Mon Anniversaire de 21 ans!

I spent a great weekend celebrating my birthday in Amsterdam. Here's a little photojournal of the fun times...

The Story of Four Girls In A Male City

Amsterdam - so beautiful by night. This is what I saw when I arrived! It really is amazing. It's all lit up like a Christmas village.

Christen and I out celebrating the bday!

Emily and Karissa, Christen's roommates from Barcelona. They were so much fun!

Sunny day in Amsterdam! Haha, this was about the only time... This is some random museum. We didn't go in though. We had just come out of the Van Gogh museum, which was interesting, but kind of depressing at the end. No Van Gogh nights for us, we'll leave the absinthe and ear-cutting to the tortured artists.


Enjoying what was seriously the most amazing waffle ever. Tulips? Nah. Go to Amsterdam for the waffles.

Four girls in a male city. There's a red light district, dutch beer brands everywhere, the stores only stay open til 6pm (guys get tired of shopping), and all the stores are men's clothing anyway. We're making a movie.

The house that Anne Frank hid in with 7 other people...now a museum. It was pretty moving...but also a little saddening at the end. Amsterdam, Dark Museum Capital of the World.


Me and Christen along the canal on my birthday! PS, what is with me and this yellow sweater? I think I am wearing it in about every picture there is of me in Europe. Don't worry, I have other clothes. I think.

Prinsengracht canal...of course we had another name for it...

Karissa and Emily, the two beauties in the pink scarves

Amsterdam in the late afternoon

The Story of All the Shrimp Balls You Can Eat For 7.50 E
Four American girls, standing outside the Chinese buffet. "Should we go in?" "Do we want 7.50 worth of Chinese food?" Before we make up our minds or walk away, this tiny Asian woman opens the door and rushes us in. "Come in! Come in! Only 7.50! All you can eat! Try it! Try anything you like! It's all good! We have rice, egg roll, vegetable! Anything you like! Here! Try this shrimp ball! It's good! Eat as much as you like!" We reluctantly take the fried shrimp balls she force-feeds us. It tastes ok. "Come on in! Come! Sit down! You try anything you like!" We shrug and choose a table. Christen isn't so hungry anymore: "Why is she so pushy? Why does she want us to eat here so much? There's something not right about this!" Asian lady comes back. "You want buffet? It's good, try anything you want! You take plate!" We look back at each other, unsure. "Yes, try it! Come here! Come back with me! You try dumplings!" We are dragged to the back of the restaurant to the dumpling table. She opens the basket that says "not ready yet!!!" and hands Karissa a dumpling and walks away. "No! don't eat that! put it back!" we hiss. "no, not back in the basket! in the trash can!" (conveniently next to the dumpling table). We hurry out of the restaurant, leaving the pleading Asian woman behind in our dust. 10 minutes later, there is a bad aftertaste of overly salty shrimp ball in our mouths. But 7.50 left in our wallets, and probably a distinct lack of cat-meat related food poisoning.

The Story of All You Can Eat...But No More for 9.50
We apparently can't get enough of dubious Dutch-slash-Pan-Asian. We ended up having dinner at the chinese buffet where you can eat all you want in an hour. But if you leave anything on your plate, they charge you another 9.50. And they also have a cat running around the restaurant. And no TP in the bathroom. And four very, VERy loud obnoxious American girls. What a hilarious night.

Well, that's enough stories for one entry.

Upcoming Plans (don't you love this part):
1) Sweden is off. Plans to go Spain to enjoy sun instead.
2) Mom and Dad
3) Corsica and Nice & nearby villages. No further west than Marseille, probably. Southwest France will be for another weekend.