Het Feest van Erik....

It was necessary to celebrate Erik’s 25th in style.

Slight problem; he was living in a shoebox in Poptahof, with an irate Chinese flatmate. Magnanimously I offered my common room; together we could bring it back to life from its 100 year sleeping beautyesque suspended animation.

The cleaning of the Augean stables began. With two of us working it took (only!) two hours to scrape off the thick layer of scum that had developed, somewhat helped by the permanently open balcony door. Remember that I am only talking about a very small room here. I was astonished by the results that sweeping the floor had; I actually collected a whole plastic bag full to the brim with dust. There was nothing else inside it; only dust. This is something I have never seen outside of a vacuum cleaner, I didn’t even know it was possible!

By the end it was looking half decent. We consoled ourselves with the thought that no matter how much mess the people in the party made, they couldn’t possibly make it worse than it had been before we cleaned it.

At eight we began mixing sangria in a giant pot. It was quite nice, but not alcoholic enough. So in went my prized bottle of Bombay Sapphire. After this, it was not so nice anymore, but could knock your socks off. At nine on went the music and the people began to arrive, out of the pouring rain like a string of wet lemmings. In a short while my room resembled a second hand clothing shop, with coats piled to eyeball level on every free surface.

By ten thirty the party was in full swing. My corridor mates were actually meeting each other for the first time, people in the corner were making balloon animals (and wings, and hats, and anything else that took their fancy), the room was full of smoke, the sangria pot was slowly but surely becoming empty. Barry was running around lighting candles, I was trying to figure out how to tie the balcony door shut with a piece of shiny ribbon (and hold back the howling gale). A selection of Blanca’s 15 flat mates had appeared bearing a crate of beer.

By twelve Elia was dancing on the couch, my (peculiar) next door neighbour was sharing a bottle of some sort of horrible Eastern European rocket fuel, Lennart was progressively (and unknowingly) squashing various women’s heads as he posed for photos, and Blanca and I were taking exuberant photographs in front of the nude woman poster in the corridor.

By four Thomas was covered in water, Elia was asleep on my couch with her head wedged in between two cushions, and the party was winding down. The last person left at four thirty to the tune of me and Erik trying to convince Elia that in fact she was probably not sober enough to go home (to which she responded with demonstrations of her ability to walk in a straight line). This only convinced us further that in fact she was not qualified to go home. By five Erik and Elia was asleep in a tangle of various bedding items on my unfolded couch, and me on my bed.

By twelve we were reluctantly facing the morning again. A cup of tea and one hour passed before Erik was able to crawl out of bed for some ham and eggs. Elia limped off to a group meeting. By one we were cleaning the common room again, and regretting saying that it couldn’t possibly get worse than how it was before. I discovered firsthand that it is not a good idea to invite 8 spaniards, 6 portugese, and 4 french people and not leave an ashtray out. We were fascinated to discover exactly what happens to a lolly on a tile floor after it is stepped on by a progression of 40 people. Inventively, someone had spilled sangria on my door (???). And horror of horrors, my unique and only IKEA mug lay shattered on the floor along with my dreams of a morning cup of tea.

Another two hours and half a bottle of eucalyptus floor cleaner and the room vaguely resembled its former state. Returning on my room I first sat on the couch. Then lay on the couch. Then lay on the couch with the blanket over my head. “Thanks for the party” said Erik, and rolled uncertainly home.

Weeks later, oh how ill the smell of that eucalyptus floor cleaner still makes me feel.