...a 'sophisticated' night turned salty

Back to Japan with my stories. So, the year was 2014 and it was I think sometime in April, in the middle of Spring semester. It all started with cheese.

See, we had this one French exchange student who was the most french person you'd ever meet. Really. Mostly because of his accent but also because everything he did was just so very... french (sorry, Percy, if you're reading this but you really are the most french person I've ever met... and I've met a total of 8 so that's saying a lot!). Anyhoo, during Spring break he decided to go home for a little bit (or he needed to go but whatever...). Before he went Mary begged him to bring back some quality French cheese and he agreed, being the generous person he is.

Fast forward a few weeks. I was going to the store one afternoon when I saw Percy on the way back to the apartment. I think it was his first day back - at least I hadn't seen him before. I greeted him as usual and asked about his trip. As I was leaving he went:

'Oh, and tell Mary I hate her now!'

'What? Why?'

'Because I brought her the cheese and now.... now my entire suitcase stinks! And all of my clothes too!'

'Oh...'

Honestly, that sounded a bit inconvenient but I thought he was being overdramatic. It was only cheese! And I was sure the smell would be gone in a little while. When I got back to the apartment I told my gang of friends that Percy had the cheese and we all agreed that we should have a sophisticated wine-and-cheese night. We thought it would be best if I took a hold of the cheese because my room was the designated party-room anyway, so a little bit later there was a knock on my door and Percy handed me the cheese.

Oh. MY. GOD.

Now I understood why he was so angry at Mary. Words cannot describe the rancid smell the cheese gave off. It was like week old roadkill that had been eaten and then regurgitated by some diseased demon-pigeon and was slowly rotting away. It was... something hellish. And here's the thing: when Percy gave it to me it was wrapped in paper, covered in saran wrap and put into a plastic bag... and it still smelled like the deepest circle of hell! I in turn wrapped the plastic bag in saran wrap, then in tinfoil and then put another plastic bag on it and shoved it into my fridge. Didn't help. Every single time I opened my fridge I was assaulted by the smell again. I felt violated... But I tried to stay positive: after all, it was only for a few days.

We decided to have our sophisticated wine-and-cheese evening on a Thursday. We got some wine, grapes, some more cheese (this time conventional 'Japanese' cheese) and a bunch of other snacks. I think it was also the first time me and Tytti made our 'tipsy toffee'. It was supposed to be regular toffee but we had a few glasses of wine while making it so we deviated from the original recipe a little bit. Basically we just put whatever we had on hand into the mix. Nutmeg? Sure, that works. Cinnamon? Yup, sounds good. Mysterious Japanese spice that doesn't have a label anymore? Yeah, why not. Chili? Yup, gotta have that chili in there! Honestly, it sounds bad but the result was delicious and that's not only the wine talking.

On Thursday we set everything ready and began our night in a quiet and sophisticated way. We had some wine, tried the rancid French cheese (which was delicious by the way) and just relaxed a bit. Honestly, the first hour or so was pretty tame and it looked like we could pull this 'sophisticated' thing off... And then alcohol happened.

I don't know how or why it happened but suddenly a party of eight turned into sixteen or so and it seemed as if everybody was invited. Didn't matter - we had enough room and enough cheese to go around. Soon we were playing silly party games that for some reason were much more fun than they originally seemed. I think a part of it was the fact that we had three Finns in the bunch and they get strangely competitive while playing any kind of games. Really, we were playing 'Who Am I?' (or 'Amnesia' or whatever it's called in different places) and they got really into it, yelling and even threatening their co-players with violence. Yup, Finns are pretty bloodthirsty when it comes to competitions... except we weren't competing... but whatever. 

Soon all thought of 'sophisticated' went out the window and we were just one hot mess. How did it happen, I don't even know. I just know that at one point wineglasses were tipping over, post-it notes went flying everywhere and there was a heated debate about the toffee. Some said it was caramel, some said it was fudge, Tytti and I insisted it was toffee and it all turned into a drunken 'You don't know what'cha talkin' about!' shouting match. We still had to go to school the next day but it seemed as if we'd all conveniently forgotten it. I have to say though that it was one of the more tame parties I had in my room - even with the shouting and promises of violence.

The next morning was... interesting. My room was a mess, I felt like I'd eaten a bunch of sand and as I went to the bathroom I discovered that the floor was covered in salt. Well... that was interesting to say the least... Why was there salt on my floor? Uh... I think it had something to do with someone spilling a bit of red wine one someone else's yukata and everyone throwing some salt on the stain. In the end we successfully managed to cover my room in salt but at least the stain came out. Thank god Japanese wine is 99% water!
To be honest, not much of note happened that night. We just had fun and stayed up too late. But that was the first of our weekly parties so I thought I'd mention it. Just as a prelude for what's to follow. Main point of this story: we tried to be sophisticated adults and failed hard. I guess it's borderline impossible to be sophisticated as an exchange student. Or maybe it was just us... It was probably us.