My 21st Birthday!

My birthday falls the day before St. Patricks Day, and celebrating both in Ireland was incredible! Ben took me to a French restaurant in Dublin for lunch on my birthday, and I tried my first taste of white wine. It tasted different than I expected, but was still quite good. We walked around the city a bit listening to the street music. After I got back Meagan D. and Megan R. made me a nice dinner and birthday brownies. Then a big group of us went out to The Roost, my favorite Irish pub, and, in true Irish fashion, I tried my first pint of Guinness. I had high expectations that it would be a much more glamorous drink than it was. My first sip was captured on video, and my reaction was that it tasted like "dirt" and "garbage in a cup." I stand by that still, but I'm getting used to the flavor of beer. Maybe before I leave it will have grown on me, but for now it's a slow learning curve for my taste buds.


It was absolutely worth waiting to drink until I was 21. I thought when I was younger that peer pressure would make it difficult for me, but honestly I never felt much of an urge to drink until I came to Ireland. If there's one thing I learned in college it's that not drinking made me pretty popular: I could be a designated driver for my friends, and everyone in college is poor, so when I turned down drink offers at parties most people seemed fairly relieved! It was satisfying waiting this long to have any alcohol. My friends here in Ireland were very supportive of my decision, and I had a very memorable birthday because of them.


I also got two wonderful birthday cards from my parents! I went into the main office for the apartment complex I live in, and opened the cards as they handed them to me. One was a musical card that sang the "funky chicken dance" and everyone in the office danced the chicken dance with me! I also got a cute little Wizard of Oz singing e-card from my Aunt Marie and Uncle Keith! No one in our family will be surprised, I'm sure, to hear that I received a lovely hand-made birthday card from my Aunt Christine, who is reputable for her incredible scrap-booking skills. She never misses any family member's birthday, (and that's a lot of birthdays!), or even the more unique holiday cards, (my mother always gets one for 'Nurses Day'). Getting one of her special cards made me feel like I was closer to home than I realized. I cherish these contacts - snail-mail, e-mail, blog comments. They all make my life here even better.