Cantus

A couple nights ago, I headed to a Cantus, a traditional Dutch beer and singing party that was organized by the student exchange group here. They led us to a club quite a distance away from the residence.

Outside, waiting for them to let us in

Inside, there were long tables set up with benches up and down both sides for us to sit on.

More waiting for the start inside the club

Basically, a Cantus has two "players." There is the Senior who is in charge of running the event and the Corona, the remaining people participating. The Corona cannot drink unless the Senior says you can. If you don't follow the command, you get punished. Punishments were being forced to drink beer mixed with unappetizing ingredients (although by AIESEC standards, they were pretty dull...).

Song lyrics and instruction booklet

The sequence of the Cantus starts with singing a song. They provided us with booklets of lyrics to some well known songs (I Will Survive, Summer of 69, the FRIENDS theme song, Greese medley, and It's Raining Men among others). After the song, there is a toast before the Senior tells us how much to drink. There are three commands:

• Ad libitum - drink however much you want
• Ad fundum - drink until your glass is empty
• Ad statis (??) - drink until the Senior says "statis" meaning stop (I forgot the exact spelling)
  

If you drink at any other time (like during the song) you'll get punished.

Pouring out the beer - from a watering can

It was definitely an interesting night. Lots of beer was consumed and people got rowdier and rowdier as the night went on. By the end of the evening, the whole room was soaked in beer. People had spilled beer pouring it causing everything to get wet. Right before they kicked us out, people were starting to throw beer around (apparently at normal Cantus' this happens at the beginning?!). Half of my body got soaked in beer, but I ran for cover and was able to escape most of it. Some people I met were completely soaked head to toe.

Afterwards, I headed to the Centrum for some frites. I had seen tons of people walking around with them smothered in mayo so I decided to try that. It was pretty good although the mayo was a bit much. Its a lot tangier than what we have at home.

Frites avec mayo (a la gauche) et ketchup (droit)

It was definitely an interesting night. I met tons of people and found out a bit about Dutch (student) culture. I can't wait to take this tradition home with me!