It’s gradation time, and city is alive with the shouts and singing of thousands of happy and drunk eighteen year olds. Seeing legally drunken teenagers is weird, and their mode of transport is pretty strange too.
That’s right. They ride around the city all day in big trucks, some of which are clearly used to haul hay and cattle normally. They start in the morning with breakfast and drinks at one of the kid’s houses, and then they pile into the truck, and go to another kid’s house, where they have another drink, and so forth. They generally try to visit each kid’s house, so even for a class of 12… well, they get drunk — no question about that. The rest of the night is spent climbing on statues, fumbling with zippers and condoms, and throwing up outside bars.
It sounds terrible (except, perhaps not if you’re the one graduating), but there is a certain rationale to it all. I’ve asked a number of Danes about it, and they point out that the kids are going to get drunk anyway, so why not in a setting where they are accompanied by sober adults (a parent or hired driver is the only one that gets behind the wheel). Furthermore, since they are visiting each house, parents have a chance to prevent drunk kids from getting super-drunk.
But it’s still hard to get used to — especially the attitude of the adults. Last year I was watching a swarm of grads stumbling around and shouting, and one of my Danish friends smiled at them and said to me, “Isn’t it great to see young people having fun?” That’s amazing to me, because so many American adults, seeing a truckload of un-belted drunk teenagers shouting and waving bottles of beer around would call the police immediately.
But that’s a major difference. In Denmark the legal drinking age is fifteen. That means you can buy alcohol, but you can’t drink in a bar until you are eighteen. So a Dane is drinking legally six years before most Americans, and drinking in bars three years before most Americans.
I only know two things. First, the longer I live in Europe, the more bizarre it seems that most Americans can’t legally drink until they’re twenty one. Second, regardless of what your position is, these kids are having a lot of fun.
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