My new Irish roommate and her best Irish friend were also planning on going out, and when I told them about the bar crawl they wanted to join. So, I finished a bottle of wine as they each nursed their own bottles of Smirnoff. The crawl was scheduled to start half past seven. By the time the girls got changed and we were out the door it was eight o'clock. We had some trouble with the metro (the machines only accept coins and cards) which ate up a little more time. Ultimately we made it to the Buddha Bar at 8:30. I had hopes that the group would stick around for maybe half an hour at the bar. By the time we got there the only customers were some middle-aged alcoholics who had already forgotten the big group of international students that had stampeded through the bar.
We ordered a couple of insanely expensive drinks and stuck around at the Buddha Bar for long enough to get bored with a game of Ten Fingers (or "Never Have I Ever" depending on your persuasion). We made a halfhearted attempt to relocate the bar crawl posse, but we had no idea where they were going. The obese bartender claimed that the group of university students made no mention of their next destination. Eventually our meandering route lead us to the biggest pedestrian street in town, Stroget. Since it was a Monday night, the majority of the stretch of brick road resembled the abandoned streets of a zombie apocalypse.
We happened upon a bar that lured us in with a guitarist who played Eric Clampton covers. I had a good time there. The singer appreciated my yelling enough for me to stay content, but my Irish roommate quickly became the object of lust for a man with graying black hair and a bulbous nose shaped like a flat balloon. Before we left I managed to coax balloon nose and his friend to draw doodles in my notebook.
Some more aimless walking ended at a bar filled with a bar tender and a small group of Turks having a drink. Orla, the Irish roomy, complained loudly about our situation. A Turk with a shaved head wearing a bright Adidas track jacket put out his cigarette and got up from the group. "I will show you good place. This place is no good for Mondays." He was right about that.
Usually when a guy offers to escort a group primarily composed of girls, I see only carnal intentions at work. I was no less cynical in this situation, and figured he was expecting at least a grateful hand job in the bathroom once we got to his recommended bar. I should have given the guy more credit, because he just dropped us off at the door and told us to have a good night with a smile that made me feel like I was in The Truman Show. We followed him to another live music bar called Drop Inn Musik Cafe.
The inside was decorated with many bronze sculptures and the wall were covered with black lithographs of European faces. Next to the bar was a stage no higher than a wine glass from crowd level. There were almost as many performers as there were patrons that night, but I loved it nonetheless. The music was all covers, which is usually not my thing, but the whole time I watched I was imagining myself drinking in a dive bar with Tom Waits in a stool with a guitar. The reality of the situation was far less gritty, but satisfying.
After the last performance ended and my two companions started chatting up guys at the bar. I was content with staring at the last singer as she packed up her guitar. She was one of those Danish girls I had been fantasizing about since I applied for the program in Copenhagen. She was as skinny as a runway model and had skin as perfect as a Greek sculpture. I managed to get in a line saying how good of a job she did, which naturally led to me fucking her in the bathroom until the bar closed. Of course, what I mean by that is it led to me going across the street to buy a pack of cigarettes at 7-Eleven.
As I walked back to Drop Inn a homeless man pushing a cart filled with two cases of beer asked me for a cigarette. He snorted loudly as he growled out the syllables. His request wasn't so charming, but he had a black dot painted on the tip of his nose that I just couldn't say no to. He was dressed like a neanderthal, wearing four different mismatched jackets. I guess I would dress that way too if I was trying to avoid dying of exposure on an island in Scandinavia.
We talked, or I tried to get him to talk, as we smoked together until the girls I came with came outside and introduced themselves to him. His mood shot up at the sight of them and immediately became deaf to anything I said after. I contented myself with standing with a group of Swiss vacationers as they made fun of America and the girls as they lead on the black-nosed hobo.
The hobo gave out beers to the girls, and began dancing flamboyantly in the street with my roommate. The comic dance routine transformed into the homeless man picking up Orla and setting her down. It culminated in a grand drunken hug that toppled the man to the ground as Orla locked her arms around his back. I winced as his entire mass smashed Orla's arms into the brick road. She got up in a fuss and we went into the bar together to take a damage assessment. We decided it wasn't broken and went outside to find the homeless man has completely disappeared, beer bottles and all.
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