Clubbing in Columbia

One fun thing about being a student again is going out with girlfriends and dancing the whole night till my weary knees give out. I've been going out with other international students- Felicity (South Africa), Maria Ines (Peru), Anahit (Armenia), and Biljana (Serbia). Columbia is a small city, but it has its fair share of clubs and bars because it's a university town. Also, because they cater a lot to students, these bars have great deals on drinks as long as you have your student ID. If you want to get drunk, Deja Vu is good on Thursdays, where you drink all you can for $5, and Fieldhouse is good on Fridays, where you can drink all you can for $10. It's a bit more expensive; then again, more people are out and about on Friday night. Even if you don't want to get drunk, these places and some others are great if you just want to go dancing.

It's also fun for me to watch the social scene in the American midwest. One thing I've noticed in all the clubs I've been in is that the men I've seen so far fit the stereotype about dancing guys. And that's "white men can't dance". I observed that the only guys who knew how to dance were either black or Mexican. I guess like almost all stereotypes, there's a grain of truth in this one. I had a momentary internal struggle, as I tried to decide if I was being racist for being particularly thrilled when a black guy told me I was a good dancer. Such thoughts I ponder on the dance floor.

More unsettling thoughts occur to me when they play '80s music. I've heard Madonna's "Like a Prayer", Prince's "Kiss", and Michael Jackson's "Beat It". It was funny to see university students singing along to these now-classics. I thought I was probably the only one in the club who had danced to those songs when they were actually still HITS. It was easy enough to blend into the young crowd, but that's only because I concentrated on stopping myself from doing the Moonwalk.