I've always prided myself on a commitment to proper bar etiquette in Britain. I think most people understand the unwritten rules, the bar staff try to apply them when it's not so busy as to be impossible, and there's a general appreciation from your fellow drinkers when you follow said rules. You all know what I mean - don't, when and if asked 'who's next?', call your order ahead of somebody who got there first. I always make a point, if I'm served out of turn, of checking that whoever's ahead of me is already being served or letting them go first. All civilised people agree that this is one of the great features of pub culture and anybody who ignores those rules, boorishly shouting their order as soon as the staff catch their eye, can suffer what in Britain are pretty serious consequences - a hard stare, a disapproving sigh, the shaken heads of the gazumped drinkers. In extreme cases some people may even go as far as politely pointing out to the barman/maid that they were first.
Let me tell you that none of that applies here. Finding it difficult to shake off these old habits, I've found myself standing waiting quietly while others, arriving after me, are served, before eventually the server realises I want a drink and comes to serve me. The reason they don't even realise at first is because I'm not following the unwritten rules of ordering a beer here, which seem to be to be as follows:
Pretty much wherever you are in the bar*, whenever you got there, yell 'pour me a xxx cuando puedas' at somebody behind the bar, and in due course your drink will get to you.
That's it. This 'cuando puedas' is important - 'when you can'. There's no expectation that you'll be served immediately, or in order, but your drink will get to you. I'm already used to the lack of urgency when waiting for your beer, but can't quite bring myself to just yell my order. This has led to some criticism. Criticism that I'm being too polite, both in waiting and in how I then order. A friend here who runs a bar has told me that I should, rather than asking, 'Would you pour me a beer, please?', be shouting, "Pour me a beer, for fuck's sake.' That's how he'd rather I ordered! That way he knows I'm waiting for a beer and that I won't wait longer than is fair. Needless to say I've yet to ask in such a manner.
Though the bar culture is ubiquitous and just as integral to society as British pubs, there are other differences. Nobody drinks pints, of course. The typical order of beer is a caña or a bottle, both around a third to a half-pint. The typical vuelta, the journey round the bars having a drink and a tapa in each, means that many people order a quarter of a pint - a corto. No way you could have a pint in all the bars, even in a place as small as Viana - you'd be paralytic. The one time I ordered a pint here, it was because we'd been cleaning the lake during a drought, and I arrived at the bar so hot, thirsty and dusty that only a pint would do. When it arrived it was clear that the glass had been forgotten in a freezer for some considerable time - so much ice had formed around it that it watered my beer down to the point of undrinkability when it immediately melted. Lesson learned.
No rounds here either, or at least very rarely. This can make paying for your own drink difficult. Not the excuse of a miser - I've always been happy to put my hand in my pocket in the pub - but quite genuinely, I find it hard to buy a drink here. You don't typically pay when you order here, unless it's during the bedlam of carnival or the August fiestas. You pay for everything when you leave. This can lead to people fighting to be the one to pay, often buying the drinks for friends of theirs who happen to be in the bar while they're at it. I've lost count of the number of times I've gone to pay for my drinks, only to be told I'm 'invited' - my beer's been bought for me. You have to get your money down quickly, often insisting at the start, if you want to get drinks for other people. Even this can get you in trouble, though. Not so long ago I spotted a couple in a bar here that I remembered had invited me a few days earlier. I paid for their drinks and when the landlord told them my mate seemed quite genuinely cross that I'd done such a thing, even though it's what everybody does. And it's what he'd done to me before. It's a minefield, I tell you.
Being a small place, the bar owners know all their regulars by name. (I'm not quite at the stage of knowing all the names yet, of which more in another entry soon). You can, if you go out of an evening, essentially guarantee there will be somebody in there you know regardless of which bar you choose, be it the owner or a punter. So while I'm still some way from ordering my caña with a cheery expletive, and don't entirely understand the complexities of when it's OK to 'invite' somebody and when not, I do feel very much at home in the bars here.
*Or indeed outside of it. Just this afternoon I was sitting in one of the bars here and a chap I don't know just yelled 'a white wine here' though the open door as he arrived, sitting down with his mates outside in the confident knowledge that it would come to him.
