On to Friday. During the day, D___ and I went to the Picasso museum, just in case you thought I wasn't getting any culture. We also went to the local cybercafe, where she did email and I surfed the web for information about Coca Cola. I really had no clue how much of a liter should be drunk at once, and since I was worried that the consequences of an Over Drink would be serious, I wasn't about to have any without doing some research.

My investigations said that about a tenth of a liter was a good amount, although that turned out to be rather low, and that it was a fairly safe substance, with the main dangers being the expense and the desire to keep using it to stay awake and energetic for much too long. Returning to the hotel, we decided that this was the time to try drinking some Coca Cola.

Now we've all seen people doing this in movies, right. They pop it open, stick in the straw, and suck. But we had never done it before, and weren't quite sure what to do. How big a straw? How do you get the sucking to work? And so forth. So naturally I did what anyone would do, I practiced making straws of various sizes and sucking through them. I'm sure this would have been hilarious to a hardened Coke drinker, since I was incompetent at first, but it was the logical course of action. After a while we got it figured out, and each had about a tenth or fifteenth of a liter, or one Lime, as the terminology goes, even if this is Coca-Cola, not Sprite.

The effects were not particuarly interesting or strong. A twitchyness, much like coffee, some energy and alertness. A heavy feeling. Didn't last too long. Guess it wasn't enough. After a while, Phyllis came over. She's been drinking this stuff for years, so we quizzed her on amounts and such, and she had a couple limes, I had a couple limes, and D___ had a lime. The plan for the evening was to meet Ahmed sometime between 2 and 3 AM, then go with him to a nightclub. Ahmed apparently knows lots of bouncers - when we had mentioned Phyllis's being not let in the previous night he rattled off the names of the doormen and said that we should have dropped his name. He promised to get us into this place for free.

D___ started feeling sick and nauseous, so she lay down. The effects were certainly stronger with 2 limes, more of a wave of excitement, but still not that interesting. Sure, it made me energetic, but I'm always energetic, and it also made me twitchy and heavy. So far this stuff was boring, much less fun than herbal teas. We waited a while, and Phyllis & I had 2 more limes each, then we headed off to meet Ahmed. D___ just decided to stay in and sleep, since she was feeling bad, but she insisted we go have a good time.

First we picked up Steffan, who wanted to go out. Phyllis went to the bathroom, and I had a quick talk with Steffan. See, I sort of thought he had the hots for pam, and she was not interested. He has a wife and a girlfriend, and he just broke up with the girlfriend who he loved very much, so he was totally on the rebound. Little did I know how bad it was. He reassured me that he felt like a father to her, wasn't interested in her in that way at all, absolutely insisted. I said i was trying to be a friend, makin sure no one got hurt, that he wasn't coming with us in hopes of scoring with pam. He insisted it was nothing like that.

So we went off to Ahmed's restaraunt, or rather the one next door, since he worked at this other one from 2-3. We sat down and drank a little. Phyllis and I weren't having any booze, me being uninterested in mixing substances and Phyllis having been so hungover, but Steffan was drinking steadily. The hour went by painfully slowly, with Steffan being completely annoying, lecturing us, making fun of Phyllis, warning us about this and that, totally down. Phyllis and I had one more lime each in the bathroom just before 3, (oh come on, folks, limes are meant to be eaten off toilet seats, its classic, the way its done. you all know that.), and then we all took off in Ahmed's car for the club.

Ahmed was certainly on great terms with the bouncer, and we chatted a bit then wandered in. They had a huge plasma ball in the entrance, which was pretty cool, and we went down into the bowels of the building. Apparently this building used to house vaults or something, and the deep area with the main dancefloor and bar had walls that were a lattice of empty compartments, like someplace you would leave your shoes at a bowling alley. It was definitely not my kind of club, the music was heavy and repetitive (even for techno), the lighting decent but not amazing, the crowd very drugged. A guy spewed on the bar 10 feet from me. This place was a little heavy, a little too much, especially with the internal tensions in our group. Phyllis, naturally, wanted to party, to dance, to score some espirin. Steffan insisted on worrying about her constantly, whenever she disappeared to do things like, well, dance, which seemed pretty normal. Ahmed went off for quite a while, probably to talk to the people he knew without us annoying folks around.

Phyllis decided to go have another lime, and so she headed off to the toilets. She was gone for quite a while, 20-30 minutes, as it turned out because she had scored an espirin. Ahmed and Steffan were totally worried about her, this being a rough place, and they kept looking for her. When she finally got back, Steffan was furious, drunk, and ready to leave. I was ready to leave too, so I left Phyllis with Ahmed, making sure it was alright. She wanted me to stay, but wanted to party more, she she stayed. Ahmed was crumbling hash with the bouncer outside the door, where it was starting to get light, the hour being 4:30 or 5. Steffan and I got in a cab and headed home. As we talked, i finally realized what was going on with him psychologically. I had noticed that he wanted pam, that he didn't like her partying attitude (he had been quite bothered by her flashing her chest), that he made fun of her but tried to get her to like him, but it hadn't quite clicked.

It was a classic case of a love/hate relationship and a self-destructive impulse. Steffan had just been dumped. So does he try to find a nice worthwhile woman, a woman who is right for him? No. He sees a gorgeous wild woman, and immediately starts to obsess. Its obvious that the relationship will be destructive, them being totally incompatible, but he doesn't care. He loves and wants what he can't have, and hates her for not being what he wants and for rejecting him. It all became very clear. He had been angry at her flashing because he wanted her sexually but was denying it, and because he doesn't want his girl to be that kind of woman, regardless of the fact that she ain't his girl and she's always been like that and always will be. So he constantly compliments her, because he wants to win her affections and because some part of him has her on a pedestal, and he constantly insults her, because she isnUt at all the type of person to fit on a pedestal and doesnUt act how he wants. Totally ridiculous, but at least there was some interesting psychology going on.

We are heading west, and get about two blocks east of our destination, and Steffan says that we have gone too far, we must turn around. I say he is wrong, but he ignores me, obviously drunk, and insists we go east two blocks and get let out. We are under a tram bridge, obviously in the wrong place, but he won't listen to me. he points to a large wall, not even a store or window in sight, and says "Here is the hotel." Wow, he is far gone. He pays the cabbie, and says bye, that he will go to the other side of the street where the apartment is. Huh.

I may not like this guy, but I would feel guilty if he did something stupid, so I decide to see him safely home. I parallel him as we walk west towards where we actually need to go, using the old "look in the store window as if you are looking at stuff but really looking at the reflection of the other side of the street" trick, because it takes him a while to cross the street and start walking. I track him for a block, and then he looks around and notices that I am across the street from him, and yells at me to go back, that I have gone too far. Fucking idiot. I cross the street, and he insists that I should go back. I say look at the house numbers, and using them, convince him of our true location. he realizes his mistake, finally, and says "Scheiss" a few times. We walk back together the 3 or 4 blocks, and I then cross the street back to my hotel, and watch him go in the door of the apartment complex before I go in. I crash.

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