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November 15, 2005
Bar Crawl Pt 1
"Hey. Do you wanna bar hop?"
"What?"
"Pub crawl. Whatever. Like, go to a bunch of bars?"
"Where? You wanna go to Twins?" Twins was the name of the biggest bar on the island. It was basically a cave caved into a hillside. It was always hot and the air sticky with what you could tell from the smell was perspiration. It was owned by a couple midgets, twins naturally, that made some money in the US and then went back to the island to fulfill their dream of owning a club with a Michael Jackson poster in every room.
"No. That place sucks." It did. Sure, I regularly got drunk enough to forget how much I spent on drinks but I never woke up with more than $20 fewer than I went out with.
"Where do you want to go then?" My friend Kasey asked.
"Let's go to all the bars on your street. There's a bunch of them."
"Yeah, but they're all full of old men."
"So. We'll be drunk after just a couple. Besides there's that club at the bottom of the hill -- on the square."
"Have you ever been there? How is it?"
"I went down there once with this one Portugese girl. It's basically year olds getting drunk and making out. But we can just walk back here when we're done."
"Ok, let's do it" she relented.
"Let's drink a bottle of that green wine first. We don't know how many bars there are. Better safe than sorry, right?"
So we split a bottle of wine and then headed off to the old man bars on main street of the village. At the first one the bartender inquired in his best broken English as to what we were doing in his bar. He did it in a friendly, curious tone. "We're hitting every bar on the street. You're the first one."
The bartender smiled and nodded. He laughed a little and acted like he knew what we we said to him. I think all he caught was where I said "the first one" because he started repeating "first bar" over and over as he turned and went into the back room. When he emerged again he had finally stopped. He was carrying a bowl of something.
The bartender held the bowl out to us like he was offering it to us and said, "First bar. OK. From me. Octopus in own juice."
A younger guy at one of the tables said, "Ink. Octopus in its own ink."
The two spoke in Portugese for a minute before the younger one said, "He wants you to take some octopus as a welcome gift. You know, to thank you for soming to his bar. It's not very good though. I think he might just be trying to get rid of it."
The bartender smiled and nodded. He motioned toward me with the bowl.
"Ok" I said as I grabbed a fork and stuck a couple pieces.
"You, please" He motioned toward Kasey. "No thanks, I just ate." She replied.
"Let's go before he tries to give any more of that stuff." She whispered to me.
"It wasn't that bad. Besides it was free."
"Come on."
We said our good byes and explained that we had a one drink max at each bar before heading to the next place. It was three doors down. "Did you know about this place?"
"No. I guess I never noticed."
"It's your neighborhood."
"I never go to these places."
"It better not be like this all the way, we'll never even make it to the bottom of the hill."
"Well, let's go."
We walked into what looked like an ice cream stand. An ice cream stand that sold liquor. But having no idea what it was exactly and having vowed to each other we'd hit every bar on the way down the hill we felt obliged to stop. Besides I had to pee already. Sure it was early, and we just started, but I had to go.
Apparently I was a little better off than Kasey. When I came out of the bathroom she was making out with the bartender already. "He said the drinks are on him."
"Awesome. Give me a glass of red wine."
"What kind?" he asked.
"The cheaper the better." My cheap assedness from the States carried over to the island even though even the most expensive of drinks was less than $3.
"I have just the stuff for you" He said as he pulled out a 5 liter jug of wine. "This is what the farmers drink in the morning."
I was on a high when we got to the next bar. It was smoky, about to close and full of old handicapped men playing cards, but I had a feeling I'd get something cheap if I only just asked. Indeed.
Well, after I asked the second time.
The first time the owner didn't understand me and had to run upstairs to get his daughter to come down and translate.
"What would you like to have?"
"The cheapest red wine you have."
"A whole bottle?"
"No. Just one glass. I'm trying not to spend too much money."
"We only sell it by the bottle. For the old men - drunks. Nobody wants a glass. We can't sell it that way."
"OK. Umm. Give me a glass of the cheapest wine you can give me a glass of."
"Here. Take this. It's free. There is less than a glass. And this. Here. This one too. You can finish them."
She handed me three bottles. Each had half a glass or so and I slammed each one.
Kasey was done with her drink already and must not have been too comfortable; she wasn't making out with anybody. "Let's go" she said.
We hit about a half dozen other bars on the way down the street, naming every one of them as we went. The Cripple Bar (The last one). The Coffee Bar (coffee with whiskey), The Cow Bar (some liquor made of fermented milk), The Old Man Bar (more wine), etc.
Finally we got down to the last bar, At the door they handed us pieces of paper and said, "Keep this until you leave."
Posted by calculatoronfire at November 15, 2005 12:26 AM
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Posted by: dvmk at November 18, 2005 12:37 AM