Met a friend who was studying here yesterday. He invited me to lunch in his apartment because he said he had a dream we would meet and hence I had to fulfill his dream. I asked him what the hell he was doing dreaming about me before realising okay maybe I don't want to know.
It was great to catch up though. And when I met him, I realised that his housemate was my primary school classmate, with whom I go way back. So it was like meeting two good friends at once. And I met their two housemates, one of whom knows someone else from CS. It was amazing finding out how small this world really is.
As he cooked lunch, we started talking about our lives here. And he remarked "You people are so interesting. It's always fun to meet people on exchange because they're so different. They don't get sick of traveling. They don't seem to have realised that after a while every town is the same. One town square, one cathedral..."
"one museum..." I added.
"And after that its a mad rush to the airports to get to the next destination. Actually, you've been to more places than I have although I've studied 2 years here. It's like you people have an entirely different view of the experience." he said.
"Well yeah dude, I have to do what you do in 3 years, but I only have 5 months. And it helps that I don't have to study so much." I wanted to tell him that I was actually very sick of travelling because I've had enough hassle planning them for a few lifetimes, but I stopped myself. Sometimes people don't need to know so much.
He started asking me if my hall had catered food, and I was like no, I wish it did. Then we got into a discussion of whether catered food was better than having to cook food for yourself, before concluding it was just too difficult and troublesome to cook just to survive. We even managed to conclude that guys would enjoy having catered food more than girls simply because we were less inclined to cook being lazy slobs. An entirely long and pointless discussion that served as a good distraction from having to watch chicken and onions sizzle in a wok, hardly the most interesting thing.
Next, we talked about a girl that he thought was hot, a topic that always starts off in this fashion - "Do you know ____? Do you think she's hot?"
At this moment I looked at my primary school classmate, who had perked up upon hearing this conversation being started. Realising that we both knew this person because she was another of our primary school classmates (damn small world), we started laughing like crazy. He even went on to say "Wasn't she going out with that handsome guy?" I was like "what guy?"
"You know, that good looking one." he said.
"Haha dude thanks, that was damn helpful." The three of us laughed again.
He concluded that she was a person that divided opinions, and we concluded that he had funny taste. At least the stuff he cooked didn't turn out tasting funny, in fact it was pretty darned good.
It's always great meeting old friends again. Sometimes, it's almost as though you never left. You just carry on where you left off, even if you haven't seen these people in a year. I've come to value good friendships because I've realised that they are like banks, you put in stuff into it and it grows, and even when you leave it for a period of time, when you return, you start again where you left off. Sometimes, the long absences have an "interest" effect, in both senses of the word, because you have so much more to share, and as a result you just can't stop talking, until you realise that you have to part again, and it's always too soon.
In a world full of nasties, stupids and other bad things, good friends keep you sane.