Passing the Bar
‘Hoppeslipp’ might be in a club, but it still remains a student affair.
It is not uncommon when an institution is moving location, to hear rhetoric along the lines of ‘it is not the bricks and mortar that forms this institution, but the ideas that it stands for, the people who uphold them’. And it is with this in mind that we enter VU, a bar on Hegdehaugsveien that has become the temporary location for the Law faculties night, ‘Hoppeslipp’.
We pay our entrance fee (50 kr), get our wrists stamped repeatedly – by a girl who is clearly revelling in her new found role of power – and walk straight in. The smell of incense hangs heavy in the air, yet not heavy enough to fully disguise the bouquet of piss and stale beer that fills the club – an exotic blend of guilt and shame which has the unfortunate effect of highlighting those undesirable undertones it has been used to conceal.
The fact that the toilets don’t have doors could be partly to blame – not the greatest architectural decision ever made, but hardly the Law faculties fault.
Finding a seat is no problem. The place certainly looks like a club, it has pink lights and a statue of a lion. Yet the lack of people is alarming to the point that I begin to worry that we have perhaps come to the wrong event, or at least got the wrong day.
The elevator music of the lounge bar world plays in the background, loud enough to be noticeable, too quiet for anyone to dance too. The night (if it is a night) has definitely not begun.
We start chatting to a couple of criminology students who we had spotted looking thoroughly unimpressed, sitting by themselves in a booth underneath a projected slideshow of what I presume to be last years event. As we talk, the music grows louder and more recognisable, the smell becomes less distinct (I might have just climatized).
The room slowly begins to fill with generic looking, clean shaven shirt clad boys and girls who have obviously made an effort but – apart from the one wearing sparkly hot pants – clearly shop in the ‘safe’ section of H&M.;
Three beers in and the place is heaving. Girls are coming up to the table to chat and the offers for dances are abundant. I decide that it is time for me to leave. I part with a smile knowing that those once depressed criminology students are going to have a really good night.
