I was at a friend’s birthday party last night.

Birthday Boy, another guy and I were having this conversation on beer, university life and life in general.

But more specifically on beer.

Birthday Boy was talking about how the bar at his university has a deal with Grolsch Brewery since the brewery was in his university town. Birthday Boy said that when he was there, beer cost 0.70 euros and when he left, the price was raised 0.75 euros.

0.70 euros

0.70 euros

That’s about AUS$1.00 or S$1.20.

AUS$1.00 for a pint of beer!

It’s stuff like this that makes me want to fly to the Netherlands. Ironically, Birthday Boy is doing the exact opposite, he doesn’t want to go back.

Anyway, back to beer. As I was pulling my lower jaw from the floor, Birthday Boy was talking about how he drank the beer throughout his university life and how all the the university students kept buying round after round because it was so cheap. Then the conversation slowly moved onto the topic of girls.

Birthday Boy: “The thing about having cheap beer is that the girls drink a lot too. And the more they drink, they become more…” (stretches out his hands across his body).

I saw his gesture and nodded knowingly. “Ah, they become more open.”

Birthday Boy: (Grimaces) “Well… I don’t actually mean that. They become more….” (stretches out his hands further).

At this point, I was wondering what exactly did he meant. Then, everything fell into place. “Oh… you mean… damn… the calories….”

Birthday Boy: “Yeah.”

No wonder the poor guy wants to escape the Netherlands.