GEBURTSTAG!

I wrote a post literally like an hour ago, but I thought my birthday deserved its own post. So as many of you know, I turned 21 on Monday!!!!! Obviously, 21 is a HUGE deal back home but not here, but I still celebrated like it was a big deal.

Now I would've had the most awesome 21st birthday if I had been in Boston, because my birthday fell on Marathon Monday this year meaning I could've gone out to all the bars on Sunday night since there were no classes on Monday, and then I could've gotten into the mods on Monday (I'm pretty sure they card the mods on Marathon Monday) so that would've been sweet, but oh well. Instead, I rang in my birthday watching the latest episode of Glee on my computer and eating nutella crackers. I was enjoying myself though. A whole bunch of my friends back in the states were aware of the time change though and sent me birthday wishes when it hit the 18th in Germany.



Woke up to an absolutely BEAUTIFUL day! (see photo above) I've always lucked out with having beautiful spring days on April 18th... so I made myself an omelet and then headed to class at 11:15-12:45. Got some chocolate from Pennymarkt and then headed to my internship from 1:30-4:30. Afterwards, Dan and I got some doner because honestly, a fast-food kebab sandwich was all I wanted to eat on my birthday :D Walked around the Altstadt area a bit just enjoying the weather, then headed to the center for class again, 6:15-7:45. Got a box of chocolates from my program, as well as a bar of Ritter from Quincy and a card mailed from my mom--don't know how she managed that timing! Was definitely not paying attention in class, because at 7pm on my 21st birthday, I was ready to go out. I hadn't answered all the homework questions, and of course Frau Said called on me for the one I didn't answer and I just told her I didn't know we had to do that one (I mean I actually didn't think we had to do that one) and she started chewing me out in full force and I was not having any of it. It was funny because everyone in class knew it was my birthday and started sticking up for me which was so nice :) Finally class ended and she was telling me not to be angry at me and I was like IT'S MY BIRTHDAY!!! And she felt TERRIBLE. Haha so that made the whole situation a bit better.

Class ended, festivities began! Stopped by Dan's quickly to drop off our backpacks, and I chugged like 1/3 of my bottle of cheap wine on the way. First stop was Hard Rock. On Mondays, they've got 1 euro beer specials, and of course we need to be somewhere American for a 21st birthday! So had some beers there, had some food, had a good time, then headed to my favorite bar, Eckstein! On Mondays, Eckstein's got 1,50 shot specials, and 2,50 ,5 liter beer specials. We started off with tequila shots, then strawberry-lime shots, then melon schnapps shots, and then everyone ordered me a giant sparkly ridiculous cocktail...I forgot what it was called though.





After Eckstein, we headed to Brass Monkey which had our favorite Koelsch Kranz for 11 euro on Mondays. The bar was like, completely empty but that was fine because there were a lot of us and we were being really loud and obnoxious Americans. Got some beer, Will ordered me some kind of pinapple cocktail, a tequila sunrise thrown somewhere in there, as well as another two schnapps shots. Then it hit midnight and it was Monika's birthday! So we had a double birthday hug--double the birthdays, double the fun!


So yeah, I was pretty drunk. And it's okay for me to write about it on my blog because I'm legal now! Except I've been legal here since I got here...but that's beside the point! I think we finally left at like 1:30 after last call. Woke up yesterday morning with legit the biggest hangover of my life, but that only proves that my 21st birthday was successful (Thank God I have no classes on Tuesdays!) But overall, it was a FANTASTIC day and night. I'll admit that I was a little wary about my celebrations, because I'm abroad and not with my best friends, instead only with my friends in the program that I've known not even two months, but so many people came out to celebrate with me which I was actually pretty surprised about considering it was a MONDAY night! It just meant so much to me that my friends in my program helped make it such a great night :)

Took it easy all of yesterday and spent my night skyping and gmail-phoning people at home. Tomorrow I leave for Austria and I'll be gone until Tuesday evening, and then my mom comes the next day! So I've got a busy next couple weeks, but I'll make sure to update when I get back from Austria!