Coming as an international exchange student from Northern Ireland, let me give you three buzz words about the kind of clubs I have been to at home - cheap, sleazy and small. That said, you can have the best kind of nights there, especially when you put ‘£1′ and ‘shots’ together in one sentence. Last Friday, I got not only a taste, but the greatest delicious mouthful of what Sydney‘s clubs can offer. Not just the classy, big and expensive side either, but the cheap, tacky stuff that I’m more familiar with.
After using our expert British charm to befriend a couple of nice German girls, me and my flatmate explored some plubs before hand. I call them plubs, because I could never work out why we were in a pub that had a dance floor, like Scruffy Murphys, or a bar that had the smallest dance floor smaller than my shoebox of a bedroom, like Scubar. Bar Century left this writer pleased (and more drunk) with $3 vodka and mixer deals.
After the initial pub crawl was completed and we started walking in the direction of the club, I found my biggest shock. Distance between the clubs at my university in Scotland is around two or three minutes walk, so when I checked Google Maps for walking directions, a tear was shed at the sight of a 45 minute walking time. The shock is, you have to plan a route that gets closer to where you want to end up.
I was told by friends back at home that Sydney’s drink prices will make your wallet shriek in fear. That did not concern my drunk state, I was more concerned by the Biblical line to get into the club. A 30 minute wait ensued where I saw a student get rejected for wearing trainers. ‘No problem’ I thought, with my smart blue shirt, dark jeans and brown shoes. After stunningly being told I was ‘pushing it’, they obliged to let me and my friend in.
I was in Marquee, probably the fanciest and flashy club I have ever been in. Featuring bathtub props, LED lighting and views of the Sydney skyline as my mark out features, my first club was not a shabby one. However, I am adamant every club I will go to after will be a downgrade. Like learning to drive in a Audi R8, every club will now feel like a Nissan Micra from the ’90s. But some of my best childhood memories were in that car, so I’m holding out hope that I will find some glorious success stories from those dodgy looking high-risk backstreet clubs.
Look out Sydney, my liver is coming for you.
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