The importance of the local bar



I’m going to write this, with 6 beers on me, before I go to sleep. Today is Friday, “ thanks God” . After a busy week –as always- I was ready to take my nap. At 4 I left school, and I stopped at the local hairdresser, West Hair Salon. Dennis, the owner, made a year on business there, and he wanted to say “ thanks”  to their customers. I am not a client, as I only cut my hair at “Box”, in Spain, but still, with free booze and free hamburgers, I passed by.

After that, I was ready for my nap. But passing by “ The Boxing Cat”, a colleague inside shouted my name. So I joined him for a couple of beers. It was the first time after a year that I stepped in “The Boxing Cat”. The reason… let’s say that we had different opinions with the brew master there, during the final of the Olympic games, in basketball. That was last August 24, 2008. After more that one year, I felt good coming back.

Then, I crossed the street to the local bar, “ The Monk”. There, there was Ralph, the owner, Bennie, the bartender, teachers from the rugby team, I met some other girls from the British school… and finally, at 10 p.m., I went home. And I loved it.

I love the fact that, in the less than the 1.500 meters that separates my home door from my class door, you are able to spend 6 hours on a Friday “walking” home, talking to friends.

In Gasteiz, I have many bars where I can go alone, and have some drinks just talking to my “taberneros” friends: Txustarra, Gines, Bodegon Andagoya, Hamburgueseria “Aran”, …

Even being comfortable with the language, as it is the case in English, I totally feel that I have two personalities, one in the English speaking world, one at home, in my native language.

I don’t like much going downtown, because I don’t have fun trying to understand what friends say in English with a lot of noise, but this local bar, where you know most of the people by their name, take me home for a little while.

Does it make sense? It does to me, I know what I am saying ;-) I am 6 hours behind my nap, so… time to catch up! ;-) G’ nite y’all!

1 comentario

[Cabo - 28 de agosto de 2009 - 17:44]

Amen, Castro. I got the chills for almost a year when they closed my neighborhood bar, Herman’s, two years ago. They had not changed the decoration in probably 50 years, and eating anything there was akin to jumping into Niagara Falls in a barrel. But it was one of the very few places where I could go on my own, knowing that I would know somebody there and, in spite of being a safe place (we only had a case there, and the body was not found inside, but at the parking lot), where there was no chance of stepping into any of my undergrad students. They reopened under new management a few months ago, now as a scooters bar. I am probably the only one not riding a Harley there, but the old familiarity is coming back…