Harbour City Ramblings

Too many bizarre occurrences in the last couple of weeks, I’m starting to realize you sometimes have to just sit back and let the super-unknowns do their dirty work while you go along for the ride.

Meeting Brian & Elizabeth

Our second to last day in Amsterdam, a new couple arrived late one afternoon to the bunk across from Dylan and I. As it turned put there were incredibly friendly Americans: Brian of Phoenix and Elizabeth of Boston. We got to talking and they were also traveling Western Europe for an entire month, including some of the very same cities on our itinerary.

It was odd enough to encounter a couple from our very own continent, as the majority of people there were from Australia, the UK, other parts of Europe, or unidentifiable non-English speakers. The perfect part was their Oktoberfest dates landed on Sept. 24th, 25th, and 26th… The very same three days we were going. So of course we exchanged details and planned to meet up for a night of debauchery and 1-Liter German beer consuming.

As the next couple of weeks went on we kept in touch by e-mail, Brian on his Blackberry and us on our iPhones… though only when we found a free WiFi connection (not always easy). And we heard from Dylan’s best friend Rob, an Italian who spends a month back in his home-land annually, that finding WiFi in Italy would be next to impossible. He was right on the money. Luckily Sunday afternoon as we dined on pasta, beer and wine down a narrow Roman alley-way we found a WiFi connection, got our Internet fix and checked in on life back home. As it turned out Brian messaged Dylan informing us he were in Rome for the next couple of days, and Elizabeth was joining him tomorrow. That was unexpected and exciting but unfortunately we hadn’t the time to meet up, so we again planned for Oktoberfest in the few days following.

Monday, Sept. 22nd, after another day of sight-seeing and before departing to Venice via night train, we decided to take the Metro closer to the train station for another pasta dinner. Exhausted with sore feet on one of a dozen cars of the very same Metro line who did we encounter? Brian and Elizabeth. Unfortunately they were off two stops before ours to grab a free dinner at their Hostel, and we only had a few hours to eat before departing. So yes, again we planned to meet at Oktoberfest.

After dinner and discussions of how surreal that meeting was, we hopped back on the Metro. Just as we were about to get off, Dylan spotted them getting on the same train one door down. We weren’t willing to kick ourselves a second time for not stopping to chat, so we stayed on the train and surprised the daylights out of them. We pretty well decided right then there was no denying we were meant to be friends.

Certainly an outstanding decision as we kept in touch and partied hard at Oktoberfest with our dear new friends for life, Brian and Elizabeth.