Further education

Lest it seem that I spent my entire trip in cowpastures, I should note that Thursday was my first proper night on the town in Denmark (or almost at all, really.) Ålborg is a university town, so it has a walking street with bar after restaraunt after bar after discotheque after bar. The tour leaders took us out at 8 to buy us all a round and Line, true Dane that she is, managed to find a beer I didn't mind.

The adventure started when four DIS kids were leaving with two Danes they had met in the bar and asked if I wanted to come. I tagged along with them, and Henrik and Daniel (his mother was Irish) led us down the street to a second bar with a jazz quartet where Daniel was the bartender. He proceeded to buy all manner of alcohol - our theory was later that he had a thing for Emily or Dan or both. After a while the band announced that anyone who wanted to play in with them was welcome to, so we made Willow join them on the drum set. Willow, a vegetarian theater major from Oberlin with orange leg warmers and a nose ring (could we get any more Oberlin?) was telling me that since I'd never done any of this before she'd walk me home if I had too much to drink and wanted to leave, but I did surprisingly well. It seems that multiple drinks don't make me much fuzzier than one if spaced out enough.

After that we went to a discotheque, where Daniel said some magic words to the bouncer, got us in free, and then produced yet another round. We danced for hours and had a good time laughing at the Danish boys' very enthusiastic dancing. Still more educational was the stripper, whom we certainly weren't expecting. After it became clear who she was and what she was doing a circle of men formed around the front of the room, slack-jawed, while the (shorter) women had to stand on the stairs in the back to see over their heads, wondering how she ever got her pants off over those shoes. At two in the morning we'd had enough and walked the 45 minutes back to the hostel. It was a terrific night.