My 21st Birthday Weekend

Better late than never, a week after this all happened, I'm finally blogging about it. I have been sick for a majority of the week so using brain power was at the bottom of my list. 

So anyway, here is what I woke up to the morning of, Thursday the 27th. My lovely roommate Nicole had the whole living room decorated with streamers and balloons for when I woke up all groggy at 8am. (Please ignore the mess that is our apartment.)

Then I went about the rest of my day with class, getting my license renewed and all that fun stuff. (My license photo came out awesome, and on the first try! RMVs have definitely upgraded their cameras since I was 16.)

When I returned home Tom picked me up and took me out to one of our favorite restaurants, Judie's (where we went on our first date). Here I ordered my first big girl drink with dinner. A Bahama Mama. I'd heard the name before but never had really given much thought to it or known what was in it. I saw pineapple juice on the description on the menu and I was in. My favorite part was that it came with a slice of lemon, orange and lime. Boy was that thing strong. But delicious. But strong. I was tipsy by 6:00 in the evening. 

After we left the restaurant, Tom took me to my first liquor store purchase. We spoke with the cashier about how it was my birthday and he handed me the money so I could pay for it like parents do with little kids. I really did feel like a little kid, all grown up in this beautiful store. It had never occurred to me that alcohol went on sale, and that realization was a glorious thing.

We stopped at the grocery store and bought the ingredients for mojitos. I had been talking about mojitos for months. Here's our (yay finally) recipe:

1 shot white rum 

1/2 lime

2 tsp sugar

5 mint leaves

1 cup club soda

ice

First you squeeze the lime juice into a glass and drop in your mint leaves. Then using a pestle, grind up the mint leaves as much as possible. Add the sugar, then grind it all together again. Fill the glass with ice and then add the rum and soda. 

Just couldn't help myself with these pretty mint leaves.

That night, I went to a bar and got denied my 2 forms of identification at a snooty bar in town. Tom, my friend and I ended up at a hipster bar called the Moan and Dove that only served beer and luckily for me, hard cider. It was not the wild 21st birthday that everyone talks about, but I still had a nice time. 

Day 2 was the night where I got to hang out with all my friends, the majority of whom are still underage. We went to a club called Diva's that is 18+ and there I had my first Sex on the Beach. Growing up this was the first drink name I ever knew, and it is probably similar for most everyone else. We would giggle at the thought of such a dirty drink name. I never knew what was in it, but I googled it after and discovered it's really easy to make. I'm going to make it at home sometime, and I will of course share the recipe. Unfortunately, no pictures of that one, since the trusty boyfriend had my camera and the drink was gone before we could even think about a photo shoot. 

I did, however, take a picture of my pre-drinking meal. This is also my favorite sick meal. Pasta with peas and butter. Never fails.

Finally, on Sunday night my family came out to Amherst and took Tom and I out to dinner. We went to my all time favorite restaurant, Bertucci's. Funny that my favorite restaurant happens to be a chain. Anyway, there were about five mixed drinks on the menu and I knew immediately which one I had to have. The Tiramisu Martini. Yes, it is just as good as it sounds, possibly better. The next time you eat at Berucci's I highly recommend it. 

I think it was better than a real tiramisu, which I had for dessert afterwards.