Walking through Norrebro, we begin to realize that Marie does not really live near the city center. In fact, the place of our first encounter is in the abandoned lot adjacent to her building. She's sitting outside with an Aussie, a fellow couch-surfer, in a pair of rusted fold-up chairs around a tiny woebegone coffee table next to a tiny abandoned building covered in graffiti, beers in hand. The Aussie promptly offers us all Carlsbergs, raving about them and their factory that he'd just visited. After inquiring because of the strange label, Marie tells us her beer's not a beer at all, but in fact canned cider. Classy.
[stop]
We're soon joined by a couple of Danes Marie had met at a music festival the previous week. Anus pronounced "ahh-noose") and Casper (pronounced like the ghost) are their names. Looking around, we all look apparently the same age. Not so apparent is the fact that, unbeknownst to me, the Danes age at an incredibly slower rate than normal human beings. Casper's actually turning 28 at midnight. Marie is already 28, and Anus is 27. The Aussie's only 20 though. And we're those middle-of-the-road, early-twenties Americans, fresh out of college with a penchant for overindulging in alcohol. We're going to rage tonight. The Aussie has a hefty case of Carlsberg left. We had bought a bottle of whiskey on the ferry duty-free. And while Marie hurried back up to her place to fetch some vodka and juice and more cigarettes, Anus and Casper hustle around to the corner market and purchased some more beer. We're raging tonight, Denmark style. It's still dusk when Casper's watch alarm goes off at midnight. We all stopp talking, confused in the moment. "It's my birthday!" exclaims Casper in drunken Danish-English. Whaaa? But the sun's still out, kind of! Nutty. We all cheer and hoot and holler and empty our drinks and pour another. The Danes teach us how to sing happy birthday in Danish, and after a couple minutes of sloppy, slap-happy practice tries, we belt it proper and at full volume. It still seems so early. Oh, how the Nordic countries continue to keep astounding us. It's a riot. When it finally gets a little nippy, we all stagger up to Marie's place, a lot slower than sober people, and resume right where we left off, trying with all our might to finish the mountain of booze in front of us. We have to. It's Casper's birthday. We introduce them to our American college drinking games, like Fuck The Dealer, and King's Cup. They love them. Progress is being made, but my vision had already begun to blur a while back, and I notice that we're all swaying quite drastically in our chairs. And there's still more to come.
We roll up a monster spliff of Amsterdam weed and present it to Casper as a birthday present. We all handily dispense of it, so we roll another. And pass him another shot of whiskey. We all take one, and next thing you know, we're taking turns running to the bathroom to hurl. Max still can't believe Marie's out-chain-smoking him. Neither can I for that matter. All these Danes smoke like chimneys. It's incredible.
