Has it been 10 years?

Apparently, a decade has passed; sorry but I didn’t notice because I wasn’t counting.

New Year’s Eve/at Emma’s

The only song I could recognise was Avril Lavigne; He wanted her/ She'd never tell/ Secretly she wanted him as well/ But all of her friends/ Stuck up their nose/They had a problem with his baggy clothes. High school never changes, only the people do. When we started the countdown, mirroring something we found on the internet on someone’s phone, 12 midnight had actually already passed; our Apple watches had already announced the new year with tiny fireworks blooming on our wrists. But we counted down anyway. And again for good measure.

For what is time, or 25 and 47, or 1985 and 2050? It’s all relative. From the past to the future, everything is going in one direction.

Night Out: Hola

Where: Little Mexico Cantina & Tequila Bar

What: 3-litre jugs of Pina Colada or sugary Margaritas for $60 and cheap, unpretentious platters of the usual suspects (nachos, tortilla chips and saucers of chili paste, guacamole, pico de gallo..). 

People think it's more of a restaurant than a bar which suits us just fine in all the times we tried to get into another Mexican themed restaurant/bar, only to be turned off by the crowds so we end up here, our annoyance eased by the easy smiles of their Spanish-speaking wait-staff. We promise that next time, it won't be our back-up choice.

By 10pm, the dinner crowd disappears and if you've commandeered the side-walk tables, forgiving the fact that it's on a sloped surface, you would have called it a night too even if the streets are telling you it's just starting- a pitcher of Margarita is very deceptive.