Tuesday, October 19
Dear God Was THAT A Hangover
I left the last post with me lying in my bed, top to tail with the lovely Laura. That seems like a good place to continue.Have you ever been woken up by being poked? And I mean with a finger, not anything that your dirty mind conjured up. Although "with a finger" sounds just about as dirty. Meh, us and our sick minds.
That's how I was woken up on Friday morning, mere minutes (or so it seemed) after falling asleep a little earlier. Laura (for it was she who was poking) was already up and dressed, and was just waking me to say goodbye on her way out. I hadn't even felt her get up, or heard her get dressed. I think I was more unconscious through alcohol than asleep, which was reinforced by the feeling of still being a touch drunk.
I was supposed to meet my friend Becca in the main square in the middle of town at 10.45, so that we could go register together for a Spanish class at the Language Centre of the university. Needless to say, I was decidedly not up for going. I was absolutely knackered, and still felt a little pissed. She'd wimped out after iPunkt, and was thus no doubt feeling radiant and full of morning goodness when she texted me to remind me about it.
I'd set an alarm for 9.30, but when my phone beeped just as Laura was leaving, I was 100% not up for answering it. Unfortunately, my bastard phone (when it decides to actually work!) beeps at you every minute if you don't read a txt you've received. The bastard. I kept trying to ignore it, but it was fucking loud. You know how everything's louder and more obnoxious when you're a bit hungover / tired? This was one of those times.
I eventually got up, read the message, and sent her one back saying that I wouldn't make it because I was completely fucked. I clambered back into bed (alone: Hurrah!), and was almost asleep before my conscience caught up with me. I had to go meet her, I'd be letting her down otherwise. Stupid bloody conscience. Consciences don't get hangovers: I do!
Somehow I showered (usually they get rid of hangovers for me: not on Friday) and made my way to the bus stop, shivering and possibly gently groaning the entire time. Yes, I'd remembered to get dressed, I was just feeling like shite. A McMuffin didn't do any good, although the orange juice might have.
Incidentally, I've eaten at McDonald's more in the last 3 weeks than I have done in the last 3 years. Admittedly, it's only three times, but I still feel dirty. That, and I saw SuperSize Me the other day. Great film, if a little OTT at some points.
I think I whinged all the time I was with Becca, which was quite a while, since we had to queue for 35+ minutes for a simple 2-minute registration. I was not a happy bunny, especially since I didn't have a drink (water!) with me, and I could barely stand up, I was that tired. It was one of those things that we could have done over the internet or by phone; there was absolutely no need for us to queue up for that length of time.
What makes it all the more frustrating in hindsight is that it was wholly unnecessary for me. It turns out that the language classes are not in fact free, and are instead rather pricey. Not for me, then, thank you very much. Therefore, I could have slept through all of that morning, and not had the hardship of those couple of hours.
Needless to say, I went straight back to bed as soon as we were done, which was around midday.
So, it'd be 8.30pm that I woke up then? Hell yeah. I'm just glad that I didn't have anything hugely important planned for the afternoon. I wouldn't have woken up for it, but I might have felt a bit guilty afterwards.
Having said that, I did miss the start of a night out with a load of my friends. I also missed the end of it, as it happens, but let's not get ahead of ourselves. We'd arranged to meet at iPunkt (not again!) at 8 for a few drinks before a party that had been arranged for all of the foreign students who had done this orientation week. We all had tickets, but evidently a bit of warming up was required.
I was in two minds whether to even go or not, but the sheer volume of text messages on my phone (I'd turned it off at midday to avoid being woken up in mid-afternoon) convinced me otherwise. 5 different people asking me if I was going to be out that evening is enough to let me know that my company is wanted. No less though, there must be at least 5.
I ended up walking all of the way into town and iPunkt, because the busses and trams decided to shaft me with their timetables. Every time I got to a bus stop, I'd missed one by 5 minutes, and would have to wait 25 for another one. I kept heading to another bus stop on a different route as I headed into the middle of town, but it was the same story on each one. Thus, with my stepping-stone style of walking I ended up doing the entire 45 minutes by foot. At least the cold woke me up a bit!
By the time I got to iPunkt, the rest of the gang were already on the jugs of cocktails, but I certainly was not up for alcohol. Not just yet, at any rate. Coke for me, and sitting around watching them attack yet another jug of Strawberry Colada. We drink a lot of that stuff, even if it is a bit sickly sweet.
After an hour or so in there, we shifted on to the student union, where the party was being held. There was an absolutely huge fucking queue outside, a good 100-150 people, but we thought that because we already had tickets, we could join a seperate queue nearer the front.
We were, of course, wrong. There was no seperate queue, and most of the people in the main queue had tickets too. This didn't stop 15 of us pushing into the queue, right at the front. In our defence, we weren't the only ones, and there were even some inconsiderate bastard that pushed in in front of us. That's just not cricket. You don't push in in front of someone who has already pushed in. It's bad manners.
Apparently we were getting some glares from other people in the queue, but I didn't notice. I was too busy trying to stay vertical amongst the mass of bodies that were being compressed from all 4 sides at once. We got in pretty sharpish though, always a bonus.
We skipped the main party room (it looked a bit too hot, sweaty and shoulder-to-shoulder for our gentle, non-partying tastes. Ahem) and went upstairs to what would no doubt be termed the Chill-out room in a decent club. Here, it was just a room that wasn't the big, hot and sweaty one. When in Rome.
I did have one drink there, but the extortionate price (relatively speaking) and the lack of alcohol therein left me a little bit melancholy. It wasn't that I was with boring people (although one guy, a Portugese fella, is the most boring person ever), or that it wasn't a nice place, just that I was still feeling fucked. Whatever it was, I wasn't staying. I said my goodbyes, hopped on a bus home, and sat down to watch a film with a pile of sarnies. That's how a Friday night should be.
Friday nights never used to be big for me until I got to uni. Back in Melksham, it was all about Thursdays and Saturdays. Nobody, and I mean nobody, went out on a Friday. They were just crap. At uni, however, Friday night was Phase night. I've written here enough times about Phase nights, so I won't reiterate, save for saying that I miss them. I also miss the people, and not being able to walk 10 yards without stopping to say hello to someone you know.
Well, when I say "say hello", I really mean "exchange some drunken garbled nonsense about how they are the best person ever, and how we should go to the shots bar together". That's much more my style.
That wraps up Friday. Stay tuned for Saturday. It comes after Friday, you see?
