WHOHOO ITS MY BIRTHDAY!!!!!
It’s interesting to me how each year my birthday feels less and less, like 'my birthday.' I don’t know if its as simple as “birthday magic,” or just that the years feel less milestone now that my days aren’t measured by grades and legal rules, but I’m not entirely mad about it.
It’s indeed been an incredibly long work day, but honestly I wouldn’t have it any other way. My morning tour went super well, the people were pretty nice and easy to ride with, and after lunch Elisa and Sabira surprised me with an Icelandic blueberry birthday cake and sang! Apparently Elisa went to the store when Sabira and I were on the morning tour, and I could shed a tear. It was so sweet and I didn’t expect it at all—It made me feel so special. We had one more group tour and then had to do some herding in the further fields (the best in my opinion, plus I got Gáski back with that group!!) before taking 3 horses to the viking restaurant for the group of kids to take photos with/ride in a circle/enjoy, so we decided to bring Steingrímur, Litli Kall (who we deeply bathed and purple shampooed to his dismay), and Mbrun (for a variety of colors), and I can’t say enough how cool it felt just hanging out with the horses and giving kids rides. Even the horses super liked eating the grass house (which I found particularly cute!!) but they didn’t like the yelling when the vikings harassed the tourists and did a fake battle. At that point M was not having it and getting really snorty/prancy so I took her for a walk around the building and let her graze a little more, and she was back to sniffing kids and eating the house in no time.
The kids loved the horses, I mean who can blame them! A couple boys wan’t to know which was the fastest because THAT was the one they were going to ride (even though we were only walking), and they didn’t seem too happy it was Mbrun considering she was the only girl-horse. Seemed a little early-maschonisteic to me so I tried my best to impress some gender equality mentalities upon them. One small girl barely said two words, but really loved M and rode her 3 times—not sure why but it was the most precious thing, and I just couldn’t say no to her each time she came up in line. At one point this superrrrr Gucci-decked out lady from "MiAmI" began to obsess over Steingrímur and asked to buy him because she liked his colors. I asked her if she had horses in Miami or anything and she said “oh nooooo, but I want my daughter to do horse riding and he would just be so CUTE to have at a barn for her.” We told her that’s not how it works, and Miami would be literal hell for an Icelandic horse. Sometimes I’m very pleased with how my fellow Americans handle themselves when they’re out in the world, and sometimes I am mortified. I try to remind myself that I’ve heard many a crazy thing from different European nationalities as well (lol peep that Dutch guy who asked me why I studied Spanish instead of French because Mexico isn’t as close to the U.S. as Canada…)
When we got back Elisa kept true to her word and we took Nota out for galloping videos! Apparently Elisa had quite the battle with Nota to get her to the riding way with the prettiest lupines, and I’m glad she was the one to do it because I enjoyed jamming in the car with Sabira. We got an insane view of the lupines in each of the videos (which I went over MULTIPLE times with Sabira VERY carefully to accomplish since she would be filming two of the runs) and Nota’s little gallop was a perfect end to the day. I can officially say I welcomed 23 the best way ever.
~Just a casual drive home :)~
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