EuroWasted

So the Dansk-Thanksgiving was a great success, with lots of food, good conversation, and lots of fun in general. My good friend and also fellow housemate Eric and his girlfriend are currently visiting Copenhagen at the same time as my mom and aunt so I also invited them to join us. Afterwards we went out to Copenhagen along with Jackie and Kate to show them more of Copenhagen nightlife. We ended up at a bar called Billy Booze (great name, eh?) which specializes in cheap drinks while also having a nice dance floor/club area. We stayed there for a while and danced, people watched, and tried and failed to understand Danish music, but otherwise, it was good, fun night.

Now on the way back, things started getting weird. First, my train was absolutely packed. Like, no seats left, no room to breathe packed. Weird thing #1 was a guy who boarded the train wearing a pink metallic wig shouting something about "swag" in Danish for a solid 5 minutes. Then a group of also really drunk guys, who looked exactly the same (balding, larger, wearing the same style NorthFace), started shouting loud as hell which started to annoy me and had me dreading the train ride home. If that wasn't enough, finally stumbled in a guy who, to put it lightly, looked like he was about 2 seconds away from hurling chunks over the entire train...and of course he had to stand right next to me. I was scared to hell that he was going to vomit all over my coat, jeans, and shoes. I ended up squeezing over to the "silent zone" of the train which is basically full of angry old people with little tolerance for fun. The sick guy was swaying everywhere and almost fell into the lap of some guy who was near the door of the silent section and that caused an entire scene of yelling for him to GTFO by a 70-something man. Eventually he did which was a relief, but still, tonight's scene, plus many previous nights witnessed, and experience in four other major European cities just have solidified in my mind that Europeans are just as loud, obnoxious, and rude as American are despite the reputation that American are bad.

We get the bad rap for being the unclassy douchebags of the world, but I've seen more than enough during my time here to say it's easily a two-way problem. Sure, maybe we are a louder and ruder while sober and being tourists, but I swear, get one drop of alcohol in a European, and you end up with an American x2. Honestly, I've seen better behavior late at night in most American cities than I have in Europe. Citizens of Copenhagen, get your acts together, jeez.

Just an observation I made.

JP

Five Parts Gin, One Part Vermouth...

Friday nights in the city see many an office secretary, lawyer, sales person and even teacher go out on the town for a drink. Things start out civil, and by 11 or so, most have gone home to bed for a well deserved day of not-work the morning after. Stick around a little longer however and you see quite an amazing sight.

With the moon high and the bars finally closing, the pressed and polished descend upon the streets once again, but this time a little less inhibited than before.

There's your eighth grade history teacher laughing up a storm at another unfunny joke

Over there's the library assistant twirling down the streets as if she were in some Disney movie remake.

And inevitably, around the corner is the poor pencil-pusher whose raring to pick a fight with the next person to walk by and have the misfortune of making eye contact with him.

With college around the corner and the inevitable parties soon to follow, I've come to wonder- what kind of hidden personality will come up as the drinks go down? I don't really drink. If anything, I've had a few cups of champagne over the holidays. Hard liquor is still a relative mystery to me, and beer, well let's just say it's an acquired taste, and at the moment at least, something I don't particularly subscribe to.

When the time comes however and the little devil on my shoulder defeats my common sense, I want to know what kind of person I will end up being.

Will I be the happy drunk that suddenly is best friends with the random stranger in the corner?

Or will I be the angry drunk, pissing and moaning about how there's one too many stripes on your favorite sweater and making sure the whole world knows about it?

Maybe I'll end up being the crazy drunk that ends up climbing on random pieces of furniture in my underwear claiming to conquer new lands for the British Empire.

I could just end up being the sleepy drunk that just collapses on the sofa and sleeps until the next afternoon.

Then again, I could end up being like some undiscovered specie, with behaviour so radical that men in white lab coats will be taking notes on my every move.

Well, time will tell how I will turn out, but if you see me stumbling around the streets of D.C. late at night one day, leave a comment telling me what type of drunk I am, 'cause I'll probably not remember the morning after.

JP