Well done, DKE.

The Tour de Franzia (because “classy people need classy drinks”) occurred this Friday night at the DKE house. The brothers of Delta Kappa Epsilon reside in a little compound behind Payne Whitney. (Odd, given I had always imagined that the world just sort of ended somewhere behind the blue tarp covering the gym.) I had heard horror stories from my friends of the sticky floors, lost coats, nudity and bad music that would await me at the house, but never, NEVER, did I expect what I found Friday night.

I will admit, I missed the actual “Franzia” part of the evening. I had been looking forward to it but somehow ended up spending more time than I had anticipated at a soiree hosted by the News (it was cruise-ship themed, y’all shoulda been there), and got dragged to a Latin American Students Organization party with my Venezuelan friend (a.k.a “VZ”) where we heard what seemed to be the same reggaeton song over and over again for an hour. But they did have sangria, which is always a plus.

By the time I got to DKE, the party had deteriorated into Grindfest 2009. I was with some of my international friends (this always happens to me): VZ, France, and VZ’s friend from high school, Germany. (Disclaimer: part of the reason we decided to go to DKE in the first place was to show Germany what a typical frat party at Yale was like.) We walked in to the house after braving a five-mile trek across the icy tundra — uphill, in a snowstorm — and were confronted by these two HUGE guys in nothing but spandex sliders standing in the doorway. Oh my. We squeezed by them and saw a pile of coats in the doorway at which point VZ announced, “No we are NOT putting our stuff there.” Even though it was like a million degrees inside. Things were going to get hot and sweaty fast.

Still wearing our many layers, we walked into the first room. I think there was a pool table there, but I couldn’t really tell because there were so many people wiggling around in their spandex gear. Two girls were dancing on top of the table in sports bras and shiny leotards; some guy from across the room shouted, “Make out with her!” and the girls just giggled and shook their groove thangs harder (better, faster, stronger … ). “Where am I?” I thought to myself. “This is just too perfect. Stuff like this doesn’t happen in real life.” Oh how wrong I had been. Yay for college.

We made our way into the next room. The bar against the far wall was supporting the weight of three extremely large and shirtless DKE brothers. Germany whispered in my ear in her awesome accent, “Now they really should not be wearing that.” Agreed, Germany. Agreed.

We finally found a safe/clean place for our coats. “Disturbia,” a personal dance party fave, was playing over the speakers, but just as we stepped on to the dance floor, the music stopped. (No, it had nothing to do with us. It was just a coincidence, I swear.) Then, someone started chanting: USA, USA, USA. A rumbling mantra, slow but quickly gathering speed, getting louder and louder until …

“Oh beautiful for spacious skies for amber waves of grain!”

They had begun to sing “America the Beautiful.” I turned to VZ, France and Germany, all of whom were looking at me expectantly. “Yes, I do know the words to this song,” I admitted.

Like I said, well done, DKE.