Lorenz: The greatest party concept - ever

I was invited to the graduation party of my Danish uncle’s godson. I didn’t think much of it. I expected something like the Austrian “Maturafeier”—a formal dinner, speeches, maybe a slideshow with sad piano music and childhood photos. But picture this:

As we enter the garden (not the school´s garden, but a private one), it’s chaos. People running around. Someone yelling about pizza-deliveries. Tables half set. Someone else trying to cool down beers with a hose. It was like walking straight into a wasp nest. I asked surprised if the whole class would be coming here.

A woman looked at me like I’d asked the dumbest question ever. But, since I wasn't from Denmark, she forgave me and explained the whole thing to me.

Every graduate wears a white sailor´s cap — the color of the band shows which school program they finished. General education is burgundy for example, and navy is for business-school-graduates like us at HAK.

Then they rent a small truck with speakers, beer, flags, and a class of 20–30 people partying while riding on the open back of it. They drive from house to house. Each stop is another student’s home. The family of the student that lives there has to provide food and alcohol for them. They stay around 30 minutes, then move on. At every stop the truck gets louder, the students more drunk.

So anyways, when they finally arrived you could hear them from a mile away. The first thing that happened when they got off was the godson handing his dad a beer bong having him chug a pint while everybody cheered him on.

They ate pizza, loaded all of the beer onto the truck — which the parents had paid for — and left.

This goes on all day. It’s such a big tradition that it’s even regulated by law. Maximum 40 km/h. No highways. Railings have to be 120 cm. You can get a fine if you break the rules.

There are also some customs, but I won't get into all of them. Here's some: run after the truck if you got top marks, cut your hat's band everytime you need to throw up, have your loved ones write short messages on the inside of your hat, and many more.

The reason why I find the whole thing so brilliant is because my favorite thing about going out is the pregame at somebody's house including the way to the nightclub or bar, and I love houseparties. So imagine a PREGAME-TOUR FROM HOUSE TO HOUSE daydrinking and eating all day long, before you finally go out at night. Wouldn´t that be awesome?

Think about it.