Fantastico

With Michelin, and BMW in particular, having large plants here, there are many lost French and German beer refugees hiding out in Addy's, drinking solemnly and mingling with the locals who can't quite deal with the gravity of the beers served.

Not surprisingly, this became my local while over here, rather than hiding out in some of the close-but-not-quite Irish bars they have over here. Being Irish is a fashionable thing in the US for some reason, so everyone is extremely proud to slip into a conversation the fact that they have some Irish blood because their great-grandfather's dog once chased a cat that lived next door to an Irishman. I'm at a loss to explain this.

Amusingly, the atmosphere at Addy's lends itself to beer lovers rather than beer chuggers, but it doesn't dissuade all of them. Many of them, I think, get blind-drunk without even realising it.

One such incident involved a guy in such a hurry to chase after some girls leaving the bar that he left his beer on our table, only to return later — evidently defeated and disorientated about where his friends were. He decided to stick around and explain to us his concept of retirement. Essentially, he saw his retirement plans as being identical to when he was unemployed, only he plans to sit outside his house and wave at people slowly like the Queen, while basking in the glory of a citrus tree.

During this extraordinary revolution in retirement planning, it was mentioned that he would like to retire in Europe, Canada and the USA. I asked him if this involved him doing all three, to which he replied, “hell no, Fantastico,” using slightly bizarre name that has since ricocheted around the office, “y'all can't do that all at once!”

The food here in Greenville is very decent at least, with places like Soby's and Sassafras serving some really tasty Southern food. They do, however, like using French words for the wrong things, such as entrée to mean a main course, using the term pre-entrée to describe what the rest of the world would consider an actual entrée.

Strange place.