Cambridge Diary III

What is the social life like in Cambridge? One word to describe them all---“booze”. Probably it explains a bit why I was not updating regularly. (No I will touch on the true reason maybe in the next entry).

Pub crawl is the first heavy drinking game that I participated in the Freshers’ Week. As the name suggests, we just go to pubs after pubs on the same night. Drinking games are played and most of them involved “downing” your drink. It is scary in many different ways. Firstly I am shocked at the sheer volume and the need to finish it pretty much in one breath. Also the shock increased exponentially when I saw how effortlessly the others can do it. It seems I’m in a fictional land where the God of alcohol has come alive. Anyway back to reality. I had to settle for coke and plain water half of the time, just to stay sane. As we progressed, more people had gotten drunk, and they just started doing strange things like cramming into the phone booth and climbing lamp post. Seriously I think it is not fun either as a by stander or the main “protagonist”.

Then there’s drinking in everyday life. Party is taking place at a friend’s room, and everyone is enjoying themselves with alcohol. There are also various drinking games such as ring of fire, that can be played perfectly fine without any booze but somehow have to involve them. No alcohol equals no fun. However, there is an absolutely a personal choice whether to drink or not.

The most famous part of drinking in Cambridge has to be “pennying”. Wikipedia actually has an entry on it. The rules may not make much sense, but it can be summarized in a few sentences. In a formal hall or drinking game, if a penny is dropped into a glass of drink, the owner has to down the glass to “save the queen”. She is drowning! Other rules such as back penny, double penny or catching the penny in the teeth are just additional clauses to prevent mayhem. Just like the architecture and gowns and formals, this game is a hallmark of Cambridge. It is somewhat banned in my college formals but nobody really cares. It really got me really giddy a few times, and I have definitely consumed more alcohol within the first few weeks here than my entire life.