Sitting in bars, watching humanity go by. Blues music on the speakers, bar staff doing their job, or not. Drinkers sitting in the corner waiting for other drinkers, waiting for inspiration, or maybe just waiting for last call. Indicators, you could call them, annoying little Jiminy Crickets that tell you when you've had enough.

You've got to hand it to humans, they've found a common language that every one can speak. Every civilization that has ever existed has found a way to brew beer. It's probably the only human invention that can claim that. The Aztecs never even figured out the concept of the wheel, but there they were on Saturday night, getting loaded and hitting on barmaids.

I've seen a lot of shit happening in bars across the world. I've met a lot of strange characters, and taken part in that strange subculture that exists between Happy Hour and closing time. I remember sitting in a bar with a buddy back in 2000, knocking back Scotches in a late-night dive in Salzburg. We were killing time before going back to the hotel, having spent the day touring a salt mine, drinking it up, talking smack. An Austrian soldier grabbed me by the shoulder and asked, in German, if I we were Americans. Frank Sinatra was playing on an honest-to-goodness Wurlitzer in the corner, and I told him, likewise in German, we were Americans, and if he'd sit down and have a drink with us, I'd be buying.

He said he didn't speak English, but if I was buying, he'd be more than happy to rattle on and let me translate. Soldiering is a job I respect, so I figured I'd give him the benefit of the doubt. He pulled up a bar stool and sat down, clinking glasses with me and my friend, introducing himself with much effort, hi, how are you, nice to meet you, et cetera. Having exhausted his English, he turned to me, and asked if we were soldiers, too. I said, hey man, do we look like soldiers? Then he shook his head and said, "prepare for war."

Within the next five years, he explained, the world will begin to explode. Austria will close its borders, Germany and France will be overrun by immigrants and descend into civil war, and countries in the Balkans will solidify under evil rulers, and begin attacking their neighbors. Italy will be the first to fall, and its conquerors will take the war to France. Unrest would then continue to the Low Countries, Scandinavia, the Baltic Republics. At which point, Central Europe would be adrift in a sea of starvation and war that America would be slow to rescue them from.

I stared at him, a bit overwhelmed. He was drunk, that much was clear, and I began to wonder just what they taught their solders there in Austria. Then he stood up and said, Amerika ist die letztze Hoffnung, and kissed me, right on the lips. (You know, I wanted to write "but not in a gay way" right after that, but what could be gayer than kissing a dude on the lips in a bar at three in the morning?) Luckily, he sat his glass down on the bar and walked out the door, before it got to that awkward exchanging of telephone numbers and hotel key-cards stage.

My friend sitting next to me, who didn't understand a word, said "what was that all about?" I sat there silent for a moment, then said, "the guy's obviously a Sinatra fan..."

A couple of days ago, I was sitting in a bar that I used to consider the worst in the world. It's improved its fortunes of late, and has been overtaken by the current Worst Bar in the World by a large margin. The wait staff has changed a few times, and I believe that's the reason this bar has gotten better. It's not the fact that better people were brought in; the old staff was full of good people, mind you. I'm an optimist, and I believe that people must be corrupted before they can become bad. It's just that high turnover is just about the only way to keep a bar staff honest here in the workers' paradise. Complacence is deadly in the food service.

So, with fresh meat behind the counter and an admirably-patient clientele, fortune seemed to have been smiling of this erstwhile Worst Bar in the World. There was an English couple sitting next to me, reading through a German phrase book to order their drinks. What is the German phrase for a Slippery Nipple, you may ask? Rütschige Brustwarze, actually, but please don't order one, on the off-chance you might actually get it. They were speaking English to each other, and broken German to the barmaid, but everything was getting taken care of in order.

A couple of tables over, two German girls were discussing Great Britain, and the strange habits of its simple, hard-working folk. They were making sweeping generalizations about the Londoners, the Geordies; about their food, drinking habits, work ethic, and literature. I wondered if the two English people in the room, sitting next to me, were picking up any of their conversation, and could set them straight, or simply be amused that they're discussing it with such earnestness.

Having spent a couple of weeks in the States recently, I missed places like that: A watering hole, to be sure, but not a saloon or a meat market. There were clean tables about, and comfortable chairs, and dark corners where you could hide; a place to read, or to write, or tap away on your laptop, or just sit and think for a bit, or just be alone to have some peace of mind. They'd bring you a glass of beer, if you wanted, or leave you be, and no one seemed put out by the fact that you were sitting there watching everything, smiling, observing as it all flowed by.

In short: It was nice.