A while ago, we got a suggestion to write an article about how-to-choose certain items for an event. Here, at The AEGEEan, we have some experience with drinking, sleeping and travelling, so we might provide an entertaining guide in choosing the following items for an event.
Booze
At a European event, you might want to bring some of your own booze. What you want is something nice, something original, something strong; essentially, you want the twenty-six-years-aged-single-malt Old Pulteney from Scotland. But you can’t, cause it’s for a European Night, and you’re not from Glasgow or AEGEE-Aberdeen, or just because you couldn’t afford it anyway.
What you need is something affordable, so go to your local liquor store and look for something with a nice taste, preferably something sweet -people like sweet stuff, that’s why obesity is all the rage right now-. Try something original, like something with the taste of cinnamon or chocolate, and avoid most herb-based alcohols, like Jenever or discount Jägermeisters, cause it’s like drinking a field of grass and you’re not a cow… you might be fat because of all the sweet stuff, but you’re not a cow. And remember, if anything else fails, try to get your hands on some homemade Pálinka: it’s so good, you’ll cough your lungs out.
![IMG-20160701-WA0005[1]](http://www.zeus.aegee.org/magazine/wp-content/uploads/IMG-20160701-WA00051-195x195.jpg)
Sleeping bag
Choosing a sleeping bag is simple: all you need to do is buy the regular sized one. It doesn’t matter if you’re too tall or too short for your sleeping bag, cause the great benefit of a regular-sized-sleeping-bag, is that most other people have regular-sized-sleeping-bags and that you can easily zip yours to his or hers for… let’s call it ‘a fifteen minute shared, intimate ‘sleeping’ experience’. Just don’t have one of those in the same room as me, cause… otherwise… see picture:
Travel Tickets
To go to an event is easy, to get there is… well it’s pretty easy nonetheless. However, for a couple of complications and a minimal amount of stress, you can get your travel tickets a lot cheaper. First of all, go online, check all of the airline services and then pick the one you already knew was the cheapest from the start. Better yet, let some poor sod do this for you and book as a group: this way you have time to play Candy Crush.
Seriously though, book tickets in a group: sometimes you get a group discount and everyone pays the same price for their tickets. If you book them one by one, then each next ticket may cost more than that of the previous guy. Furthermore, you can’t always stuff everything in your handbag, but paying extra for an extra large bag is simply not worth the price. If you book tickets in a group, you can pool together for just one extra large bag for the entire group. What you’re then going to do, is to fill it with your own stuff and let somebody else pay for it. #makeamercementsgreatagain
A real way to save money though is to not fly directly to your destination, but ponder different travel options: pool together in a car, or use trains and busses. You’re mostly going to have to fly anyway, but you can save a lot of money by flying to another airport and take a bus or train to your final destination. For example, if you need to go to Vienna, take the aeroplane to Brno and proceed by bus (it might cut your ticket price in half). If you have to go to Chișinău, travel to Bucharest and proceed by train, and, if you have to go to Brussels, just don’t… or bring Kevlar. Seriously, there are so many people with machine guns patrolling the streets of Brussels right now; even Texas thinks it’s too much.
On a final note, bring clothes; light clothes for warm weather, a vest for when it’s cold, a jacket for when it rains… basically, just a suitcase full of jackets when you go to England. In short, pack enough fresh clothes to last the entire event; you don’t want to be the smelly-underwear guy. In short, bring clothing and you can’t go wrong… except at that one party at Agora Bergamo.
Written by Willem Laurentzen, AEGEE-Nijmegen