Pub Crawl

How's that saying go again? "When in Rome... do as the upper-middle class bored rich white foreigners do", I think. Because, if I remembered that correctly, we totally nailed it last night: About 15-20 of us went to the Spanish Steps pub crawl, and I can truly say that I am so very happy to have done it, had a blast, and there is no chance in hell I would ever pay to do that again.

I took no pictures. I regret this moltissimo.

We went over to the Spanish Steps on the Metro, and met the leaders of the pub crawl, and watched the kiddos who were joining up trickling in. Unsurprisingly, everyone there looked exactly the same, and spoke exactly the same language: English (the most different group of kids there were British study abroad students, as opposed to American study abroad students). Believe it or not, pub crawls did not originate in Rome.

We paid 20 euro. This price very nearly scared me off of it in the first place(that and the fact that I am not much of a drinker; more on this later). I mean, that's like 28 bucks. There's no way I would be getting my money's worth in alcohol, even with the first hour being a "all you can consume of beer/wine" hour. There had to be some catch.

Of course there was: at the first bar, they served the world's two worst wines (one a painfully awful white wine, the other a completely watered-down tasting red) and an awful, awful beer. They have this down to a science for making money: it wasn't light beer, so it was rather filling, so the most beers anybody in our group had was probably four (also, they feed you really cheap pizza to sober you up, so that you'll be more likely to buy beers/shots at later bars). I had all of two, and a cup of the awful, awful white wine.

For a guy who hasn't felt the effects of alcohol since New Years Eve, this got me pretty well buzzed. I, however, probably had the least alcohol in our group by far. People really tried to get their money's worth, but in my mind you were giving up a chunk of self-respect every time you tasted the beer or wine.

We then took off for another bar. We walked all the way from the Spanish Steps area nearly all the way to the Piazza Venezia. That's like 3/4 of a mile. Watching the far-more-drunk kids stumbling along was hilarious. They hand out a shot of something at the door at each new bar, but I gave mine to one of my roommates. The next bar had a lot more dancing (grinding), terrible lighting, and loud, pumping Eurotrash music mixed with American favorites. My personal hell would be having to be in that for the rest of eternity. It was fantastic to be there for one night though. Unintentional comedy at its peak.

Clearly, this was not my scene. I had passed the peak of my "drunkenness" (not so drunk, thankfully), and far too self-aware to be enjoying this in the way that a lot of the other people there (like 60 kids and 3 or 4 guys who looked like they were around 40 trying to get with some young student, which is hilarious in a completely depressing way).

Let me say that I did get my money's worth, for a variety of reasons (though certainly not in alcohol; you could buy 15 bottles of cheap wine at a grocery store for that kind of cash if one was looking to get bombed). It was a new experience, but at the same time it was familiar, like a very crazy dorm party. For me, both involve a whole lot of enjoying watching people act like fools and wondering what, exactly, the point of it all is. That question I have still not solved, but after last night I think I'm getting closer to understanding.

It's 10:16. I've been up for three hours. I haven't seen anybody who went to the pub crawl in 10 hours. The rooms with open doors do not contain my roommates. I hope they're still alive.