The Tripod

Issue date: 10/3/06 Section: Features

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Upon walking into the party, the smell of sunless tanner and beer hits me. I see a girl, apparently having submitted to complete intoxication, being carried out by two of her friends, and shorts, skirts and tank tops everywhere, despite the freezing temperature. Suddenly I hear a girl scream, "Seven girls on the wall at all times!" I turn around to see a fellow party-goer had toppled off the wall she had been dancing on, causing her to break her sorority sisters' mandate of seven pledges on the wall. She quickly scrambled back up and continued dancing as though nothing had happened. Whether or not you believe that Tropical was ranked one of the top college parties in the early 1990s by the prestigious Playboy Magazine, it's easy to see where the rumor would have originated.

Tropical is an annual party thrown by the brothers of the Psi Upsilon fraternity, or Psi U. Because of the cold temperatures and the tropical attire requirement, intoxication is a student's only hope to stay warm, but students have to be 21 in order to get a drink, so many students try to get drunk enough for an entire night of partying in a single pregame. This leads to complete chaos. Students jumped onstage to grind with the DJs, and the pool was never without screaming students intoxicated enough to find swimming in cold temperatures to be a good idea. "At the high point of the party, there are close to 1000 individuals on our property," said Psi U president, Alex Knote '07.

But the drunken madness is not what makes this party worth the 15 dollar entrance fee. Sand covered the entire backyard of the Psi U house, and a huge hole had been dug into the ground to create a pool. A lifeguard sits atop a recently placed chair overseeing the mass of swimming students. A DJ had been hired to get the students dancing, and a dance floor (covered in sand of course) with a tent over it holds the hoards of students not old enough to drink and thus not old enough to hang out on the patio.

Because of a new Connecticut law regarding underage drinking on private property, the Psi U brothers set up a kind of "beer garden" on their patio, which separated students 21 and over from underage students, and required a blue wristband to get into. Although this separation was mandatory, many students felt it created a division in the partygoers that hadn't been there before.

"Tropical was fun, but I didn't think it would have the 21 and over section. I think the section isolated people, because there were the people in that section, and then there was everyone else on the dance floor," said Quentin Reynolds '10. Steven Vallimarescu '09 didn't like it for other reasons and found it not worth the entrance fee. "It was crowded, overpriced, and cold," he said.

But what's so great about Tropical is that it brings a lot of the Trinity community together, even though that may only include students who enjoy the Greek life. It even attracts students from other schools. Although some students disagree, the general opinion by partygoers was that Tropical was a success.

Annie Fazio '09 agreed, "This year's Tropical lived up to the hype yet again. It was great seeing the whole community get dressed up and have so much fun together. The guys did an amazing job of decorating, with all of the sand and making the pool that so many people ended up in. I loved it and can't wait for next year!" Neither can the rest of the Trin campus.

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