A Wild Weekend (well, at least for me:)

This weekend I hung out with Josh, Julio, and a couple other people they knew. On Friday night, I went to what could probably be called a stereotypical party. Ten or twelve of us ended up chilling at someone's apartment where the main activity was ingesting alcoholic beverages and the goal of at least some of those present was to get wasted. This however, was not my goal, so I limited my intake and watched events unfold. In retrospect, I don't think it was a bad thing for me to do. I had a good conversation with a guy from Kenya, discovered that I don't like cheap red wine (at all), strengthened a few relationships, and had some fun while I was at it.

Saturday night Josh, Julio (a cool guy on our floor), and Jon (a cool guy in our building), went to see two independent band play at a bar. I didn't drink anything stronger than water in part because things were expensive and in part because I just didn't feel like it, so I drove home :D. This night I had a really in-depth conversation with Jon that started because he has been to Africa and I am hoping to go next summer.

If due to some freakish event in the time-space continuum I run into the 19 or 20 year old me. the younger version of me will react "you did WHAT? Bars and parties are bad places to go. People get drunk there." But now I'm realizing that there really isn't anything wrong about going into a bar or to a party (now that I'm legal). This is what my friends here do for fun. If I refuse to enter a bar on moral grounds, that damages our relationship. And if I go and drink responsibly and "be good" it strengthens our friendships and I even have a bit of fun. Its an environment that I'll never fully embrace or seek out, but if that's what my friends do... Paul said to be all things to all people, and if I'm afraid to reach out to people in their own environment I'm not doing much good. The people I met and hung out with are pretty cool people. Even if I don't like drinking as much as they do I can have fun with them, I can learn from their different perspective on life, and I can show Christ to them.