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CLUB TROPICANA, MYKONOS, GREECE

July, 2016

There are two sides to every party island. Mykonos is no different. The clubs that line Paradise beach, on the south side of the island, are a magnet for teenagers set free from exams and parents. This is Club Tropicana at midnight - the start of the night for most - but late enough for the drugs and alcohol to have taken a toll. Swamped by hundreds of teens from around the world, the club's security seemed overwhelmed. Drunk, angry kids screamed at the woman trying to organise the shuttle bus to the next club. "This is why Greece is in the state it's in," yelled a German teen in a baseball cap when told he would have to wait an hour for a ride. 


The girl in the gold bikini was clutching a bottle of water to a badly bruised eye. She said she'd been assaulted and had her bag containing her passport and cash stolen inside the club. I asked her if I could take her to the police, but she was already incoherent and ran off into the night. Elsewhere tearful girls consoled their puking boyfriends and a messy fist fight erupted briefly then dissipated.


I managed to get inside the club by telling the doorman I was looking for my daughter. He was uninterested and waved me inside. A London DJ was yelling at the crowd over a hip hop track about girls with their "ass up and face down". "Mykonos," exhorted the DJ. "Make some noise."


Kids were dancing on tables, on the bar. New relationships were being consumated in the darkness of the beach. The scariest thing: the sight of trashed 18-year-olds mounting their rented ATVs (Quad bikes) and screaming off into the night down an unlit road.

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