The Bars of San Demetrio -- not in the American sense of the word, anyway.

Last evening after class, Barbara and I were sitting outside of Fusion Pub having some beer, and I was facing the piazza. On the main piazza, there are three bars, and I wondered what the difference between them was. At that point, some of our comrades came over, and we were talking about it a bit. In the end, to the observant foreigners, it looks like there are just three bars (Bar Centrale, Bar Lupo, Fusion Pub – there’s also Stilla but it was closed today since it’s Monday) all with old men sitting outside.

Finally, Barbara and I called over one of the guys standing outside of Fusion Pub (site of ever-changing drink prices and culinary miracles including inspirational use of mayonnaise and €1 drafts of beer) and we asked him to sit down so we could ask him the difference between the bars. Here I present what the guy said, there’s no editorializing on my part.

At the far end of the Piazza Monumento is the Circolo Culturale Girolamo de Rada, where the town intelligentsia pays €100 a month to have their own smart-people’s club where they talk and be kind of exclusive. Right next door is Bar Lupo, which is where the pensioners who don’t want to spend any money go. Bar Lupo happens to be the oldest and least-chic (even by San Demetrio standards) so their clientele is limited.

Bar Centrale is where the pensioners who like to play cards go. Either they are also more comfortable spending money, or there are just more tables inside and outside of the bar. They mostly play scoppa and briscola.

Then, there is Fusion Pub. The gentlemen who explained the whole situation (my informant, anthropologically speaking) to us told us that they were the men who worked all day and spent the most money.

Some final comments. When I initially asked he guy what the differences were between these three groups, he said “siamo tutti uniti” – “we’re all united”. But it’s obvious that that these distinctions exist, and they do not include Bar Fantasma down the hill, Bar 2000 around the corner, Bar Aladdin 2 down the road, and the Bar Pasticceria Gelateria Stilla next to Fusion and across from Bar Centrale. It seems to be that Stilla is perhaps the bar where the most women go, because it is the least trashy and also where they buy pastries on Sundays and eat ice cream after funerals. I would go so far as to say that every Italian town has a bar where it is honorable for women to go.