A couple weeks ago we went out to an art exhibit on a Thursday night. It was screen print art and the subject was Cuba. It was interesting but a lot of it was in the style of propaganda posters and I couldn't read the text considering it was in French. Between that and not knowing much about Cuba, I felt like I couldn't fully appreciate it. Our friends had already seen the exhibit and were at a bar across the street so we joined them, forgetting it was Thursday night.
When we arrived, it was still a little early so it wasn't too busy. Eventually, more friends of our friends joined our table while college kids started trickling in. Soon, the place was packed with college kids just itching to get drunk, and between our friend JN (pronounced Gee-Ehn with a soft "G") buying us drinks and others at the table insisting we try this or that beverage, we soon joined them. I suppose we are lightweights compared to the French because while we felt thoroughly drunk, they were still pining for more. It doesn't help that bars here don't sell food and we hadn't eaten dinner. Then, we were given free drinks by the bar because we had to vacate our table to let them run some kind of quiz game that the college kids were going crazy for.
By now the music was very loud, and was some kind of annoying pop dance mix. Regardless, Jeremy and I started dancing. Now, if you don't know us well, you may not know that we are some of the worst dancers you will meet. I kinda swerve my head, neck, and hips around but keep my arms tucked and legs moderately immobile so I look like some kind of confused snake. Jeremy on the other hands flaps his arms around and kicks his legs like someone trying to do an Irish jig caught on fire. Jeremy will do this while moving around me like a planet around its sun, while I stay in the center but rotate to keep my eyes on his. It's quite a site, which is why it only happens when we're too drunk to control ourselves, which isn't often at all, making it a rare sight to behold. So the people around us are just staring in confused entertainment, when one girl whispers to the guy next to her, "Is this how Americans dance?" Jeremy swings around to her and loudly goes "YEP!" and then continues dancing. So I apologize, American readers, but the surrounding 30 people who could hear that conversation, and whoever they tell, now think Americans are deranged lunatics on the dance floor.
After a while when the music became too loud and there were just too many people to tolerate, we went outside to cool off. There were some groups of random drunk people wandering around, but for the most part every one was still in the bars as it was only around 11 pm. We find JN and a couple of his friends smoking a couple tables down and go join them. All of a sudden, an extremely drunk man in his mid-thirties asks for a lighter. After JN complies, he starts speaking a mix of English and an unidentifiable language that sounds Arabic. He would say a word in his language and then tell us to say it. This went on for a bit, with us slowly walking away backwards and him following us. Eventually he decided we were all friends and wanted to share something with us. He then pulled out a moderate amount of marijuana. We all declined and started walking away. Apparently this made him think that we were worried he had cheap marijuana and started pulling it out and chasing us down to show us its purity so we quickly dodged back into the bar.
By now the place is absolutely packed with drunk college kids so we stay a little longer and head on home. Luckily, the drunk marijuana guy was talking up two girls at an outdoor table so we slipped on by behind him. Every bar we passed on the way home was similarly packed. It was amazing to see. As some creatures instinctively migrate at certain times, so do the college kids migrate to bars every single Thursday without fail. It was interesting to catch a glimpse of it, though there were 2 or 3 more hours left until bars closed so we didn't get to witness a full night.
With 2 of our 3 friends being college students, it's likely we'll go out again. We'll just have to make sure we eat beforehand!