Expanding our collective party horizons

Though the Dowling Hall crowd may seem a bit square, the study abroad meetings in those claustrophobic beige offices do impart valuable advice about foreign language acquisition, personal growth, and widening one's party horizons.

Or perhaps the Office of Programs Abroad staff forgot to mention this last item. I suppose they were too busy discussing techniques for avoiding terrorist attacks and explaining the four stages of culture shock.

But my study abroad experience has taught me several valuable lessons in the venerable Party Arts, which, if pitched right, could easily become an ExCollege class.

My first lesson came early in the school year, on Halloween -- normally not a major cause for festivities in France -- when my friends and I were invited to a party thrown by our friend's sister's boyfriend's friend. The length of the invitation chain suggested a good raucous party, so we started planning our costumes early, and with gusto.

We finally assembled ensembles as the Seven Deadly Sins, even though there were only six of us ("Sloth couldn't make it" was our explanatory line). Our costumes, if I do say so myself, were kick-ass: Wrath carried a braided whip, Greed was gilt, and Lust -- well, Lust personified her namesake in a way that was rated at least PG-13.

We arrived at an enormous apartment in upscale Neuilly only to discover that Halloween was more of a pretext than a raison d'?tre for this party -- there wasn't even any candy!

Furthermore, few other partygoers had taken much initiative with their costumes: there was a black cape or two, a pair of cat ears, and a cowboy hat, but not much more.

Lesson number 1: Being the only people really dressed up at a party is fun. The Six Deadly Sins were undeniably the life of the party, though this fact may partially be attributed to the lesson that followed soon thereafter.

Lesson number 2: French youth do not necessarily associate going out with drinking to extreme excess. ("Weird, they really don't, though," affirms my friend Sarah, also known as Greed.)

With these newfound pieces of knowledge securely in mind, I decided to further experience Dowling Hall's promised personal growth by tasting the party cultures of other European countries, notably Spain, where some of the greatest scholars on the subject reside.

For apprentices of the Party Arts, Barcelona is the modern-day equivalent of the library at Alexandria. Nonetheless, one Saturday night found me and two other knowledge-seekers bereft of opportunities for merrymaking due to a cash-flow problem. (Lesson number 3: There are no party scholarships.)

We lingered by a fountain in a square ringed by palm trees until about 2 a.m., enjoying the warm breezy night and listening to music from a nearby jazz club. Dark-skinned men dangling six packs tried to sell us beer. (Lesson number 4: You can bargain them down to 80 eurocents.)

Until...

"Do you know where the party is?" asked a tall, fair, rosy-cheeked Spanish boy. Sadly, we did not. But when Adonis and his friends disappeared into a doorway, we decided to follow them.

The dark shabby stairway we discovered instead of a club or bar did not deter us (as it should have), but rather strengthened our party resolve -- and to just reward! We soon found ourselves in a packed apartment of young Europeans, talking in Spanish to Italian guys, and partaking of the beer that flowed like wine.

Perhaps crashing parties is not in good taste, but the autodidact is by necessity a risk taker. And my evening in Barcelona graced with me with a few new phone numbers and two enlightening new party gems.

Lesson number 5: Following strangers up dark winding stairwells leads to fun!

Lesson number 6: Drinking improves your fluency in a foreign language ... up until a certain point.

My research continued in Madrid, home of seven-story mega-clubs and after-parties that go until lunchtime. In what certainly counts as a party seminar, our evenings began at a friends' apartment with calimochos (Lesson number 7: Don't judge Coke and red wine till you've tried it), continued with cocktails at a lounge, and ended at a club where stimulants and depressants seemed to be on equal footing.

Ironically, it was here that I brushed against the outer limits of the party universe. Lesson number 8: Even in Madrid, the Baskin Robbins across from Club Circus is not open at 6:30 a.m.

Back in Paris, where you can get ice cream at 5:30 a.m. on the Champs Elys‚es, the club scene is lively, but it is the study of bars that has led to my final culminating idea -- my party thesis, if you will.

Lesson number 9: Anglo bars attract the nerdiest coterie of the local population, the dregs of the Anglo crowd, and the lees of other nationalities. It is only in Anglo bars that I have suffered through such standard-bearers as the "Grease" megamix and the "YMCA," enthusiastically danced to.

Instead, it is much better to go to a local bar to expand one's horizons and work on language acquisition -- just as the Office of Programs Abroad would have you do in the first place.

Lesson number 10: In all things, follow Dean Sheila Bayne.