Freshers Day

On Thursday we had the freshers and international student initiation party at Evtek and it was great fun. Much more elaborate than the usual 'get stupidly drunk', instead we had to complete a number of tasks...while stupidly drunk. We had to form teams of 4-5 people and were given clues to five different locations, all of them bars in Helsinki, where we would meet the tutors and be given a task to carry out.

Preparing for the craziness

The day began at Evtek with drinking games out on the field, which my team missed as we were still in class. Many of the groups were in fancy dress ranging from military dress to superheroes, movie stars and togas (which were worn by the only other team of foreigners).

The other exchange group wore togas.
Army-dudes and Robin Hoods in the background

The clues were quite easy to figure out, especially with internet access, so we headed to Helsinki fairly quickly after stopping to boil an egg on the way (which had to be carried unbroken as one of the rules). My team, at that time just composed of me, Xavier and Stephane went to the Karaoke Bar, our first waypoint. As luck would have it we were the first arrivals which earned us bonus points and the challenge was simple...to perform a dance. After a beer this was very easy and we proceeded to earn even more extra points by singing a Finnish song in a karaoke bar full of Finns and actually did very well - we were applauded and complimented by all!

Stephane and Xavier making the movie poster

The next bar was Heavy Corner, a metal bar on Pohjoinen Rautatienkatu. The task there was to create a movie poster by cutting up newspapers and magazines. By this time we were joined in the team by Cesur who suggested making a poster for a porn movie, as the judges were all male and this would most likely impress them. I wanted to give it a uniquely Finnish taste and came up with this idea...

Sorry. We were drunk.

Needless to say, our poster got the biggest reaction and secured us yet more points. We then headed to a small restuarant/bar in NW Helsinki where we were told to come up with our own task. I came up with the idea of a speed-drinking contest against the Finnish tutors, which we won quite comfortably, which was quite a surprise.

The aftermath of the drinking contest

After this however, I had to leave to join my friends who were going to the erasmus party at Club Prive so we didn't win the competition, but we had great fun taking part and it certainly beat a day of lessons.

The score sheet - as you can see we did quite well

Drinking all afternoon from 12.30 and then all night at the club until about 3am was quite an interesting experience and not a record that I want to beat anytime soon!