Pen pals

I met Jeanie when we were about 12 or 13. It was at fencing camp in a small town in Hungary. Her coach in NYC was Hungarian and was good friends with my coach in Budapest. So once a year, he brought his students to the old country to learn some fencing. (The strategy worked perfectly, as the US is now beating Hungary in fencing left and right!)

I was just beginning to learn English and Jeanie was super nice. We decided to be pen pals. We wrote good old fashioned letters to each other for years. She used to tell me about life in NYC as a teenager, school, fencing, things we did when were 13. When I first visited NYC a few years later, I stopped by the fencing club she and her teammates I all met back at camp practiced at. Then we lost touch, as it happens so often. She decided to focus on studying and her acting career and didn't fence so much anymore. We saw each other maybe a couple of times at competitions while I was in college.

Then, on Saturday night, I was sitting with a few friends at this Belgian beer hall in the West Village, and there was Jeanie, all grown up, with a group of friends, deep in conversation. So I tapped her on the shoulder; she recognized me right away, we hugged and talked for a few minutes. We told her friends how we were pen pals back when we were kids. When I still lived across the ocean in the old country. We decided to catch up on Facebook and grab a cup of coffee sometime.

People don't believe me but it's true: this is a freaking village! You never know when you'll run into your childhood pen pal!