You think you have seen it all…

Until you meet Alonso. Alonso Perez is 14 years old and visits the bars in the centre every night. Alonso frequently peruses into the pub where we begin our evenings out. Normally, in any other country, the sight of a 14 year old entering a place where alcohol is sold would cause nothing short of an emergency on par with a national emergency. However, this is the norm here. And Alonso is special. At 14 years old, Alonso knows every bartender and worker on San Francisco and the surrounding streets. With a backpack in tow, he brings candy and roses to sell. Not only is he adorably, Alonso is the best and most charming business”man” I have ever seen. His personality is captivating and you find yourself buying candies from him. Once, the girls even bought a yellow rose off of him, and as sad as it was to buy a rose for ourselves, it was impossible not to. As Alonso says Ciao to everyone in the pub (because he knows everyone and even knows most of the names) you would naturally think that he is going home considering it is after midnight. However, two hours later when you meander into a different bar or club, there’s Alonso chatting up the bartender and the girls and guys sitting in chairs opposite him at the bar. His hands and backpack are nearly empty and that is when you realize you have a star in the making. The Ultimate Sales Person. But then you are reminded that is he is in fact, still a teenager, when he borrows your iphone and plays Angry Birds for an hour. But he has earned it, he made more money than we did that day.