On Memorial Day this past Monday, my family and I went out to celebrate my sister's 18th birthday! Since my aunt, sister and I had gone to a movie and done a bit of shopping before hand, we were a bit early for our dinner reservation and decided to sit at a table in the bar while waiting for the rest of our family to arrive at the restaurant. Now, while at the table in the bar, the bartender came up and asked us all for our drink order and I ordered a Mango Mojito. After I told the bartender my drink order, he went ahead and asked for my ID and I have to say, I was pretty excited about this. Now, I'm sure that some people may be wondering, "Why are you so excited to get carded at a bar in a restaurant?" and my answer to you is this: when I turned 21, it was just a few weeks before I went to study abroad in England for six months, so I didn't really have time to go out to the bar with my friends and order drinks and get carded in order to prove that I was actually 21.
I had had exams to finish, papers to write, suitcases to pack and planes to catch, so being carded in America was pretty exciting. While in England, since the legal drinking age is 18, I was never carded when buying a drink since I was not 18 and didn't look it. In fact, the only time I had to show my ID was when I was getting into clubs, and everyone had to show their IDs when entering the club, as well as a few pubs my friends and I went to. Also, drinking legally with your family and drinking legally with your friends was totally different. In fact, Monday had been the first time I had ever really had a drink without being surrounded by my friends. Having a few drinks at dinner with my family definitely brought on a few concerned glances from my father, who is a bit on the strict side. But after seeing that I was not drunk after three drinks over a period of about three hours, while consuming food, he stopped asking if I was drunk because he could tell that I was not. Not to mention, my whole family was also telling him that I wasn't as well, so thank you, family, for doing that for me!
Drinking can be a really fun thing to do, whether it is before going out to a club, hanging at a bar with some friends or casually having a few drinks with your family at dinner. But when drinking, you have to always remember to be safe with your alcohol. Don't drink too much in a short amount of time because you can get sick and no one has fun when they're sick. Also, drink responsibly and know the setting that you're drinking in and the people you're drinking with; for example, you're not going to drink like you're going out to a club on a Friday night with your friends on a Monday evening at a birthday celebration for your younger sister, surrounded by all of your family in a nice restaurant. So have a drink, have a laugh and have a fun and safe time with those you care about!
