Pig's Happy

Jesus Christ. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Copenhagen is EXPENSIVE. I try to be financially responsible, but that goal is made impossible by my simultaneous desire to be chemically irresponsible. Last night a Russian-Italian girl invited me out to a bar, The Happy Pig, with a group of people I had never hung out with before.

I was excited for the chance to branch out, but I was reluctant to say yes on account of my wisdom about going out in the 3rd most expensive European city. After staring at my Facebook Chat window for a couple of minutes, I fell for the "oh, what the hell" logic that so many of the international students use as their life philosophy.

The group was meeting outside of the McDonald's in downtown, so I had to shell out thirty bucks for a train pass. Granted, the pass was worth 10 rides. But at $3 a ride, I wasn't feeling too lucky. I risked the train ride to downtown without punching it. I managed to make it all the way to Kongens Nyortov (King's Court) without seeing any ticket argents. I got off a stop early because I didn't want to risk an agent slinking into the train and callously doling me a $150 fine.



I met the group fifteen minutes late. There was the Russio-Italian, a Japanese girl, a Turkish girl, and a guy from Italy. We parted for the Pig, where a Danish girl told us we had to check our coats for $4 a pop. "Does this count?" I spread my jean jacket apart, showing how it barely could be considered a coat, really.

This is what The Man uses to own you

"Yes." The coat attendant dully replied as she hung up the Turkish girl's jacket. My protests about denim being used as shirt fabric didn't help my cause, and I ended up paying the four dollars like everyone else. The Pig turned out to be just another sports bar, but was good because it was empty enough for us to find a seat. Like every other bar in Copenhagen, The Happy Pig offers a special in which you get ten shots for $20. It sounds like a great deal by the city's Dubai-esque perspective on money, but the shots must be one of four different types of 20 percent alcohol liquors. They taste great, yes. One was strawberry flavored and looked and tasted exactly like Pepto Bismol. After drinking eight or so of those, I was beginning to feel the beginnings of intoxication. That was after twenty dollars.

After we finished spending oodles of our hard-earned cash, we sat at a table next to the empty dance floor upstairs and silently thought about how little we had to talk about. It's times like these that I give myself some credit for not having many friends on my trip abroad. It's hard to make friends with people who are boring, or bad at English, or a terrible combination of both. The group I was in was composed of a healthy mix of all three. The Russian-Italian girl got so drunk she didn't want to talk or dance. Talk about a party, right?

A Japanese guy we rendezvoused with at the bar had a great idea to make the time more productive. He started stacking the overpriced shot glasses. It became a half-hearted contest that felt like Jenga, except with a little more desperate lifelessness. I cheered loudly when Saki, the Japanese girl, put the final glass on top and sent the spectacular structure toppling to the sticky table. After that, we sat some more.

I was happy I decided to go home before one. It gave me just enough time to practice dancing in the wild (another dance floor started getting action) just long enough to get sick of it. Honestly, I think I've been getting better at dancing since I've been here. No longer do circles of sour-faced strangers surround me whenever I enter the dance floor. Some day, I'll be able to charm girls with nothing more than seductively gyrating my hips.

When I was getting ready to hand in my ticket to get my jacket back, fate delivered a poetic kick directly into my balls. A beautiful blonde girl with superbly tight jeans and an exotic accent told the Russio-Italian, "You look exactly like one of my friends!" Small talk arose and when I mentioned the I was leaving she said, with all the suggestion that went along with it, "That's too bad." Kill me now!