Amalia van Anhaltstraat is where you find Huize Anno 1826, while Gestelsestraat is home to Huize de Bron. Together, these two student homes offer 17 rooms to members of the illustrious Quare fraternity. It makes sense for the barbecue to be held at Anno, as it has a garden (as opposed to its counterpart on Gestelsestraat). This evening, it’s particularly nice that this garden is partly covered, as the rain that starts out as a slow drip soon turns into a torrential downpour.

Anno has more traditions (many) than living rooms (none). The latter isn’t such a problem, as six of the student rooms are so big they have sitting areas. As the bonds between the house mates are very strong, they have developed the habit of chilling in each other’s rooms. “There’s always something going on here,” says Theije Bernaards, who has lived here for two years now (and loves it). For the moment he’s still in one of the two small rooms, but one day he’ll advance to a bigger one. The fraternity even has a ‘transfer house’ for guys who after a certain number of years decide to give priority to their studies over their student life, and can then move to a quieter house.

Traditions

On New-Year’s Day, the Quare guys can invariably be found (very briefly) in the North Sea and they also go on a sailing weekend in Friesland every year. They celebrate carnival together and abide by special house rules.

Whoever forgets their room key and proceeds to ring the doorbell, first has to chug a beer before they’re let in. It’s possible this tradition will disappear one day, because it requires a plastic straw. This makes sure air can enter the beer bottle, so the beer can get out quickly (in one gulp). Two fraternity members demonstrate it for us on the spot and, indeed, they drain the beer in less than three seconds. Which means you can get in quickly if you’re without key…

Another rule: Anno inhabitants don’t get their blue Bokma ties (a blue tie with the logo of the Bokma distilling company) until they’ve completed the final assignment of the introduction period: make dinner for everyone in the house and improvise a good speech using three special words they’re given moments before.