Friday afternoons in the barrio

A Friday ritual is becoming very popular with the local expat crowd here in Atenas. It started out with just two or three folks meeting at a local neighborhood bar on Friday afternoons to grab a couple of cold drinks, chat for a bit, and then head home before dark. The place is called German's Bar, and it is located in Barrio Mercedes, just at the Y intersection where you turn off to San Isidro and Morazan.

This is a family run business and German (pronounced "Herman") is a friendly fellow in his 60's. He always makes it a point to stop at every table and greet his patrons. This bar is the same place we went to watch, and cheer on, our amazing Costa Rican fútbol team at the World Cup last year.

Some friends of ours, that live just up the road from German's, love to dance. So, they downloaded all the best dance music you can think of from the 1960's up to the 2010's, onto an iPod. This eclectic mix of music includes selections from Santana, Grateful Dead, Shakira, Michael Jackson, Adele, Eagles, etc. They spoke with German and he agreed to let them plug their iPod into the bar's sound system. This gave our friends a great place to dance and enticed German's other patrons to get up and DANCE with them.

Word started to spread amongst the expat community and this Friday afternoon ritual went from just a few folks unwinding on a Friday afternoon, to a full blown party every week. Yesterday there were almost 40 people in attendance. We've been going there regularly for a couple of months, and it's lots of fun to catch up with everyone. The weekly get togethers somehow got named, "FUF," and we'll just leave it to your imagination to figure out what that means.

One of the regular attendees of our Friday get togethers is German's dad, Don Carlos. Don Carlos is now in his 90's 100 years young (He celebrated the centennial in June), and he loves to get out on the dance floor with the "younger" crowd. (UPDATE: Don Carlos passed away in his sleep in January, 2016. He will be missed.)

I thought about taking pictures of the packed house yesterday, but decided it might be best to just say, "What happens at German's, stays at German's."
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