People keep asking me how Denmark has been and what I've been doing.
Um. Drinking. Yep, mostly drinking.
Last night was definitely one for the books. We started drinking at 6:30... now on a St. Patrick's Day scale, that's nothing, but on a regular Friday night scale and taking into account my tendency to pass out at 10:30pm, it was a wee bit early.
Fast forward two and half hours and we're at Cafeen, the student bar. When I first walked in during the university tour earlier that day, I had no idea how they were managing with this bar. It is literally the smallest bar I have ever seen, and keep in mind I work in one of Halifax's smallest bars.
All I could think was "well fuck now I have to wear my hair in a ponytail tonight because it's going to be a sweat box in here"
I underestimated the capabilities of this place.
So, the first thing that I loved about it was that the bartenders are all on a volunteer basis. Plus, they're all students. And because of these two facts, they literally go in and out from behind the bar all night long and get wasted while they're serving. It's beautiful.
The second thing I love is the indoor/outdoor aspect. What didn't occur to me before is that in Denmark (and most of Europe for that matter) you can drink your own beer on the streets. It's a miracle. So you can go out the back door of the student bar and drink on the front lawn of the university. Definitely increasing your occupant capacity.
Third thing. Shot up. So this is apparently a tradition they have here. It's a timed shot-taking contest. Guys do ten, girls do five. Fastest time wins. Seems straight forward enough. However, I know what happens when I do five shots in a row; I've done it before, circa 2010 (ah, first year Sackvegas). And those five shots were relatively spaced out, I had minutes in between each of them. I was trashed. Last night, I was not doing Shot Up.
But fuck my competitive spirit. Because people started doing it. And the times were horrible. And I knew I could beat it. But no, I had resolved to not be the sloppy drunk Canadian.
Until. The Canada slandering began. Apparently Canadians are known to be good drinkers. I am not the right Canadian to be basing this theory on. But the jabs started; "Aren't you from Canada? Aren't you people supposed to be able to drink?"
At which point, I told the bartender to line me up five shots of Jager.
Okay, I can't make this up. When someone does the Shot Up challenge, there's an overhead siren light that they turn on above the bar (like the ones on construction vehicles, there's a proper name for this, I know it) and they turn on "The Eye of the Tiger". Then everyone gathers around and they start timing you as you do your first shot.
One girl had gone before me and had totally wrecked it - 6.6 seconds.
I managed a 7.3. Damn.
But, the good news is, I came in second for the night. Not bad for the first try.
Bad news. I was on water by 10pm.
And now you see the reasoning for the title.
PS. Last night people kept coming up to me and saying "you're the Canadian right?" before introducing themselves. I feel like I'm a rare species.
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