A toast to September

I know, I know. October is halfway done and here I am posting about September. 

I still have a bit of a hangover from last month. Although fall had officially begun in September, we were blessed with what is known as an Indian summer: two straight weeks of seasonally misplaced, blissfully warm and sunny weather that stretched all the way into the first couple of days of October. It was the summer Amsterdam didn't have. The whole city felt positively festive, like it was drunk on sunshine. Para silang nanalo sa giyera.

The last weekend before autumn weather officially kicked in was absolute bliss. Marlon and I hosted a dinner at home, with four other expat couples. It was actually warm enough to have cocktails on the balcony, so my friend Leigh suggested we make mojitos. The next day, it was so warm and muggy and lazy that we dragged our air mattress onto the balcony, sprawled out with some books, and made a couple more mojitos with the leftover ingredients from the previous evening. Mmmm.

Here's what I learned from Leigh's mojito tutorial:

Into a tall glass, put two teaspoons white sugar, a handful of fresh mint leaves, a little slosh of white rum (we used Bacardi) and two lime wedges, or half a lime cut into two. Crush the lime wedges until juice comes out (I used an ice cream scooper!). Fill with soda water and ice. Clink glasses and enjoy.

I'm raising my glass to September—you were absolutely, unexpectedly fantastic. Cheers!