Last night the Bucerius students threw their first school party. After much cajoling I decided to go. I guess it's good to go to these things from time to time, to come out from under my rock and get face time with the people who attend things like these more regularly.
I had a nice enough time, but parties like this are really not my thing. Crowded, loud... there were lots of people there I liked and wanted to talk to, but it wasn't really possible. After a couple of hours I got a little claustrophobic, and my voice was starting to hurt from all the shouting, so I went home. Besides, I had a 9am class the next morning that I wanted to be slightly conscious for.
And I was. Slightly conscious. That one beer I had (I didn't have more for fear of falling off my bike when I went home afterwards) apparently did me in, and this morning my brain felt three feet thick.
The most interesting part of the evening though involved getting there. I rode over on my bike with one of the German students so I could figure out where it was. It was at the St. Pauli Football clubhouse (or something like that), and getting there involved off-roading over this large, rain-soaked dirt field in the still, thinly-lit Autumn darkness. For some reason the ambience made me feel like I was in the movie E.T....
Then I left, to go home to change and then come back. It was a good thing I did, since I got very lost. Hamburg is not a particularly linear city, and roads swoop around and change names constantly. Plus the intersections have their own names too. Even during the day it's hard to figure out, but by now it was dark. And I'd managed to lose my map. So a 10 minute trip instead took about 40 confused minutes of wandering aimlessly through the St. Pauli neighborhood. Which, while not unsafe per se, is not a neighborhood I really wanted to be wandering around lost in at 1 o'clock in the morning, so I'm glad I worked this all out earlier.
Although what baffles me is that despite my complete confusion, people STILL came up to me and asked for directions. I really don't understand how I manage to exude an appearance of language and directional competence when I'm so clearly lacking both, but perhaps this is a talent I can one day exploit?