It is really strange how the world works sometimes…At our recent talk to the Rotary Club of Monterey Pacific, we tried to encourage people to be outgoing in their travel because you never know who you will meet. Our point about that was (and is) that you may never see the people you meet again, but at least in that moment, they were part of an experience you will always remember. And, if you are lucky, they may actually become your friends.
We used an example of these two guys and their gnome (Okay, sorry, we actually left out the part about the Rambling Gnome) that we met at Oktoberfest in 2005. We said that we will probably never see or hear from them again, but they were part of making a great Oktoberfest experience for us.
Well, we received an e-mail from the Rambling Gnome this morning! Here is a picture of him in front of the Vatican. He is now living in Tuscany and is the “watchdog – of – the -plants – that – never – seem – to – get – enough – water.” For me, it came as a great surprise and also a great relief to hear from him. You see, that night I thought in our drunken revelry, we were part of the Rambling Gnome getting lost forever. He had already been around Europe with his two traveling companions and I have always felt bad that he was swiped on our watch. I have yet to hear back about his adventures immediately following our meeting, but I am very happy to hear he is safe in Italy! I look forward to finding out where he went that night and how he came to be in Italy, especially since it has been 2 years since we saw him last!
So, the moral of the story is that when Chris and I are rambling on about this or that, before you zone out thinking we are just talking out our ass again, keep in mind that the Rambling Gnome managed to ramble his way back into our life. See, we do actually have some good points to make and making new friends is one of them!