The Gin Diaries #2

This piece originally ran in the Long Beach State Union Weekly in the fall of 2016, and is authored and owned by me.

I’ve been in Coventry for two days. On this, the morning of my second full day in England I’d say I have three feelings about it. The first being cold; the second being hung-over; the third being my girl being hung-over and grouchy beside me.

Long Beach State is a magical place. Really. When I first stepped onto campus many magical things happened to me. I enrolled in a sailing course, I stopped living with my parents, and I met a princess, international woman of mystery, and Supreme High Dictator of My Life. However it does not compare to my first day at the University of Coventry. My first day at this institute of higher learning we were handed pink shirts by members of staff that said “Team Ruby” on them and instructed to meet up at a bar in the city center.

Sixteen Hours later and I still don’t know why we were called Team Ruby. But I do know what it means to go on a bar crawl. Not that I didn’t before, but as a nineteen year old in the U.S. it was just knowledge to be held in the abstract, not something that could be practiced. But in a land where the drinking age is eighteen I can. Knowing what its like… I should have moved here a year ago. Long Beach may have taught me to sail, but Coventry taught me to party.

A word of warning do not come and study abroad if you prefer the coddling culture of CSULB. There it feels safe, for example the campus isn’t closed but it’s one central place safely blobbed together. Where as Coventry is just a bunch of buildings sprawled out in a city center with bars, stores, and rain between itself. In Long Beach when a Resident Assistant or Campus Leader plans an event it will likely have a learning spin, or at least be restricted to you until you’ve watched the videos about drinking and sexual assault. And I am completely one hundred percent for those videos, and love CSULB’s campus life. But there is a neatness and simplicity to not having RAs make sure you get back to your dormitory alive, and not having to sit through lectures on safe drinking. I for the first time got to experience total and complete self-reliance. Which an American Student can only truly achieve by being in a foreign country with a University that generally doesn’t give a shit about your wellbeing.

In England I am considered a fresher or first year, it feels strange to be a freshman equivalent again, but I find that it has been easier to make friends with the other freshers. They don’t judge you for being lost. Team Ruby had about twenty-five freshers in it including myself. Twenty-five people who have only been legally drinking for about a year, or a day, on a bar crawl; it isn’t that scary until you factor in that our team was chaperoned by people in yellow shirts. Older students whose job it was to drink us into the ground, ignoring our pleas for mercy and questions about how to get home at the nights end.

We started being forced to chug booze during a game they called “The Mexican Wave” and what it has to do with Mexico I don’t know. I haven’t seen a person of Hispanic decent since I left LAX via jet. So is the name offensive? I don’t know. The fact of the matter is no Mexican was around to sign off on the nomenclature of this drinking game so; I am putting four pounds on yes.

After that I was forced to chug a drink for not holding it in my left hand-due to the “International Rules.” I also had to chug some for cheering too enthusiastically as one of my Team Ruby comrades was forced to drain his drink. Later that night I would be forced to down a beverage for not being enthusiastic enough. Greek culture has struggled to gain a foothold in England, and I’d assume it’s because every school event has the best aspects of a frat party, all the debauchery without many of the legal issues.

So I am hopping from bar to bar having the best time, gaining popularity as I discuss how the Red Hot Chili Peppers song that was on four bars ago is about my homeland. Meanwhile learning things about British culture through alcohol poisoning. Like how every piece of British currency has Elizabeth II’s face on it. I also had to buy a few Vodka Red Bulls for some yellow shirts and take a few myself in order to end the chastising I received for trying to buy water with some Euros. A double sin, trying to take care of my self, and insulting the heavily Eurosceptic Brits. Prompting many to question my ability to do economics, my major. They say the more the English like a person the meaner they get. So I accepted the insults, and started shouting “God Save the Queen,” my new patriotic money saving mantra. Which does prompt the chugging of more alcohol, and lose me a few more pictures of a monarch’s face.

However I do not believe that I am hung over due to that. I was only so popular. A guy from California who can talk mingling cultures with other drunks is bound to get some traction. In fact I am probably on an M.I. 5 watch list for being super pro Wales. Because it is important to support Wales publicly, loudly, and extremely when asked about your stance on Wales in the bathroom of a bar. But I couldn’t be that popular, because my girl was super popular. And it got me drunk, because every few minutes I made sure to visit the Queen holding court, and some very apologetic fresher would buy me a drink. Until everyone knew we were dating. Which meant we both had to start buying our own drinks. But let this be a lesson to California Women, or any other women capable of holding a tan, rainy England is a cheap place to drink.

But every person we encountered seemed to be a gentleman, and we made quite a few connections that hopefully will work while sober. So nothing could be said against a bar crawl in England, except we really did have to stumble home on our own.