McDonald's Birthday

It's pretty awesome to get to be part of stuff that's so different than we're used to. Maybe McDonald's does birthday parties in the States but I'd never heard of it. Here it's a pretty big deal. A boy in Jozie's class named Kewin (kids in Macau nowadays have Chinese names but are also given - or pick their own - English names) invited his whole class to his birthday party at McDonald's, as well as classmates' siblings, parents, etc. It was a PARTY let me tell you! Even his teacher and other people who work at the school showed up.

Just so you have an idea of how things are set up here, there are three McDonald's in Taipa. Taipa is a small place that Haven and I can walk across in about 15 minutes. The one the party was at is just a 5 minute walk from Jozie's school. We happened to be checking out a dance class that night that is also a 5 minute walk from McDonald's. Every time I go to a new place here I'm always amazed at how close it is to everything else. It's like living in a miniature world. Putting everybody in little apartments in the sky makes everything down on the ground serving those people super close together. Plus this country is so small anyway there just isn't room to spread out.

Back to the party, imagine 26 first graders, plus their little brothers and sisters and parents (or helpers/nannies) crammed into about a 20 ft x 20 ft space. Then imagine one or two poor McDonald's employees taking everyone's orders and bringing out food while kids run around your legs screaming. It was chaos but exciting, especially for us who were new to the whole thing.

I'm really glad we got to go!

These people (and more) were all part of the party.

This is Jeily, one of Jozie's best friends at school. The crazy thing is we found out she's from Panama and her whole family speaks Spanish!! Super excited about that.

This is Jozie's teacher, Ms. Laynie, and her daughter. The teachers live at the school (you know how when you were little you thought that was always how it was? Well, it really is...)

This poor employee... I had some of this cake and it was great! It had layers of fruit inside. Lots of cakes here are like that - Chad teases me about liking fruitcakes...