One of my favorite bars in the world is in Leuven, Belgium. It’s called Libertad. The owner/bartender has amazing taste in music and because of that, my friends and I went there several times a week. As nights went on and alcohol was consumed, we would go up and request songs. It became a feat. That a man with such great taste would approve and play our requests started to mean something.
Full disclosure – I lived a bohemian life in Belgium and I loved every second of it. Tuition was cheap, student loans covered housing, and I worked part-time teaching English to help pay for groceries and drinks. My friends and I had a lot of idle time, so we often filled it with low-grade hooliganism. Case in point, I founded a fraternity my third year there. What you see above is one of the many tests we made our one initiate endure. He’s one of my favorite people and he was a hell of a sport indulging us as often as he did. This was one of the worst calls I ever saw him make and I will always love him for it.
I probably should have studied more, but I’m usually pretty glad I didn’t. I’m proud of my degrees, but I cherish my memories with friends more.