you stay classy Jenn and Julia

Jenn's Birthday Extravaganza courtesy of Julia (her account is less hazy as she was not hazed by the pub crawl staff):

Early on--happy 23rd birthday Jenn...really, 23

...To save you guys the mystery, we ended up being champs and doing both.  Starting at a bar for a nice pint of local beer and a burger, we then joined the frat party (it's actually called the "ultimate party") at a bar near Leidseplein.  We were welcomed by wrist bands (spring break, anyone?), an orientation (yes, orientation) that ended with "who's ready to paaaaarty?!", and a guy pouring vodka in our mouth from a makeshift giant water bottle.  Happy birthday Jenn!  What followed was probably the classiest evening - which included 5 bars, fire-breathing bartenders, dancing on stage to 2Pac and 50 Cent, and Jenn getting having words with a group of biking Dutch fellas about the local popularity of singer Robbie Williams. 

Our new friends

We made friends too!  We met two American girls who were equally worried about being the "cougars" at an 18-year-old's party.  The four of us laughed about the random guy taking pictures of everyone (which apparently end up on myspace the next day - don't worry, we're not in them), and the plastic tokens we got handed in each bar that entitled us to a free Heineken after you vodka shot entrance fee.  Oh, and we discovered you have to pay 50 cents to use the bathroom here.  Every time.  Whaaaat?  Good thing we had change!

After deciding we were way too cool for the frat party, we wanted to find something a little more upscale.  So we wandered down the street, following a group of guys in skinny jeans and blazers.  'Cause they obviously know what they're doing, right?  Skinny jeans walked along and got in line that was the longest line we've seen yet.  What is this place?  Must be the hottest club in town, every trendy local looked to be in line for it, so we tagged along.  Um... turns out the hottest party in town was an ATM.  At that point, we thought it was probably time to call it a night.  After all, we had tulip-watching to do first thing in the morning...

Still classy

Jenn's Entry: We pretty much dominated Amsterdam last night.  Apparently the Dutch are not known for their 80's pop music and 90's rap, so they only play American music.  Fortunately for the Dutch, Julia and I know all the words to the classics and felt the need to get on the stages at these bars and shout them or lip sing with the bartenders who equally loved this music.  We think the bars in Amsterdam must just download the same list of American tunes.  The bars and clubs even play them in the same order in some cases.  Oh, and the fire breathing demonstration at one of the bars was a little much.  The overwhelming smell of gasoline post fireballs registered with whatever commonsense remained and we left that bar to rejoin the other half of our group at a neighboring pub just in case the one we were at and the 100 bottles of hard alcohol decided to ignite from the pyro bartender demo.

The smoke machine blurred our faces, it's not you