The Finnish Party!

Another party weekend- with my crazy friends who I love dearly. Friday evening was the last Foreign Exchange party at Paparazzi, a club in LKF. We decided to go late to avoid the cover charge and so instead pre-partied on the roof of Lee Hysan. It was a wild and ridiculous time of course, involving Remco showing off his bartending skills and creepily saying "I put lime in the girls' drinks so they can't taste the alcohol"...or something like that. Then we shouted at the famous Jeff Shek, mostly because he has the most amazing name that is fun to shout on any occasion. Also involved Richard somehow climbing over from RC Lee, the hall next door, to the roof of Lee Hysan. And the inevitable game of never have I ever in which we shame each other since we've played too many times and know each other's secrets. Then we finally made it to LKF, and first stop while we waited for Paparazzi to be free was Ebenezer's, the delicious kabob place where many a hungry drunk likes to eat in the wee hours. We headed to Paparazzi and it was super crowded and sort of....surreal. I guess it's sort of weird getting to a club at that moment when the drunken madness has taken hold at around 1 am. It was fun, although they sort of just played the same music as the first party. Before going home, of course we spent some quality time outside 711 talking to a homeless Chinese man with a bleeding finger. And Anski got kicked out of 711. For sitting on a newspaper on the ledge of the store, even though Jeff was sitting on a pile of paper in the store. It was pretty entertaining. The next day was the Finnish party. So Saturday I went to Mongkok to buy my cheap gift offerings to the party and a shirt for my costume, and by the way had some delicious Japanese fast food. I decided to dress as the what seemed to define the Finnish, a bottle of vodka. And perhaps the reason people have heard of Finland, Finlandia vodka. We headed to Swire, and althought the strict hall rules made hosting the party a bit difficult, our five Finnish exchange student friends did an awesome job decorating the common room and cooking us up a Finnish meal which was quite delicious. My roommate and her friend from our hall came to, which was nice. We played a game to get our dessert which involved saying a phrase in Finnish and trying to find the partner with the same phrase. Krit and I found each other and shouted excitedly our phrase, Lähetääks panee! Which apparently means let's go have sex now, hahaha it was pretty funny. The cake was good and so were the cookies, but Finnish people apparently like this gross salty licorice candy (as well as licorice vodka). The party got more raucous as everyone drank sketchy punch in a metal bucket that looked suspiciously like pee, and the Finns all drank lots. Then for a special surprise we sang in Finnish, and Santa Claus appeared! Apparently he was invented in Finland originally...or something. Santa, aka Eero, played a rather intoxicated Claus with a penchant for cute girls. He even put on a Santa like voice so he was scarcely recognizable. He distributed the gifts, and I got a broom which I later tried to ride off to LKF. It was a really fun party, although the only thing I may have learned about Finnish culture is that they enjoy many varieties of alcohol but mostly vodka related. A large group of us headed off to LKF, although some of the hosts had consumed a fair amount and had to be sent home early. Although it was only midnight, since our event had begun at 6 it seemed time to go to the Flying Pan, an American style 24 hour diner. I had some fair diner food for the first time in a while. Our little band of friends did some wandering and dancing, some of us got a bit wilder than others. Overall a random and fun night.