I Refuse to Yuppify

Remember when you got to dress up for prom, pay a ridiculous amount of money (or have it spent for you) for a limousine and got to play high society for the night?

Well here in Vienna prom night is every night, and an increasing amount of my surroundings are participating it. Whether it's the ’Ǩ4.50 beers at Buddha Club or the ’Ǩ80 vodka bottles at Passage, everyone's loving it.

Take the university that I'm currently taking one class at this summer for example. The first party organized by the university this summer was at the above-mention Buddha Club. Luckily my tuition paid for all my drinks from ten to midnight, otherwise I would have had a wonderful ’Ǩ30 bill from that alone.

The next night, last Saturday, the high school that I graduated from back in 2002 held its graduation. The after-party was also at this Buddha joint. Upon approaching the place I was immediately stopped by a dude in a suit who had apparently seen too many rap videos. The demand: ’Ǩ10. After meeting the demand of 1.6 hours of pay from my job at Target, I approached the bar and asked for a beer. Nothing fancy, no Corona, Heineken, Lindmans Fambois -- Just a beer. The price: ’Ǩ4.50. All right, let's recap: I had just spent ’Ǩ14.50; just to walk into a "club" and order a beer. This equates to 2.3 hours of work at Target, just to start the night.

Granted, I should also mention that there was a free club-sized bottle of vodka at each table, but let loose sixty freshly-graduated eighteen year-olds (and their sixteen year-old girlfriends) onto that amount, and you can imagine how fast that disappears.

Anyway, call me selfish, but I feel an hour of work should at least afford me two beers!

Tonight there was another Webster University party at some other ridiculous place off Mariahilfer Straˆüe. I was driving tonight, and I took a couple spins around the drop-off circle in front of it, saw a bunch of Yu--ies (they're just young and urban, not professional yet, although that's why they're studying business) enter the place, and then floored my six-times-dented 1990 VW Golf back towards Speising, where I live.