After the nighttime photography sesh, we went to meet Viktor (an awesome guy, fellow Kierkegaard scholar, and a friend of the famed David Hoinski) at the Blue Cat, pictured here. It's an awesome but tiny bar that apparently has some tight live music every once in a while. The entrance is a long ally off the Naamsestraat, which is packed with tables this time of year. We had all gone the night before with my new friends Shane, Marianne and Phillip, who all live together in this amazing apartment on Naamsestraat, of which I will have much more to say later. The three of them had SMSed (European for text message) me earlier saying they were at a place called Giraf in the Oude Markt, but I had arranged to meet Viktor earlier in the day, so we hung out and had a couple beers at the Blue Cat. But after the first round, Viktor suggested that we go to the other bar, just to see some different ones. Shannon and I were game, so we went down the little alley that links Naamsestraat to the Oude Markt and lo and behold, it was a GD mass event. The Oude Markt, as big as it is, was FILLED with students, and there was some kind of musical happening, not a live band but the typical remixes of old American music blasting from the direction of Taj Mahal, and man the place was bumping with lights and the smell of a certain smokable substance and the beer was most definately flowing in the streets.

We had to get across the whole square in order to get to Giraf, boy was that a challenge. When we finally did we found Phil and Marianne sitting at a table with some of their friends, whom it was too loud to meet. We had a few beers, I tried to take some video of the party, since it was far too massive to take a picture of, but I haven't figured out how to embed a player in my blog. I'll do some experimenting and maybe I'll get it up here (along with the academica parade, which I haven't forgot about). Then Phillip suggested that we all meet some of his Belgian friends at the Politics Fakbar. Now the Fakbars are the student bars, and every faculty has their own. The beer is a euro and it's really more like a house party than anything else. There's no frills or table service, but you can party hard until the not so wee hours of the morning. It was a great time, Phil and I did shots of Jameson and the beer just kept on coming. We talked about interesting stuff, and I think I staggered home around two.