The thing with bars, pubs and cafes that become regular places is that they can provide that home away from home where nothing ever changes, or only changes slowly, and where – as an additional bonus – you can always put your hat while not having to worry about much of anything else. Unless you know the staff, you don’t really have to clean and even if you have friends working there, it doesn’t go beyond returning the odd glass(es) or helping to wipe away whatever mess you made. Best of all, when you move around and come back, there will always be a sense of familiarity in your ever-changing world. 

In theory at least. In practice, people change, which means that places will change alongside them. Local hangouts can be not unlike bands, different people will come and go, each living their mark, each pushing the place in a different direction. Because that’s another interesting thing with local hangouts, their energy changes with each person that enters and leaves, and what you receive is the sum of all these different essences swirling around in their invisible realms before they land on you, holding you tight in their embrace or threatening to suffocate you with their intensity. The person behind the counter matters, because they can channel that energy and serve it right back where it belongs or best fits, or pass it on – willingly or subconsciously –  to another receiver, who can then do the same. And if you don’t believe in the esoteric, or energies, there’s always the factor of whether the person serving you your beverage will make you feel safe, happy, content or will just make you roll your eyes because they are the one person you really could have done without. That’s not taking into account all the obnoxious drunks which, unavoidable as they are, still become (slightly) more bearable and equally less scary than when you’re a stranger. And for the ladies among us, we can all sing the praises of a great bar tender who helped keep us safe when things threatened to get horribly out of hand. 

For those of us moving around our local hangouts – where we choose to have them  – also mirror the ever changing world we live in, whether by accident or deliberate desire. Just like our lifestyle that we’ve become used to from early childhood onwards, they too can come and go, disappear at a moment’s notice, often without warning. As a child I always knew when we were going back to the States – oftentimes even before my parents decided to go – because there would always be a movie on some airplane catastrophe on TV a few months before. It never failed to deliver. Of the three places that I consider regular hangouts where I am now (meaning I could greet the staff by name, have my friends ask for me by name and leave my stuff at the bar when running a quick errand) one has gone through such changes that it would not be the same were it not for the oldtimers (customers and workers alike) and its location, the second remains constant to this very day, and the third is sadly no more. I stayed away from the first two for a good while, and reclaiming them made a huge difference in how I saw, and continue to see, where I am living now. In other words a more positive attitude and a willingness to give the country I’m in yet another chance. These places – along with some friends here – are the determining factors in my reluctance to burn every bridge that I built from the time that I moved here on my way out, whether that final move will eventually happen or not. 

An old classic which coincides with when I first started going out. Even though I was the only one of my friends who like their music when I first heard the song, the people connected to those I met at that time were souls I bonded with instantly – often over this song and the band in general. Because we all felt that spirit of connection in what the music meant to us, and still does to this day.

Special shoutout to the particular friend who chose the picture while working in one of my two remaining favorite hangouts.