Welcome back, dear reader, to Travel Tuesdays with yours truly. This week I’ll be writing about the insanities of UK bars and clubs and the events that have taken place in the past few weeks past the hour of two in the morning.
For those who have been reading from week one, you’ll have learned by now that I’m a bit of a nerd and love nothing more than to sit around and read a good book all day or study or write. There is, however, another side of me, dear reader, that every now and then (more now than then) appreciates a nice night out with friends, especially when it concerns alcohol and really loud club music. So, when I felt my Mr Hyde personality itching for a good time I put down my books and asked my roommates if they wanted to go out.
As 18/19 year olds at university, naturally they said yes and the festivities began early, around 7. The pre-drinks that I had listened to from my room in past weeks were much louder than the ones I participated in but fun nonetheless.
Every Wednesday night the local club, Rock City, has a ‘Crisis’ night where there’s usually a theme and a huge crowd of drunk university students looking for a thrill. Tickets – because, yes, tickets need to be purchased beforehand on their website – are competitive but not impossible to acquire.
When we reached Rock City, the acting ‘green room’–you know, with the coat-check room, bathrooms etc–looked decently normal, however, once I reached the top of the stairs I was happily surprised to find a huge – and, I mean, huge–club with multiple rooms, bars and a balcony overlooking everything like opera boxes. Maybe it’s just my young naïvety from the lack of clubs I’ve frequented but this club was possibly the best I’ve ever been to.
The music was nice, there was enough room to move around (as much as there can be in a club) and I was sufficiently buzzed to start dancing in front of my new friends without shame. We left the club a couple hours later than I usually end up leaving (unfortunately Illawarra becomes boring after 1am in my opinion) and together we made our way home again.
After that first night of clubbing, going out became a regular activity, one of balance between the mental strain of working all day and the need to blow off some steam at night that every hard-working student needs. On one of these nice nights out, I made some more friends and made even more plans to go out again to a different place this time – the university bar called Mooch. Every Tuesday night Mooch has a karaoke night where university students go to belt out an absolutely horrible song with even worse singing voices to a crowd of other restless, drunk students.
So, for the next few weeks, every Tuesday night I’d be at Mooch and every Wednesday at Rock City, with the occasional Friday night Bierkeller (another really fun bar where you can dance on tables).
One Wednesday night, I was dancing with my friends at Rock City and for some unknown reason it was extremely packed, more than usual. I noticed one of my friends was starting to get trampled by other dancing drunks and before I could pull her back in, a slimy man took advantage of her momentary loss of balance to get his hands on her. I waited a moment to see if she was into it and once I realised she absolutely wasn’t I pushed him off her and took her phone back from him which he had started using to communicate through the noise. I got between them and, luckily, a group of Swifties started going feral, blocking his way back in. After only a minute I saw him trying to make his way back in from the other side. At that point, he noticed what I was doing and came closer to my face to say something. I was in no mood to entertain so I quickly pushed him off and told him where he could go. Daggers shot from his eyes to mine for the rest of the night.
It’s safe to say that the dancing mood was ruined for everyone. We took her home and went home ourselves.
On a seperate night, after leaving a very green and excited Rock City (it was St Patrick’s Day), we went to get some food at the nearest Mega Munch, when my friend and I, after splitting from the group to smoke a cigarette in peace, saw a very drunk girl with her arm around a guy telling her to walk straight and to hurry up. Her head was rolling about like a newborns and she was dragging her feet behind her. They stopped right in front of us when the girl couldn’t walk any longer so I went to see if they wanted some water. The guy, who I was sceptical about instantly (you can never be too careful) looked at me with panicked eyes and asked if I could get some. My friend and I stayed with them for about 20 minutes, during which the girl collapsed to the floor and stopped breathing for about 30 seconds. After getting a bit more water on her face and neck, she woke back up and managed to walk after that. She told us a bartender spiked her, saying the drink was only water.
The message to take from this, dear readers, is that going out at night with friends is a great way to balance out the stress of university but it is so important to make sure that you’re staying safe no matter who you’re with and especially no matter where you are. If you’re travelling, make sure to go out with someone you trust and be responsible, remembering that you are not in the comfort of your home town.
Now, these were the only two instances where my night went sour out of the many that there have been so far so don’t be discouraged.
I hope you enjoyed reading my clubbing adventures and if you did make sure to catch next week’s column where I’ll be talking about another impulsive travel adventure to my favourite place in the world.