21 21 21 21 21 21 21!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hola a todos!

I AM 21 YEARS OF AGE!!!!!! WOOO HOOOOOOOO!!!! No more fake IDs or having someone else buy me beer!! WOOOOO I don't think people understand my excitement!!! I have been waiting for this moment for SOOO long I cannot even remember! I am soooooooo excited to return back to the states and hit up the bars! (not like I didn't do that before, but now I don't have to memorize every fact about a fake ID!!) WOOO

Okay now that my excitement is over, I can tell everyone about my big 21st birthday!! So I was in Amsterdam for my 21st and I am SOO happy I chose Amsterdam as my bday weekend excursion! Amsterdam is SOOOOOO beautiful! With all the canals and old buildings I felt like I was in heaven just walking down the street! And it is fully of pot-smoking hippies obviously, so that was quite fun to watch as well. Oh my gosh, I don't even know where to start! It was honestly top 3 best weekends of my life, it was SOOO much fun!!!

Okay, so there was a total of 8 girls that went for the weekend. We looked into hostels but they were super expensive in Amsterdam so we decided to split up into groups of 2/3 and CouchSurf. Sophie, Emily, and I stayed with this guy names Thomas (we called him Tommy) who worked on this boatyard/dock thing so his house was literally on the water. It was so gorgeous and such a nice house. So on Thursday night he took us out to an AMAZING dinner and then we all chilled in the bar afterwards, got to know each other, then went to sleep fairly early because we were pretty exhausted from travelling. But Tommy bought us all dinner and at least 5 rounds of drinks each (as you will see later, Tommy is apparently very rich). It was so much fun and Tommy is super nice but kind of socially awkward so many times we were giggling at his awkwardness. But it was perfect because we got our own room and he worked all day. He would set up coffee and breakfast for us so we wouldn't even have to buy a bagel! It was perfect, and I definitely saved a LOT of money staying with him!

On Friday we got up fairly early and went into town and met up with the other 5 girls. We all went to the Anne Frank house and toured around. It was SOOO cold on Friday and we waited outside Anne Frank's house for about an hour I thought my hands were going to fall off. After the Anne Frank house, we went to a big square and sat at an outside bar for a while and people watched, laughed, giggled, etc. We walked all along the canals that weave throughout Amsterdam (IT IS SUCH A BEAUTIFUL CITY!!!!!) and then headed back to our respective homes to get ready for the night.

On Friday night we decided to walk down the Red Light District. Now let me tell you, that was a culture shock!!! We walked down street after street literally in shock. I wish we could've gotten a picture of our faces and how shocked we were at what was in front of our eyes! Windows after windows were filled with girls in lingerie trying to lure guys into their "room". Some of the girls were cute and actually pretty and some were just hard to look at. But it was honestly so gross; we would watch guys go in and out of the windows, and I swear some of the guys were 14! It was so shocking walking around the Red Light District, and one prostitute even yelled at us for "blocking" her window. After that whole ordeal we went to a bar far away and tried to erase that from our memory. I took a shot of tequila at midnight and it was by far the best shot I had ever taken!!!!!!

Saturday was a beautiful day, not only because it was my birthday, but because the sun came out!!! We literally spent ALLLLLL day in this huge park in the center of Amsterdam. We drank some beer, had a picnic, sunbathed, listened to the live bands around us, chatted, napped, and enjoyed a wonderfully sunny day filled with haze of marijuana smoke. The park was PACKEDDDDDD so we mostly just drank and made friends. And people watched (obviously). It was such a relaxing a great day. I really can't describe how wonderful it was but it was basically a humongous festival in an amazingly large park.

For my birthday night, Tommy took all of us out to a club. He payed for all of our entrances (15euros each) and probably about 8 rounds of drinks for all 8 of us. (This is what I mean when I say that I think Tommy is really rich). It was really funny because he wore this kind of man-purse thing and would just pull out the 50's like they were nothing. The club was super fun and the DJ played the best music ever!! Basically I was dancing on the stage the whole night enjoying my birthday. We stayed out until the wee of the night then passed out at about 6am. It was a great bday night with all of my friends it literally could not have been better!

Hmmm what did we do Sunday? Oh! We went to the Van Gogh museum! Well, I didn't go. We all met outside of the museum and about half of the group went in and half stayed out. I didn't want to pay to go in when I knew I would want to leave right when I entered... it's not my fault I don't like art! Dad, I think when we were in Europe a couple years ago I filled up my museum capacity for an entire lifetime. Anyways, when they were out we went back to the wonderful park we fell in love with and layed out for a little bit more. Then, we continued to walk along the canals and wondered down random streets. We went to a flower huge flower market (Amsterdam is known for its Tulips) and gazed at the flowers (also, not my thing). We were exhausted by Sunday night, so we had a big dinner at Tommy's, then we all watched Black Swan and passed out.

Well, that was my bday weekend!!!! It was absolutely AMAZING and I wouldn't have asked for anything better!!! Well, I think I am getting carple tunnel for now so I am going to stop writing.

but here is a couple things coming up!:
All day in the town of Sitges (45 minutes south of Barcelona) on Friday! We have a big group of about 20 going to hang out on the beach, so hopefully we will make it into a party!
10k in Barcelona this Sunday!!
Island hopping in Greece!!!! I leave in one week!!!!
Canary islands end of April!!! (We booked an all-inclusive hotel on the beach!! aka hello sun, drinks, food, beach, and relaxation!! what else could a girl ask for?!?!?)

ok adios to all!! THANKS FOR ALL THE BDAY WISHES

xoox