Fiesta Fiesta Fiesta (and I could drink!)

Last weekend I had my first Venezuelan experience clubbing.  It started off at a co-workers apartment where we drank Cuba Libres and around 10pm we headed out to the first club.  We got to the door and realized they were charging a cover but soon found out that they would give us tickets equivalent to our cover that we could use to buy bottles.  So 10 of us set out to find a table in the club and ended up right next to the blasting speakers ( I am still having trouble hearing!) We decided that since rum is the most popular drink we would get two bottles for the table.  We pooled our tickets together and began to dance to the live music while we were waiting for our drink to come.  When they finally arrived they had brought two bottles of rum, four glass bottles of coke (equivalent to a can of coke), and lime juice.  I thought for sure they just couldn't fit all of the coke bottles on their trays and that they were going to come back for more, however, I was quickly told that is how we do it in Venezuela.  So we set out drinking well mostly rum!  After two sets of live music and one with the DJ half our group decided to go home and the rest of us headed to the next place.  After a short cab ride with my principal, his wife, and two fellow teachers we arrived at the most famous salsa club in the city El Mani, but I was wuickly warned we were in a bad part of town.  So we quickly went into the club and before we had a table and ordered another bottle of rum someone was asking me to dance.  The great thing about this club and Venezuela in general is that people love to dance so there is no underlying intentions in dancing with someone.  I didn't sit down until 5 minutes before we left which was at 430am!!!  I must have danced with 18 year-olds and 75 year-olds and everything in between.  What a blast.  After an adventerous cab ride I made it home in the rain around 5am and quickly went to bed because I had a school BBQ the next day.  On Saturday night I had a co-workers birthday party to attend which of course included more drinking and dancing.  It was a blast but another ex-pat teacher and I wanted to leave early so we had them call a cab.  When we got downstairs there was an unmarked explorer waiting for us so we jumped in and were off on the scariest ride of our lives.  The ride had taken 35 minutes to get there but he managed to get us back in 11 and stop and gawk at 8 police cars stopped in the street!  Over all it was an adventure.  The weekend ended on Sunday with another party at the house of a US embassy worker so I enjoyed a lot of american food.  I think I have finally recovered from all of the rum!