Day 56-57: Birthday Pre-Party in Amsterdam

Since my 21st birthday is this weekend, some of my friends and I decided to celebrate a bit. Twenty-one is a pretty big age in the US, as it is the legal drinking age (amongst other things, like the age you can rent a car!), so we wanted to something a bit special for my big day.

We decided (really last minute) to take a quick excursion to Amsterdam. Friday afternoon, my friends Alissa (Michigan, USA), Daniel (Scotland) and I headed via train to Amsterdam. We had to take the scenic route there through Rotterdam instead of the usual way through 's-Hertogenbosch, as there had been some kind of malfunction at the Den Bosch station. So the journey took a bit longer to get there, but it was really nice, as we got to see a bit of scenery and other parts of the Netherlands out the train window. We passed by Delft and Den Hague, two places we hope to get back to pretty soon!

Once in Amsterdam, we met up with Alissa's boyfriend and group of friends that were visiting from the States on their spring break. She had gone with them earlier in the week to Spain and the Canary Islands, but was glad to see them again in Amsterdam. We were all introduced and headed out from the station.

We walked through the city went to the hotel that Alissa's friends were staying at. Here, we shared some delicious pink champagne and Daniel was kind enough to manage to get the bartender to find us a bottle of 21-year-old whiskey. We sipped the whiskey and champagne in the hotel bar for a bit before heading down to the Hard Rock Cafe Amsterdam for a birthday dinner! I ordered a nice pomegranate martini along with a quesadilla...YUM! We enjoyed a nice dinner together, before heading out to a nearby club, Paridiso where we planned to dance and have fun.

Arriving at the club, we discovered the queue was over an hour long! Not wanting to wait in the cold, a few of us decided to head back to the hotel lobby again for more drinks and to chat a bit. I was disappointed that we didn't get to go to Paridiso, but it turned out okay. A few of the people in our group did end up going to the club, but they later told us that it wasn't very good. They said the music was not so great, it was really crowded, and it cost 15 euro to get in! I was then glad we hadn't gone.

Later on, we headed back to the train station to catch the late train home. We were pretty tired on the way home, and I managed to get in a little sleep. It turned out to be a really great night, partying in Amsterdam! This is definitely one of my favorite towns in the Netherlands :)