happy with her death flowers, and smiled with glee. This was the beginning of my massive disaster birthday bash.

Okay, next problem, how do you say birthday cake in Spanish? Well I managed to find a Cumpleanos torta (Birthday cake), at the local supermarket. Okay, I got the cake thing figured out.

I asked her friend to suggest a restaurant (not too expensive) for the four of us and I also managed to hire a mariachis trio (over the phone ($25)) to show up as a surprise. Everything is happening at 9pm, and I’m feeling pretty good at this point, but I still haven’t managed to get her a present, all the stores on Manga are closed, and I’m starting to stress a bit.

Okay, fast forward a few hours. My friend Napolian, and Lupe’s friend Paula are joining us for dinner. We all get in a cab at Club Nautico, and start our journey into the night for a beautiful evening (I’m actually wearing shoes & cologne).

I never managed to get a present but told Lupe that we would go perfume shopping tomorrow, I told her “I want you to pick out the scent”. =A0Okay…, The cake thing, the present thing, and the restaurant things are handled. I’ve even got mariachis showing up as a surprise. The only bad thing at this point are the death flowers, right? WONG!!!!!!!!!!

I have my prize cumpleanos torta in my lap in the cab. Well I kind of squish the cake as a HUGE bus pins the cab in-between itself and the cement divider. We didn’t actually crash but it was a really tense moment. The cake got the worst of it.

We show up at the restaurant (next door to McDonalds), and it’s horrible. Bright Lights and family’s, all intimacy is checked at the door, the mariachis show up and cause a scene because the manager will not let them in and I have to pay them to leave. The food parallels a Denny’s, and my prize birthday cake is squished and melting in the hot Caribbean night.

Well we sit down to dinner; the waitress serves everyone but Lupe. For some reason her plate comes 20 minutes after we’ve been served. Now we have 1 hot plate, and 3 cold. Lupe’s smile is as bright as ever, and acts like all is right in the world.

That’s it, I decide to take control of this of this birthday disaster, “the cake will not be served here, we are going to my favorite little intimate bar that I’m sure has great live music tonight, we will order a bottle of good rum, eat squished & melted cake, dance, and drink all this SHIT AWAY!!! Lupe smiles, and gives me a big kiss.

We get in a cab for Santa Domingo Plaza. The cab driver steals 4000 pesos from me, and I start yelling at him, AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

Lupe takes my hand and tells me she’s very happy with her birthday evening, Okay, I try to buy it.

We walk a few blocks, and I find it difficult to find my bar because it’s the only one closed in the entire plaza. There are no lights on, no explanation on the door, nothing, just closed, and I’m about to cry I’m so frustrated.

Okay, we find another restraint, order some drinks, stick the candles in the squished, melted, cumpleanos torta, and try to salvage the evening. I slam a few drinks, and manage to shake off some of the stress. We laugh a bit and take a few birthday photos. I’m more upset then Lupe and stay pretty stressed throughout the remainder of the evening. I felt horrible all night. It’s been a long time since I’ve tried to make a nice birthday for a woman, and I’m really out of practice.

We had some of that damn cumpleanos torta with coffee this morning and both laughed so hard about her “worst birthday party ever” this morning; it made the entire disaster worth it. The “Death Flour Bouquet” takes up half of the boat, it’s hysterical.

Anyway, I wanted to share my yesterday with all of you and hopefully give you a good laugh today.

Peace, Love, and squished, melted cumpleanos torta.

– Alex