The Old and The New

One of my absolute favourite things to do is to meet new people, especially when they are from foreign countries, speak strange languages, and can tell me about their various cultures which oftentimes I have never heard about. This is really easy when you’re travelling in a foreign country because suddenly you become the strange foreigner.

Whilst in London I met a guy who was born in Portugal, grew up in Mozambique, currently lived in Spain but was working in London for a couple months. Another person I met had been born in France but grew up spending six months in America and six months in Cambodia. But these were people that I met for very short periods of time and didn’t learn much from.

Ana, on the other hand, was a different story.

My aunt had invited her brother and his family over for dinner one night while I was staying with them. In fact it seemed to be a bit of a blind date set up by my aunt in the hopes of introducing me to people in London. She had thought about it and decided that her brother’s step daughter and I would get along perfectly.

Ana studied biology (like me), she loved to dive (like me) and she loved to write (again, like me) and because of all of this my aunt had come to the conclusion that she would be my perfect besty. I didn’t have high hopes as I generally severely struggle with girls but I was excited for the chance to meet new people anyway.

Well, I needn’t have worried. It turns out my aunt is the perfect match-maker and before long I found myself chatting away to this absolutely gorgeous girl, who was born in Croatia and now lived in London. She was so easy to get along with and I was excited that I had managed to make a friend. We promised to meet up again before I left and a couple nights later I found myself having happy hour cocktails, giggling about how silly our boyfriends are and about our thoughts on the Institute of Sexology.

It was great and I am extremely grateful that I made new friends while I was in London. But there was something else that happened which was just as exciting.

And this is where the wonders of social media really come in to play. While I was in London I managed to meet up with a friend of mine from school who I hadn’t seen in at least five years. Simone had been a matric when I was in Grade 8 and spent more time sitting in my room getting me detention, or giving me detention because my room was a mess than any other matric. And that’s quite a feat considering I spent about 80% of my grade 8 year in trouble.

She is an awesome chick and I have many fond memories of her causing complete chaos in my already chaotic room and if it wasn’t for her I would have failed Grade 8 maths (in the end I got 97%, she’s a really good teacher). So when she messaged me to tell me that she was also in London, I nearly jumped through the roof I was so excited.

We made plans to meet up and had a lovely day exploring Camden and catching up. In many ways she had changed, and I am sure I have too, but before long it felt as if I was back in my hostel dorm room whispering and giggling about who knows what! It was a fantastic and I am glad to add another happy memory to our friendship.

But it also made me realise one very important thing, and that is that even though meeting new people is great, sometimes seeing those old friends who you know and love can be just as good. So to all the old and new friends, thank you for making my adventures so much better.