Cheryl on the Web

Those who know me will agree, “clubbing” as a social pastime has never been my thing. Yes, it has to do with the smoke; yes, with the people I don’t know running into/over me; yes, with the noise and style of music played. But most of all, it just isn’t as laid back as the house parties that really were my favorite when I was still in the US. And by house parties, I don’t mean the campus fraternity gatherings or anything like that (let’s be clear on that point!); I mean the people who lived in houses and simply invited other people over.

My first good memory of house parties is from California, in 1999 - just before the Internet hype came crashing down, when I worked in Silicon Valley amidst the craziness that was then the top of the world - and that probably never will happen in the same way again. There were some colleagues of mine who shared a big apartment, and they would invite people over to eat tortilla chips with homemade guacamole and then put on some catchy music and do things like try installing Linux on a Mac. There was a lot of banter, a whole lot of space to relax and be yourself - and they had some great couches. That’s what I call a party.

Also in Ohio, there were always people throwing parties at their places. I think I saw the inside of maybe 2 clubs in my entire university years, but I was in more houses than I can remember to count. Same thing even when I was interning as a consultant, I remember some great parties people threw, one in a flat that used to be a floor in an old warehouse, lots of other times with people just cooking huge amounts of food and inviting everyone to their home for dinner.

Even in the small town where I grew up, there were great Super Bowl parties and New Year’s parties and church parties in people’s houses. I have lots of great memories in the houses of so many people (including of course my parents’ house, they threw their fair share of parties too).

Here in Europe, there are not - or much more rarely - house parties like I used to enjoy. I’d say one of the biggest reasons is that you simply don’t find a bunch of people sharing rent on a huge house, or living at a young age in a big house - it’s not affordable here like in the US. And having parties in apartments is difficult; you have to worry about your neighbors not appreciating the noise, and you don’t really have enough space to achieve the feeling of a real house party. And somehow just not even having enough space in the fridge or in the house to even store the party supplies - and in some cases not even having a car to go get the supplies - is disheartening.

There aren’t many things I miss about the US now that I’m so wonderfully integrated here - but houses, they’re still on my list.