On the world being flat… I mean… small!

Living 6162 miles (9916 Km) away from home, I would never think that I would see a very good friend that I have since childhood.

He is taking his PhD in Salt Lake City, Utah, which is fairly closer than before, but still 798 miles (1285 km) away (a one-day trip, a very long one-day trip). Guess, what? Carlos made that trip… in one day. He and his friend, Dave, were driving to the east coast (They are doing summer internships in New York and Massachusetts, respectively) and decided that Lincoln was a good spot for their first day stop. Lincoln population’s IQ suddenly doubled.

But again, even geniuses err. They were supposed to arrive May 2^nd, at 9 p.m., but only arrived at 10 p.m. I know! Time zones are such a pain. =D

Too bad we only had a couple of hours to chat, but understandable, since they were tired from the trip and were going to hit the road early next day.

That encounter made me very nostalgic for the next couple of weeks. It reminded me how far I am from things I once knew and people I once saw often. Of course he’s in the same boat as I am, but still, memories of things past and projections of things to come made me wonder if these two worlds (or were there three?) would ever meet.

But the answer was obviously right in front of me: I was once more hanging out with a friend that I hadn’t seen for several years. The facts that we are both in a different country and talking in a different language are irrelevant. Those are only different flavors of the same occurrence.

Interesting fact is that I have friends living in Europe hanging out quite often, whereas other friends back home don’t talk to each other for months at a time. Distance, as it seems, is relative, and the world becomes even smaller for people who long the trip.