Stick 17 people in two cabins, add lots of alcohol purchased in New Hampshire (it's cheaper there, and boy did we take advantage of that), and what do you get? Ahh, if only there had been a hot tub. Or if only it was warm enough to actually jump in the lake. It could have been a lot more disastrous.

We all drove up to the cabins in separate cars, although we were in constant communication as we tried to find the first state-owned New Hampshire liquor store. ("Dammit, we're nearing Manchester and we haven't seen anything yet." "Have you found the liquor store?" "On I-95, they're so much more abundant." "Jackpot!") After we all congregated there (normal people meet at gas stations and restaurants. We are alcoholics), we drove onto the cabins and started drinking right away. That would mean we started at 5:30.

At 8PM, we all piled into cars and drove haphazardly down the dark little streets of New London attempting to find a place called the Flying Goose Inn. We, naturally, managed to get lost several times, and just proceeded to get drunker at dinner. I feel bad for the poor normal patrons of the restaurant. I'm sure they weren't expecting such a large raucous obviously drunk group.

Then we returned to the cabins and all crowded into the one that had the electrical fire. Then the real games began. Naturally, in mixed company, everyone's favourite drinking game is "Never Have I Ever." It got real dirty, real fast. Actually, I think it started off dirty. Some of the more interesting questions:

Have you ever had sex in the school library?
Have you ever hooked up with your best friend's sister?
Have you ever had sex in a public bathroom?
Have you ever had sex with anyone of the same sex?
Have you ever had sex with anyone else in this room?
Have you ever had sex in the cadaver lab?

Okay, only the last one was really interesting. After the cadaver lab question, the game quickly came to an end as we didn't really want to know what else the one guy who had indeed had sex in that room had done. There is not a single clean surface in there. So then we tried some other half-assed drinking games, and it just degraded into talking, drinking, giving backrubs, drinking, guys running out to pee in the frozen-over lake, lots of talk about wombats (I'm not really sure what this alluded to. The guys went out to pee and then came back mentioning wombats over and over. Maybe the cold got to them) and more drinking. Next thing you knew, it was 3AM.

The night probably would have ended a whole lot differently if there had been 1) a hot tub or other large water source (ie, the lake) or 2) enough rooms so that people didn't have to bunk in the common rooms. Since I was sharing a room with Steph, it's not like I could have snuck a guy up there without her knowing - although there were several mentions of roommate swapping. Several different friends asked me why I didn't end up hooking up with various guys that were on the trip. I still have a boyfriend and all of them know that. If the guys want me, well, I can't do anything about that, can I?

I spent all of today recovering from a hangover brought on by over 10 hours of constant drinking, while everyone went out skiing. I sat by the fire and ate pizza, read magazines, and slept. All day long. It was very pleasant.

I do feel gypped about the whole maple sugar candy idea, however. I, naturally, had bought maple syrup so I could drizzle it on snow just like Laura Ingalls in A Little House in the Big Woods, but It Did Not Work. I was very disappointed. It appeared to be so easy! Take a plate of snow, pour maple syrup in designs over it. But nothing happened, and we just got maple syrup-flavoured ice. It was very sad.