It is always important to know how to negotiate in life. You never know when this might come in handy, especially when studying abroad and living in a dorm.

Negotiations started when one of the exchange students who was living in the dorm announced last minute that his birthday was the next day. We, as exchange students, stuck together, as in Hungary they stuck all foreigners together on one floor.

One half of the floor was foreigners, the other half Hungarians. For the most part all of us who lived on the floor got along well, but being exchange students in Hungary and living in what we consider not to be “Western conditions,” we found creative ways to keep us busy and often in trouble.

A French-American guy (whom we will call Seb) walked into my dorm room stating that he needed my help. He said that on the phone was a stripper that he wanted to perform for his Finnish friend Miko’s birthday. The only problem Seb said was that the Stripper speaks better German than English and he needed my language skills.

Before you knew it, I was on the phone talking her down from 30,000 Hungarian forints (approximately $175) to 25,000 forints ($146). She, being a chief negotiator on this topic, would not drop down from 30,000 (although according to Seb, she previously agreed to 25,000). She brought up the fact that she would have to travel quite far, and she also needed a babysitter to watch her twins.

We tried to talk her down with the price, (with my German and Seb’s English) but needless to say she kept firm and would not budge. Seb at one point looked at me and said that perhaps we should cancel the B-day party stripper, but rumors had already gone around about her grand cameo appearance. I told him that if we cancel now, everyone (girls included) would be disappointed. “Don’t worry,” I said. “We have about 30 people coming to ‘see the show’ and if everyone chips in 1,000 forints ($6) we will have it covered.”

We both knew that the stripper, “was screwing us over” but anticipation in the group was running high. Most of us, including myself, had never seen such a show, and being in a foreign country the curiosity was even more present.

The first problem that presented itself was how are we going to get her into the dorms? I had it covered because I was friends with doorman. When living in the dorms, one should always be very friendly with the doorman. This allows you to sneak people in after hours.

The key to this is giving the doorman free beer. I don’t know how many times the eyes have “looked the other way” because of the voluntary beer payment policy.

So as Seb and I were escorting her up to the 4th floor, I asked her if she needed anything special. She said she needed a room to change in. A room to change in, I thought? What does she really need to change for? I thought the whole point was to take things off, but not to change things. I told her sure, she can use my room to get ready. So she handed me a CD and took two minutes to get ready in my room.

While the boys were blindfolding Miko, the stripper and I were just looking at each other. This was the point where I felt like I needed to say something to her, but what is the appropriate small talk to make with a stripper?

“So, you said on the phone you have twins?”

“Yes, I have two boys, who are five. Stripping allows me to stay at home with the boys during the day, and I really like what I do and the money is great. I often go to Germany to strip, because I can make more money than I do in Hungary.”

There was dead silence on my part. I had often heard of college girls who do this, or people who need money for illegal substances, but this? Well, I thought, she said and looks like she really loves her job.

Soon the music started and the b-day boy Miko was really, really excited. Everyone on the floor was watching, and with all the screams and hollers I was sure that the police would be called once again (The police were regulars on our floor).

Everyone had a good time especially Miko. Whipped Cream was used, but what was most interesting is that this stripper let Miko lick it from her body. Miko was so drunk that after the show he was running after her with his pants down at the ankles. The spectators were laughing at this fully grand evening.

Seb summed it up the best way I know how: “Living in the dorms is great, and the 30,000 forints was the best thing we could spend our money on.”

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