June 23, 2019

On the morning of my 21st birthday, I woke up in Dublin and caught a bus to the airport. I enjoyed a delicious cookie that my mom sent with me (not quite a cake, but it was nice to have a piece of home to start the day's celebration), and as I was sitting on the bus eating my cookie realized that I had bought a plane ticket for the wrong date (JULY 23 instead of June 23). Excellentstart to a birthday. I tried to Google flights that I could catch once I got to the airport, but eventually realized that I should just wait until I got there and check the signs at the airport. The one good outcome to the Googling was that I discovered no major airlines (i.e. Aer Lingus, American, United, etc.) were traveling from Dublin to Amsterdam in the timeframe I was looking for, so I knew which terminal to go to. Immediately after arriving I realized there was a flight around the time I was looking for on Ryan Air, bought a standby ticket, checked my bags, and off I went! I luckily got a GREAT seat on the flight--4th row, aisle seat, only 2 people in a 3 person row--and before I knew it I was in Amsterdam! After a quick program orientation, I rounded up a group to go for dinner and drinks for my birthday. For dinner, we went to Italia Oggi, and for drinks, we went to the Amsterdam ice bar. So fun! It was definitely weird to be away from home, but also awesome to have friends to spend it with and fun international activities to do. I'll still be excited for a joint celebration with my mom when I get home (at that point we'll have to celebrate BOTH of our birthdays), but this was definitely one for the books.