Howl at the Moon: Being a legal senior

Now that I’ve turned 21, I can go out every weekend and enjoy lots of bars and entertainment! Or so I thought on my birthday. However, as most of you know all too well, I sadly still have tons of classwork and studying to do. Plus, I’m basically broke. So would I love to go and see live shows and explore great bars and restaurants every weekend? Absolutely! Do I have the time and money? No, not really.

This past weekend, I finally got out. I escaped from campus via the JHMI, snuck downtown on the free Charm City Circulator and slunk into Howl at the Moon, a chain bar at the Power Plant. I will admit that the crowd at Howl is generally older than your average college kids, so my friends and I were definitely the youngest people there. My friend had won a package deal to get his first couple drinks free and our first couple drinks cheap. Hint: this deal, which you can enter every time you go, is incredibly easy to win.

The point of this deal, of course, is that once you’ve been lured in by cheap drinks and talented musical covers of pop music and you’re having a great time singing and dancing along, you then see all these people walking around with enormous buckets of colorful alcohol with straws. There’s also a waitress with jello shots in big, plastic syringes and, before you know it, you’ve spent your entire grocery budget.

But take heart! Occasionally you can get free buckets. My friend earned one in a dance contest once, and another night, some very friendly ladies at the table next to us gave us their extras after ordering with eyes too big for their stomach. Or perhaps it was because they wanted to live vicariously through the college students eagerly gulping down a bucket of a sugary, alcoholic concoction through bendy straws.

That being said, I honestly had a wonderful time. I was out with my friends and away from the stress of school and responsibilities. The best part was that I didn’t have to worry about looking hot, dancing well or living up to anyone’s expectations besides my own. I sang along loudly and danced a bit to great, live music with my friends that have been with me since freshman year. I drank obscenely colorful drinks in strangely shaped cups. I had fun.

Going to Howl at the Moon on my rare free weekend is not where I thought would be as a senior in college. I pictured myself exploring hipster bands and frequenting eccentric bars. I thought I would become a connoisseur of different kinds of wines and beers, and I assumed I would have more freedom than ever before.

While in a lot of ways I do have an amazing kind of freedom here at Hopkins, for which I am very grateful, I now understand that 20-something stress. Life is a lot more stressful and busy than I could have ever imagined. But I have to say that despite the crowd and cheesy atmosphere of it all, I had a great time at Howl, and I didn’t have to worry about stress or judgment.

As a legal senior, I have the freedom to enjoy all the cool bars and entertainment that Baltimore has to offer. I’ve just also realized that Hopkins and Baltimore have a lot more to offer than bars, and I have a lot more I want.