Pub

Pub culture in the UK (which you can read about here) is fascinating to observe. It is so very different from how we socialize back home - at least in my part of the motherland. If you told me when I was getting ready to leave three months ago that a good night out in Reading would consist of sitting around a pub table nursing a pint of something brewed (cider is my drink of choice) for several hours with people I didn't know well - and that was it - I would've thought that I needed to show these kids a thing or two about having fun! But in reality I've learned a thing or two myself.

Things here aren't as slick and easy as they are at home. I've yet to be in a house with a tumble dryer, and many more people have cars at home than they do here. Yes, there are dance clubs, theater, live music, movies and lots of other amusements, but I think (generally speaking, of course) people here prefer simplicity to making things "easier" or more "convenient", and as a result I think people here tend to participate in life in a way we don't really do at home. People would rather walk or ride a bike to work because they can enjoy the outdoors more. People here grocery shop more frequently because food is less preserved than it is back home, and though it doesn't last as long, it tastes better. Even houses tend to be smaller, rooms in houses tend to be smaller and certainly back yards (they call them "back gardens" here) in general are smaller as well. Something many Americans have yet to learn is the perspective I've noticed in England: spacious homes and gardens are well and good, but not necessary to be content.

Observing this pub culture, I'm finding there is something really settling about having no "plan" for the evening other than just to be, and to do it together. My first Friday night here I went to the pub with my buddy Pete and spent the entire evening (at least three hours, but I think more) in an old leather-seated booth with three other guys that have been meeting up for Friday night drinks with Pete for about ten years.

I think the thing that surprised me the most was how contrary to the (rather unfair) stereotype of English emotional disconnection this whole way of life is. This is much more relational than many of my fellow Americans ever get. It's sharing all of life, but just doing it one pint at a time. I think the closest thing we may have is the neighborhood coffee shop, but somehow it doesn't seem the same to me. In the case of my buddy Pete and his mates, and with many others over here, they have had all kinds of life conversations in that little local pub. The conversations I've been a part of the couple of times I've joined them have touched on anything from work to trivia to relationships to food snobbery to American culture, and many other things. One could maintain a certain superficiality for a while, but you couldn't keep it up forever. With a lifestyle like this eventually people become very much connected for a very long time, and all by simple proximity.

Renee, Kathleen and I would often meet up at the Rose & Thistle back home, but we already have nearly a decade of friendship between us. The point was getting together somewhere for dinner with good fish and chips and outdoor patio seating in the summer, not just being there because it's the local pub and that's where our worlds meet up. What if I were still in Portland and just started being at the Rose & Thistle every Friday night, hanging out with my pint of Strongbow and waiting to see who turned up to join me?

So I've gone for it now and decided to adopt the English pub tradition, and I hope this simple form of community stays a part of my life forever. When the day comes that I go back Portland I will let you know which fine establishment I decide to make my "local" and you will all be invited to join me every Friday night.