World Tour Update #20

Yeah, I know. We're home, so what's with the continuing World Tour Updates?

I'd like to say the answer is that so many wonderful and interesting things happened on our trip, and I didn't always have the time and/or connectivity to write about them at the time, so I'm posting them now that we're back.

That's partially true, but it's also because things slipped my mind ("I meant to...") and I'm just now remembering them. A series of senior moments, of you will.

Anyway, here's one from our recent stay in Christchurch, New Zealand.

I was checking my email and came across a message from an old colleague of mine at the University of Houston. This was in the late 1990's. He was a friend and mentor back then, and we've kept in touch over the years, but haven't spent much time FTF, despite that fact that we live only 200 miles away from each other.

In his email he mentioned that his college-aged daughter would be attending a summer program at Trinity University in San Antonio, and asked if we would be willing to serve as her local contact 'just in case.' I said we'd be happy to, except that we weren't in San Antonio - we were in New Zealand.

His reply: "No shit? I'm in New Zealand too."

Turns out we were both in Christchurch. He had scored a fellowship and was in Australia and NZ doing research at the same time we were visiting. We'd been in some of the same towns at the same times and didn't know it. We even missed each other by only a couple of hours at some of the Christchurch tourist attractions.

We ended up having dinner together and marveling at the quirks of fate that led us there. We'd both traveled halfway around the globe to do something that could have been accomplished with a three hour drive back home.

It's a small world...