I'm not the parent comment, but their username suggests they're in The Netherlands or Flemish Belgium.
Small bars and cafes around the corner are _very_ common here. Even the smallest villages have at least one or two local watering holes. It's incredibly easy to sit down at the bar, strike up a small conversation with the bartender, and have a beer or two. You make friends in no time. Most of them shallow, but a few of them turn out to be lifelong "true" friends.
For instance, I just drove a friend of mine and his sister-in-law to Schiphol Airport this morning, because I had a meeting in Amsterdam today so I had to drive out there anyway (we're on the other side of the country). I've known this man for the better part of ten years. Met him at my local bar, or "stamkroeg" as we call it.
I'm no physicist, but I've worked as a software engineer on energy (and drinking water, which EPANET simulates) infrastructure network design tooling for the last six or so years. It has been my understanding that simulating and validating multimodal network designs, which take into account electricity, gas consumption, district heating, is extremely difficult.
Municipalities definitely have systems that document where everything already is under the ground (though especially in Europe there are many older cities where the data of old pipes is lacking), but for designing new energy networks, an "everything" simulation and solving model is very, very complex.
Small bars and cafes around the corner are _very_ common here. Even the smallest villages have at least one or two local watering holes. It's incredibly easy to sit down at the bar, strike up a small conversation with the bartender, and have a beer or two. You make friends in no time. Most of them shallow, but a few of them turn out to be lifelong "true" friends.
For instance, I just drove a friend of mine and his sister-in-law to Schiphol Airport this morning, because I had a meeting in Amsterdam today so I had to drive out there anyway (we're on the other side of the country). I've known this man for the better part of ten years. Met him at my local bar, or "stamkroeg" as we call it.