A view from the side (3)

     Here I am again (Steven, in case you've forgotten). Thought I'd tell a story or two to describe how things go sometimes.
     Story 1
     Quite a while back, Annie asked me to check times/days that a museum/factory she really, really wanted to see would be open for tours. I checked it out and I told her it looked fine so we decided to go the day before we were leaving the city. We got up that morning planning to head out to a different museum first and then to the factory. As we walked out the door Annie said she'd rather go to the factory first so we headed there (walking) instead. As we got there around 10:30 I saw a sign that said tours were at 9:30 and 11:00. I quickly looked in my little notebook and saw that I had written that down but totally forgot about it and didn't mention it to Annie. Needless to say, if we had followed our original plan of visiting the other museum first Annie would have missed the tour. And to top it off, when we tried to visit the other museum later it turned out it was only open for group tours and not to individuals. So, thank goodness God smiles on fools and thank goodness Annie decided to keep me around.
     Story 2
     Last week, going between two towns in Romania, Annie accidentally left her jacket on the bus. After talking to the hostel owner and some people at the bus station it was decided that Annie would be at the station at 8:00 am the next morning to meet the bus driver and get her jacket back. That morning, after we agreed that I'd walk to the station to meet her after I was done eating, she left to catch a taxi to the bus station.
      So.... a few minutes after she left I headed to the station but, unknown to her, I knew a shortcut that used a footbridge and didn't follow the route the taxi took. Meanwhile, the bus that came to the station wasn't the same one we took and so Annie was done by 8:05 and figured she would walk back and meet me along the route or find me at the hostel. You can imagine how this goes. I wait at the bus station for about 20 minutes and then head back to the hostel (finally figuring Annie might have walked back and wasn't at some nearby shop getting a roll). Annie meanwhile arrives back at the hostel, sees I'm not there, and is worried I got lost and heads out to retrace her steps and try to find me. And so when I get back to the hostel the cleaning lady/cook (using sign language) let me know Annie had been back and left again.
     I decided to stay put hoping it wouldn't be too long before Annie came back. Finally, quite a while later, Annie got back - tired from all her walking, but relieved I was safe and perplexed how we could have missed each other.

     Such is life on the road.

Be well, be safe and stay in touch.