A Pub Crawl and Thoughts on Biking

After a relatively low-key weekend, I was more than ready for the weekly Tuesday night out. I'm not sure how Tuesday became such a popular night to get out and get your drink on, but there's no use arguing with genius. This particular Tuesday was special, as ESN had arranged an Utrecht city center pub crawl, complete with complementary beers at each establishment. It doesn't sound quite as potent as a whiskey sour pub crawl, but had potential, nonetheless. The crawl began at 6:30 in Parnassos, my building. Convenient. We were forty strong and split up into groups of six or seven, enjoyed a few shots of something like Jager, and headed to the first pub. We visited eight pubs in all in about three hours, so any welter-weight drinker was doing very well by the time we arrived at Storm. The crawl had some highlights, including a cafe once frequented by Hemingway, a cuban place, Havana, that has great food, and Stairway to Heaven, a rock and roll themed club with some amazing memorabilia (guitars from Clapton to SRV). When we arrived at Storm, it was a completely different atmosphere. Namely, people were a lot more drunk than usual. This of course includes Barry, who would later drop his glass, then even later do some kind of dance that required he place his hands on the floor, and cut himself with that same glass. Anyway, the significance was as follows. I have this friend, who shall remain nameless. Every time he gets drunk, it's at least bordering on hilarious. It's anticipated that a Meatloaf song will be sung, or he will pass out on a bar, but every time, hilarious. Now imagine seeing about thirty people you recently met getting very drunk. It was overwhelming, in a good way. To sum up, good times.
An aside; I feel like I need to do an adequate job of relating what it's like to ride a bike in this town. It's very backwards. Instead of a rush hour at 5 of cars, there's a rush hour of bikes. And instead of horns, there are high-pitched bells. And some people's brakes don't work. And there's few rules regarding passing, yielding, traffic lights, and speeding. Or at least few that are followed. Now my mom would encourage me to "be a responsible driver, people are stupid." Normally valid advice. However I found in this case, one needs to be at least as aggressive on a bike as the next person, if not more. This is the safest way to get around. Ride as fast as possible, and don't slow down when confronting another rider or car; that's how accidents happen. So I've gotten pretty good at it, by American standards. The problem is, the Dutch rode home from the hospital, 6lbs 7oz, on a bicycle. So as I'm concentrating on racing down the street, passing dangerously close, they're doing the same thing, except they're also talking on their cell, organizing their purse, and eating a banana. I wouldn't be surprised to see someone riding while doing arts and crafts. I'm light years behind in that category. For your viewing pleasure, I've included a photo of my ride, the Golden Stallion. She's a beauty, isn't she?
Well, I have a lot to look forward to this week. Friday a few of us Americans are hosting a party dubbed as "American House Party." Complete with beer pong, flip cup, enough beer to go around. The Europeans find it amusing we have games where the stakes involve drinking, but they'll be singing a different tune when they need to drink five cups of warm beer. Sunday a few of us are heading to Maastricht, the southernmost province of the Netherlands to celebrate Karnaval. I'm not anticipating anything as wild as Brazil's version, but it should be a good time. Next week brings a Decemberist's concert in Amsterdam and a weekend in Berlin. I've got some serious planning to do. Happy Valentine's Day!