Day 8: Amanda’s B-day outing

Day 8: Thursday, Jan 6, 2005

• Sunburn status: Face peeling, with a chance of arm skin peelage later in the week.
• Breakfast: Skipped.
• Class: Boring
• Lunch: Adequate.

One of the neat parts about this trip is that quite a few people have birthdays and provide the perfect excuse to hit up the town. Our test subject is Amanda, with her 22^nd birthday kicking off what looks like will be a ritual for the rest of the trip. Some of the details were rocky, as hers was the first, but I think we’ll get the routine hammered out and we’ll be able to throw a birthday bash like seasoned wedding planners by the time we get to Australia (or “Ozzie” as the Kiwis call it).

The formula is deceptively simple. Step 1: Dinner. Step 2: Bar hopping. Step 3: Plan next birthday. Step 1 is the hardest part, because the group has a hard time gelling into a definite number. Running around halls and asking people if they want to go yields a decent estimate, but by the time we go to leave, more people have jumped on board and some have left. We have become accustomed to this—if a trip is planned, and it looks neat, the bandwagon effect takes hold and next thing you know you have 35 groupies tagging along. I take pride in being one of those groupies fairly frequently.

Once you factor in the size of the group, excessively small restaurants are ruled out, and the very nature of college students eliminates any high class place. For a birthday, though, you don’t want to treat someone to McDonalds, so as you can imagine finding a good place to eat suddenly becomes much more difficult.

FOOD: We selected a Malaysian restaurant; someone recalled hearing good things about Malaysian food. Erik and I go early to scout out the other places, but we decide to give this place a go. The name of the place escapes me, but the food was fantastic. Service was pretty rough, a side-effect of the no-tipping nature of the country I’m sure, but once everything comes we’re stuffed and satisfied. I ordered a lamb curry dish on the logic that we’re practically tripping over the things here, so they must taste good. I was not disappointed.

2 bottles of wine, 3 appetizers, 8 beers, 12 entrees, and 67 snapshots later, we conclude dinner and make our way to meet up with the rest of the group to indulge in the American ritual of getting your chosen victim (in this case Amanda) completely trashed. We are partially successful, and we all have a good time. Some of the guys are sad that the restaurant took a while and we missed happy hour, but we get over it.

CALL ON ME: The first bar we go to we have been frequenting for a few days now. Compared to the typical college bar, this place is pretty nice, with plasma screens showing music videos and a good ambiance. It is completely dead in there until we show up. There are about 30-40 of us there, and pretty much dominate the place. I can see why people think Americans are rude, loud, and obnoxious, because we are doing just that. But it doesn’t matter, because we’re the ones having fun. We dilly-dally around. I remembered a music video that Jeff is quite fond of and go to request it at the bar. If you’ve seen “Call on Me” by Eric Prydz, you will know why. To sum it up, it’s a bunch of girls doing aerobics in tight outfits in quite a, uh, non-traditional manner. The looks on the girls faces in our group—a mixture of disgust and shock—is priceless, and we all have a good laugh.

We check out another club down the street, which is quite a classy place. Why they bother carding people who are obviously over 18 is beyond me, but they do anyway. This place is nicely decorated and has a great atmosphere, complete with a multi-colored dance floor. I know our group likes hip hop, so I go request some from the DJ, figuring that with all the other American influences here, hip hop made it over on the boat. He gives me a funny look at all of the songs I asked for then promises me he’ll work something in. He eventually plays some old skool stuff, which we’re content with.

For some reason, this country is completely obsessed with “California Luv” by Tupac. I have no idea why. Some of the girls in our group flock over to me. I’m happy until I realize I’m being used to escape some creepy Kiwi guy that was hitting on them. You take what you can get here.

The night concludes with our now traditional taxi ride back up the hill, and me convincing Amanda that “She’s a trooper”.

--P