I don’t drink very much.  It’s a not-so-common thing to find for someone college-aged, but it has never really been a problem for me.  While abroad, though, part of me certainly felt like I was missing out on a lot.

Alcohol is at the center of so many cultures and is around whenever people get together.  Tapas are an integral part of the Spanish culture, whereby you go out for drinks and nibble on shared platters of really good food.  Often, you can only get the tapa if you order a drink. In Germany, the beirgartens are chock-full of cheery people clinking glass steins over long wooden tables.  My cousin referred to the pubs in London as her living room while she was an au pair because they were the only place she could watch TV and chat with people her own age.  No matter what city I was in the nightlife was buzzing with young people going bar or club hopping.

Of course, we Americans have our own festivities where drinking is a big part of the entertainment.  I have grownup with these traditions and know the difference between “responsible” and “reckless” drinking firsthand.  Sometimes it’s awkward to turn down a drink in the US, but I at least can tell myself the lame excuse that it’s illegal and also not a good addition to my already overflowing list of health concerns.  There are smokey rooms with music or TVs blasting and the crowd roaring, fighting for sound waves with the band so that every other word is a “What?”  Or the even less classy fraternity party on campus in the dank corridors of a house where your shoes stick to the beer and vomit stained floors in corridors packed with drunk people doing stupid stuff or playing beer pong.  Nope, not interested in meeting people that way.

But abroad, I had trouble telling myself that I just wasn’t interested like I do here.  You meet someone you want to get to know more about and the logical place to go is to the bar.  At the Nigel Kennedy concert, I kept thinking how amazing it would be to go have a drink with him and see who he really is outside his aura of fame (quite a surprising thought for me).  Every town I visited I wanted to get to know the locals–the essence of any place–and where is a more likely place to find them to chat for a few hours than the small-town bars?  You’d never have to plan a trip again; just go right to the source.

The relaxed, friendly atmosphere of a pub brings out all those hidden thoughts.  Oh the things I could have learned about the people and places I visited in the bars.  Conversations flow and time flies.  Hearty outbursts of laughs and chinking glasses slip out the doors.  It’s a whole new world back there, but those doors were closed and locked by me.