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Metro Manila Community Quarantine - Day 627

The last time we got to go to O Bar was March 2020 for Brigiding's birthday event and then the lockdowns started a few weeks later. We had initially hoped to dash out the weekend before the first community quanratine, but then O Bar closed the day we intended to go. But that's how things panned out and over the months of quarantine you've probably encountered my many social posts and blog entries that return to talking about missing the place and being worried that they'll never re-open.

Despite all odds, O Bar is finally re-opening this week and it's kind of surreal to even think about it. Tobie and I always knew that we would make the time to go despite the risks, but it doesn't mean we're not going to be careful. At the same time, we're still pretty nervous about it as it is still an enclosed space no matter how tall the ceiling is, but we'll see how things go.

We know they've significantly limited capacity based on table space, so it's going to be a very different O Bar experience. We're not yet at a point in this pandemic life when we can go back to people being in close contact with one another as would be the case in the pre-pandemic days. And that's going to really change the way the bar manages things and the average cost per patron. O Bar is not a cheap venture by any means and their overhead costs won't change that much despite the government's restrictions on venue capacity. 

But at least life is moving forward and maybe this will help me and Tobie feel less stressed at times. We've been very diligent about staying home as much as we can for almost two years now and we always figured that O Bar would become a bit of an exception to our relative paranoia. But that exception is helped by the fact that the bar is clearly taking steps to do what they can to mitigate risks and that's all that we can ask for during these weird times. We're all still in the process of figuring out what our actual "new normal" is going to be where we're not deathly afraid of the many forms of COVID-19 out there, but we remain prudent in how we go about our lives in order to mitigate those risks as best as we can.

I'll let you all know how things go after the coming weekend. 

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