You might be tired of reading my ranting about what I cannot do in Spain. But before I go into the details of the Erasmus party, I have to do it once more. In Gainesville, if you want some kind of dessert, there is a Krispy Kreme open twenty-four hours, a Ben and Jerry's open until at least eleven, a McDonald's open until at least eleven, and countless other options. Here in Pamplona, the only thing you can buy after ten o'clock, even on a big party night like Thursday, is alcohol.
The students who came to UPNA through Erasmus, a university exchange program for Europe, hold a party pretty much every Thursday. I tried to attend one of them about a month ago. The flyer said "a partir de las 22:00" (opens at 10:00) I showed up at 10:40 thinking I was late. I entered the bar only to find a group of four guys I did not know. I talked to the bartender until almost 11:30, when I got tired of waiting and left. After that, the invitations read "a partir de las 24h." I guess the bartenders were tired of waiting too.
The students who came to UPNA through Erasmus, a university exchange program for Europe, hold a party pretty much every Thursday. I tried to attend one of them about a month ago. The flyer said "a partir de las 22:00" (opens at 10:00) I showed up at 10:40 thinking I was late. I entered the bar only to find a group of four guys I did not know. I talked to the bartender until almost 11:30, when I got tired of waiting and left. After that, the invitations read "a partir de las 24h." I guess the bartenders were tired of waiting too.
It was not a complete waste of time. I enjoy meeting a variety of people. The bar itself is tiny, but pretty cool. There is a lot of walls artwork on the walls of a style that I have seen before in the States. Too bad the bar is too dark to really see it.
I walked into the bar at about 12:10 last night. I didn't recognize any of the twelve people or so mingling. I left and walked around the empty dark downtown streets again hoping to find some other sign of life. When I reentered around 12:25, I found a girl I recognized from my Spanish language class. Her name is Ladia, I think. It was so loud in the bar that she had to punch it into her cell phone so I could understand. Everyone seemed to walk in at the same time at about 12:32. Pretty much the entire bar was a dance floor, but only if you wanted it to be. The three types of people there- drinkers, the dancers, and those who were drinking while dancing- were all pretty well mixed up.
I walked into the bar at about 12:10 last night. I didn't recognize any of the twelve people or so mingling. I left and walked around the empty dark downtown streets again hoping to find some other sign of life. When I reentered around 12:25, I found a girl I recognized from my Spanish language class. Her name is Ladia, I think. It was so loud in the bar that she had to punch it into her cell phone so I could understand. Everyone seemed to walk in at the same time at about 12:32. Pretty much the entire bar was a dance floor, but only if you wanted it to be. The three types of people there- drinkers, the dancers, and those who were drinking while dancing- were all pretty well mixed up.
I talked to Ladia a little bit, a guy from Sweden, and a Spanish student who was not with Erasmus, but really wanted me to hook him up with an American girl. As you can see in the picture, it was packed. Getting to another part of the bar was quite a chore so I tried to stay in one place and dance a little bit. It seemed that most everyone couldn't dance any better than I could. That made it much easier. Half the students in the bar were probably too plastered to notice anyway. A few of them were smoking too. It blows my mind that Spain has a life expectancy of eighty years now. It is a miracle that all of Spain doesn't have lung cancer- or all of Europe for that matter, given that at least three quarters of the smokers were not Spanish.
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