A Night in a Year: 7. Bar

[jacquelineb]

The bar she enters is new. Off the market square, down a tiny Cambridge passage way. It is the perfect place to start the evening.

The bar and tables are chrome. The high bar stools are backed with loops like metal oyster shells. Thick lines of neon green and purple lights wraps the ceiling, and there are pockets of yellow light, but a lot of it is shadowy.

This is not typical Cambridge, even for a bar. Most of them are about fun and crazy frolicking. This is attempting sophistication, but is instead quirky, distinct. She wonders how long it will last.
It is already crowded. People out to try it and see, decide if the atmosphere is good and if they will come back. She spots the different crowds. Administrators relaxing after work, many she guesses from both the original university and Anglia Ruskin. Students either rewarding themselves after a week of hard work, or just continuing their way to a drinking degree. She will not seen any of the old Cambridge dons here, but there are certainly some younger academics, most likely European, South American, Asian, rather than British. There are a few suits from the commercial side of the city, older men with grey streaked hair, some women too in more demure outfits.

She stops just inside the door, hand on her hip. She isn’t quite sure now that this is the place, and scans, looking for some glimmer of hope in the occupied, bright faces.

It is the sight of the drinks that changes her mind.

No, they are not swish or sophisticated. They are as bright as the upper lights, neon colours, so they almost make the throats of the drinker glow. Something about their nearly plastic glean though, makes her step towards the bar.

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Next: 8. Drink

Image found on flickr, by mdpettitt, used under the Creative Commons License.

Mirrored from jacquelinebrocker.esquinx.net.