The Friday Debacle

Often times, it feels like we are always on the move here. There doesn't seem to be much time to make plans between things previously planned, and although keeping busy is not necessarily bad practice, it can become exhausting.
After a few weeks here, I have begun to actually cherish my time before bed to watch something stupid on Netflix, or write, or just lay around my room not doing much at all, in the same way that I looked forward to this time in Chicago. At first, it seemed like I wasn't doing enough. Every day I had big plans to go out and do something new and exciting. It's fun to have those plans, and to do them, but I can also be fucking exhausting. Between class and group excursions, I rarely let myself enjoy those quiet moments. I felt restless. I felt like I was wasting my finite amount of time here.

Last Friday after our excursion to the Louvre (always a tiring trip in my experience thus far), I was tired and hungry and totally useless. There is this bar right next to my apartment. Literally about 87 steps away from my door. I go there all the time, because it is convenient… and because they have pints of Paulaner for 4.5 euros. This is the bar I go to when those big plans I make fall through because I'm too tired to travel across town for a beer somewhere else. Sometimes I feel guilty for going there when I know I could try somewhere new. Sometimes it's just nice to know that the only other people who go there are three old men that gamble jovially with the owner, Gilles, and that when I walk in I barely have to order my beer and don't have to think about where to sit because I always sit in the same booth. I suppose I am a creature of habit.

However, last Friday when I went in to the bar, they were playing loud music and the disco ball was on   even though it was just the same three men and one woman in the bar (her name is Alex and I found out she co-owns it with Gilles). Everyone was dancing. I was sitting outside and halfway through my first beer, Alex came out and brought my backpack inside, brought my beer inside, brought me inside, and we all danced for a good hour. I talked to everyone and they bought me a beer even though I went in thinking I would only get a quick one while deciding on what else I was going to do that night.

I suppose that this experience reminded me that sometimes it's better to be a regular rather than going out of my way to grab a beer two metro transfers away from me. Sometimes getting to know a city means really getting to know one neighborhood, one bar, or one person too.