21 YEARS YOUNG.

Watch out, world, because I'm legal in EVERY COUNTRY.

The week of my 21st birthday was as epic as it could get...either in London or in the states. So here's what we did...

After not wanting to wait forever and a day to get into Mahiki, we went to one of our favorites...O'NEILL'S. O'Neill's is a great place to have a fun time for you and your wallet. We've never paid to get in and the drinks are reasonably priced. They also have awesome live cover bands that play everything from Blink 182 to Kings of Leon. When midnight hit I couldn't believe I was finally 21. Turning 21 seems so surreal because it's the supposed to be the ultimate birthday. After all, it is the last age you truly look forward to...after 21 you're just old.

We spent my actual birthday relaxing. I did some laundry and some errands...blah blah blah. For my birthday dinner with the girls, we went to the Eagle. Even though it is right around the corner from our flats and has incredibly great food, we hardly ever eat there. Their menu is written in chalk above the bar and changes every day. When they run out of specials, they erase the item off the menu and carry on with the night. This is the kind of restaurant where you know everything is fresh and cooked while you wait.

For my birthday we went to Roadhouse in Covent Garden. I celebrated with just about every Trojan who was in London. Every Wednesday, cover starts at 10 and happy hour ends at 10:30. Andd...ROCKARAOKE! Most of the people that perform are talented singers. But none of the Trojans have made an appearance yet...


Joe arrived on Thursday and the celebrations continued in Shoreditch. On Friday, Joe took me on a tour of the BBC Television studios for my second birthday surprise!! I've noticed several differences between American news and British news...but in some cases they are very similar. BBC uses ENPS, a program that essentially controls the entire broadcast from writing scripts to sending messages to others in the newsroom or on the other side of the world. But one thing that is interesting is their use of teleprompters. Although the stories are previously written, the anchors have a little bit more flexibility with ad-libing than anchors in the states. I've also found that there's a lot more Q&A's than American stations, even though it's becoming a more popular trend. Also on the tour we saw television sets and an upscale dressing room. Unfortunately we couldn't complete the tour...because we went to see Dirty Dancing the Musical!! (Thanks Mom and Dad for the birthday present!)

I've heard that Dirty Dancing was a great show and it definitely lived up to it's reputation. It wasn't your typical musical...whereas the characters don't just randomly burst into music. The orchestra basically played the soundtrack to the movie, which the stage production of the story was essentially identical to by dialogue and set. The set wasn't typical either...they used projections with props or tables to illustrate the environment. At first, the projections distracted me but I ended up enjoying them. The thing about theater is the actors should make the environment and not vivid sets. Since the actors accepted it, the audience could easily believe it was real. The only thing I didn't like about the projections was the fact that I couldn't always differentiate between the movie and the play. Other than that, the actors were fantastic and the dancing was amazing. I really had no complaints there.

After the show, we went to a Turkish restaurant called Ozer just off of Regent Street. For 15 pounds a person, we got 12 small dishes...kind of like Turkish tapas with lots of hummus and flavor. I literally couldn't move after dinner it was so amazing. And there's nothing like dessert for your birthday after dinner!! Our night ended at Embassy for my friend Shannon's 21st birthday! And the celebrations continued for the rest of the weekend :)

A special shout out to all of those who made an appearance on my birthday video. And THANK YOU to the best boyfriend who put it together :)