A Night at the Hop Garage Bar
Thursday, April 10th
3:59 p.m. In a shocking and unprecedented twist of fate, I somehow started and finished my work earlier than midnight of the day before it was due. I decide to spend my wide-open night at the Hop Garage Bar, the new (and alternative) Dartmouth social space. My friends have said only good things about the past two Thursdays – dark ’n’ stormy night and wine tasting night. I am a little more skeptical about this week’s BarHop with beer and cider — mostly because it sounds far less exotic. But what else is there to do on a Thursday night in Hanover that doesn’t involve Baker-Berry?
4:00 p.m. - 8:30 p.m. I proceed to waste time for the rest of the afternoon and evening.
8:30-9:00 p.m. I shower and look through my wardrobe (note: my floor and the foot of my bed) to find a “Hop Garage-appropriate” outfit. However, I know next to nothing about the weekly-shifting scene and I generally dress like every other Dartmouth girl so I end up in jeans, boots and some sort of top. I throw on a cardigan to give my ensemble a leg up over a frat outfit.
9:13 p.m. I enter the Hop. First impression – “going out” in the same building where I ate lunch feels a little weird.
9:17 p.m. I enter the mysterious semi-opaque doors opposite the Courtyard Café, out of which Dance Dance Revolution soundtrack music is blasting.
9:20-9:35 p.m. I stand around with a friend of mine in a relatively empty room while two people play DDR and a group of soccer players plays cards at a table. I decide to get a drink. I approach the bar and — sorry, ’17s, ’16s and my ’15 Dartbeat editor who is not legal — it is glorious. I was not expecting Keystone, but perhaps kegs of Switchback and Woodchuck. Instead, the spread that faces me looks like a tour of the back aisle of Stinson’s. There are at least 10 different types of beers, five different cider varieties and everything is on the College’s bill. With my Angry Orchard “Crisp Apple” in hand, things are looking up.
9:35-11:00 p.m. People continue to flow into the Hop Garage space, and I bump into friends from all walks of campus. I migrate from the DDR room to the next room over – the FIFA room. I do not know anything about FIFA, and if I’m being honest the projection of practically life-sized animated soccer players is a little freaky. But the music in this room is better and there is another bar! What is this magical land of free cider?
I mingle between groups of friends, sipping on my Angry Orchard and enjoying the pop hits blasting through the room. At one point there is beer spilled on my arm, but it is due to my lack of spatial awareness and not from a pong game gone wild so I let it slide. Everyone seems to be enjoying BarHop as they let off steam on this, as a friend dubbed it, “thirsty Thursday.”
11:00-11:30 p.m. I reach the limit of my daily social interaction capacity and decide that it is time to call it a night. When trying to enter the first room where I left my jacket, I am turned away because the room is at its awkwardly small capacity. The population constraints are perhaps the most annoying thing about the Hop Garage space but my brief indignation dissipates when I exit and am faced with the Courtyard Café. Obviously I want (need) a breakfast bomb, and I don’t even have to walk anywhere to get it! As I consume the eggy, cheesy goodness with the Hop Garage music blasting in the background, I reflect on a successful night out on campus.