I attended a Spanish guitar solo performance in a tiny art gallery. I started talking to the girl next to me, she was from Japan as a student on exchange at the local university and her boyfriend happened to be the guitarist.

After the show she introduced us, he invited us back to his place for kick ons with their friends. Outside the gallery, a group of their friends were waiting, one of them with a massive old school boom box resting on his shoulder blasting lively Mexican music. Together, we meandered through the alleys like a boy band, the sun setting behind us.

The apartment was in a mustard yellow building facing a park on the ground level. It was a tiny space and we packed in one by one like sardines, his friends dragging all sorts of instruments through the door. I took a seat on the winding staircase as his friends passed around some snacks.

The party was unlike any I’d been to at their age (they would’ve been in their early 20s)- there was no beer pong or goon bags, they were there for the music. Soon after settling in, everyone started jamming, we had double bass to my left, some brass instruments to my right, guitars in different shapes, someone was drumming on the wooden box that they were sitting on. The music moved from emotive Spanish ballads to lively Mexican folk to hip hop as someone started to rap. From start to finish, every person was playing and singing their absolute heart out, as if they were performing in front of a packed stadium.

I’m sure we would’ve started to dance if there was any space to move. It was such a special night, to have a peek into the heat-felt and expressive lives of these welcoming young people across the world. One I’ll always remember.