Viking Raid

Really fun night last night: Viking Raid. That's a bit of a misnomer, I'll admit - it's more of a crawl. Without any Vikings. But a great deal of alcohol, which I'm pretty sure is historically accurate.

Everyone got their t-shirts earlier on in the day (there was, originally, a choice between a pleasant, albeit baby, blue and garish, shocking orange. Guess which was the only one they had left when I went there?), and then headed over to Derwent to get a couple of bendy buses into town (pictured right). I really love the bendy buses in York. They're purple. 'Nuff said.

With the routes printed on our backs (horribly impractical - they should have been upside down on our fronts), we set off into the big wide world in search of bars. And bars we found. I realise this is a bit of an alcohol-heavy post, but it was all in good fun. The route consisted of the Punch Bowl (a Wetherspoons), Montey's (a cocktail bar), BPM (which was closed when we first turned up), Flares (where they play ABBA and Blondie all night - bloody brilliant), Varsity (which was overpriced), Vodka Revolution (which we skipped because it was even more overpriced), the Slug and Lettuce, Lowthers and eventually Gallery.

We went to the Punch Bowl; it was packed, so we stayed for one drink and then headed off. We skipped Montey's for the same reason (and because it smelled like cabbage), and headed straight on to BPM. It was shut, so we continued to Flares. Fourth bar on the crawl, and we were there by 8:30. Admittedly, though, we did go back to BPM later on, which was quite pleasant - assuming you like the mingled smells of vomit and industrial-grade detergent.

I won't go into much more detail, as detailed accounts of drunken escapades can never lead to anything good, but suffice it to say we ended up having a really fun night. We did skip the penultimate two bars in favour of heading to Willow, which we'd heard good things about. It was exactly as it had been sold: a Chinese restaurant that changes to a nightclub and offers free prawn crackers all night. Also, completely empty. It was rather brilliant.

In short, although the name was misleading and the bars overcrowded, we had a really fun night. And a nice, long sleep afterwards. Just so glad I don't have a 9:15 this morning.