21!

As you might know, Wednesday was my 21st birthday. I was really looking forward to this birthday especially having just come back from Europe - it didn't seem fair that I couldn't drink a glass of wine at dinner in the US after being served wonderful Italian wine at restaurants for an entire semester. Although my birthday falls right during the period of extreme stress at the end of the year, I was able to forget about my work for a little bit and enjoy the day!

Every semester at midnight on the night before finals begin, everyone on campus goes out onto the quad and screams to release stress - it's called Primal Scream. This year, May 13th was the first day of finals, so I got to scream at the stroke of midnight on my 21st birthday. I have to say, it was pretty cool. My friend Nicole and I share the same birthday so we screamed together in celebration of our birthdays. There was also a fire show put on by the campus's student-run circus troop.

We had to study for most of the next day, but in the evening we went out to an Irish pub called the Dubliner with a group of friends and ordered our first legal drinks. We both would have preferred something other than beer, but aside from the lack of places to go out in Poughkeepsie, burgers and beer seemed appropriate for a 21st birthday...very American. Our other friend had told us that we would get free unlimited beer at this place for our 21st birthdays, but apparently it depends on the waiter/waitress, and our waitress couldn't have cared less. Luckily our friend was nice about it, and paid for our drinks afterwards, since he was the whole reason we picked that specific pub!

Me and Nicole with our licenses...even though the flash whited mine out, it's still legal.

On the day of my birthday, my new license without UNDER 21 in bold red letters came in the mail. I haven't seen it yet since it came to my apartment and not my campus address, but I'm looking forward to carrying around a real adult license now!