"Its a Small, Small World"

After living abroad for a long time, you start to realize that the very big world is indeed, very small.  A few years ago, I found out my best friend from high school, Erica, was living in England with her husband and adorable daughter. It then became the reason for a few wonderful trips to England.  I work with a teacher at our school who grew up in Trumbull, CT.  I even met a mom of a preschooler at our school, she and her husband are from Texas, but her husband's mom is from Trumbull as well.  See, small world.
I am currently going through my smallest of small world situations though.  A few months ago, a girl I went to middle school and high school contacted me to let me know that her boyfriend was moving to Stuttgart.  Woah, small world!  Well, the world gets smaller because she is here now!  Joern and I met with Amanda yesterday.  It was so weird, so cool, and so fun.  We went to our favorite Greek restaurant in Nuertingen for lunch.  It was so fun to catch up while gently throwing in references from Fairfield.  You truly would have to grow up there to really understand it.  It was so nice to see how life can take two people on such a very different path and yet, you can wind up in the same place, so very far from where you started.
After our lunch, we impressed Amanda with our fantastic life of house building, grocery store and electronics store.  It also highlighted to me how different life in Europe is from what I expected.  When I moved here, I was looking for romance and adventure.  In reality, we have jobs, a house, go to the grocery store, and the electronics store.  Life isn't much different than it would be at home, just in a different language.  It is truly what you make of it.
It was a fantastic afternoon, and I am already looking forward to meeting with Amanda again before she leaves at the end of this month.  It is so strange and so fun to be in this situation.