80s Beer Olympics

Let me just start off by explaining the situation before going on and telling you about the evenings' occurrences. Byng place (my place of residency) decided to throw a beer olympics and invite the other kids from the South Kensington dorm to play. The last couple of days there has been a revival of beer pong or berut as my Northeastern mates like to commonly refer to it as. Now, in the States it's fairly easy to get the equipment to play the highly cherished game of collegians, but whilst in London finding ping pong balls and solo cups-- not so easy. The hunt for such equipment is like that of hunting a wild boar. It requires stealth, patience and some creativity. Needless to say, we managed to get great substitutes for solo cups (16 oz cups are scarce in London) and paid nearly $8 for ping pong balls. NICE!




Once us blokes got a few of rounds of beer pong out of the way late last week. It was time for beer olympics on Saturday. The theme was to be 80s night, but somewhere along the lines of commmunication TOGA night was thrown around so it was more like an 80s/Toga beer olympics. However, my buddy Shane and I were insistant on making Saturday's beer olympics 80s themed. We were going ballz to the wall and no one was stopping us.


Saturday is Portobello Markets day. It's the best time to go and we happen to be in the area during the day. Shane and I started throwing ideas around about how funny it would be to have tube socks with the blue and red lines to wear, maybe some short track shorts and a sweat band. We had bought the aviators earlier in the week and we already owned the polos. Well, while at Portobello we stumbled on a stand of-- what else? SOCKS! And wouldn't you guess it, that lying on top is a 3 pack of white tube socks, with red and blue lines waiting to purchased by me. The vendor said they cost 4 pounds, but I talked him down to 3 after telling him I'd only pay a pound a pair. So, we were on our way to completing perhaps the best dressed get-ups of the night.


Now let me first say that these pictures I've included do my complete get-up no justice because you can't see my tube socks and sandals. However, as soon as people post more pictures from the night I'll be sure to update the blog. So with the tube sock, aviators and polos out of the way we were on the hunt for shorts. Like everything else in this city finding exactly what you want is a bit of a hassle. It's not as easy as saying lets just go to wal-mart and pick up this because they'll definitely have it. Shane and I were going to settle for soccer shorts from one of the sporting worlds on Oxford street but we decided to try our luck at one of the vintage stores on our way back to the tube on Portobello road. It was as though these two pairs of shorts were waiting for us. There were only two pairs left in the store of short, old-school adidas shorts that seemed excessively short, but just right for the occassion. There was a pair so small that I knew I could get my skinny ass into them and a bigger pair that seemed to fit the Shane-O. The best part is they were only 2 pounds. Cheap for a night of ridiculous antics.


However, the hunt didn't stop there. I wanted a sweat band. I needed a sweat band. I got a sweat band. Granted I paid more than I would ever pay in the States for a white, Nike head band, but it was essential to the completion of the ultimate 80s get-up. We kept the entire thing on the DL. Telling others to join us in the 80s festivities with out disclosing any information as to what we had brewing. Shane and I sat down and researched the No. 1 best 80s songs of the decade of spandex and electronica music. What we ended up with was exactly 5 hours of all the greatest 80s songs. We left out not one. We were on our way and there was no turning back.


We showed up to the common room where everyone had already begun the drunken sherades(sp) in full togas and a few girls had managed to put the pony tails to the side and whip out brightly colored shirts, but no one had gone to the extent that we had. Shane accentuated his mustache by putting masscara on it for God's sake! We stroll into the common room with a complete arrogance to us because we knew we looked the part. Let's just say we quickly turned into the life of the party. All eyes were on us. We even had silly Germans running downstairs to get their cameras to take pictures of the ridiculous Americans playing their ridiculous drinking games (including flip cup). It was like prom. People were snappin' pictures left and right. It was wicked. I mean we even went as far as getting the ridiculous high five down when someone made a noteworthy play during beer pong, which by the way we dominated practically the entire night leading to my inevitable passing out and vomit inducing night. It's never the first and will never be the last.

Night's like that have restored my faith in people's capabilities to let loose and enjoy themselves no matter how stupid people are. Everyone who lived in Byng participated in the DRUnkeness and mayham. We even had some Serbians playing beer pong and flip cup, which by the way must seem so ridiculous from their perspective if you really think about the games. FLIPPING A CUP in a relay race style? Throwing ping pong balls into cups arranged like bowling pins? They're laughing internally.

I hadn't had so much fun staying in, in the longest time. It has by far ranked as one of top 3 nights in London to date and I hope to duplicate the insanity again. The best part is I have an 80s playlist with 74 songs and 5 hours of rockin' 80s to listen to whenever I want to. SWEEEEEETTT!!!