Where's Wally?

Riomaggiore in living colour
Originally uploaded by Miss Gab.

In recent weeks, my main objective has been to get as much society as possible and broaden both my experiences and my friendship circle. I am making a good go of it too, if I do say so myself. I've managed to schmooze at wine tastings and pre-parties, rock concerts and quiet dinners out with friends.

Friday night's trip to Lincoln Square was another 'first' for me, though you'd scarcely believe it, given the Square's proximity to my house.

Mrs McEwen, my Year 12 English teacher, used to chastise me for using the blandest of adjectives, NICE. But it's the one I want to use to describe Lincoln Square. The little suburb is also quaint and cute and chock full of German pubs and Polish food supermarkets, attracting a diverse assortment of Chicagoans. See? It's nice. Okay Mrs Mac, just for you, I shall call Lincoln Square "sympa". As we all know, that means "nice" in French, but I think it adds a little je ne sais quoi to this post; and a dash more European-ness to Lincon Square. Agreed? Okay now let's move on, sheesh.

So there I was, in amongst that ragtag bunch of Friday night revellers frequenting Lincoln Square, though admittedly I restricted my patronage to a little German bar with one of the surliest bartenders I'd met in a long time. A young guy, but quite obviously irritated with his lot in life and desiring to be anywhere else but stuck where he was. Boo to him. If you can't cheer up in a German pub, where can you possibly find happiness?!

Courts had brought along her friend Michelle to join Irene and me for the evening, and we ended up taking a bottle or two of very cheap wine back to Michelle's place (which turned out to be stumbling distance from MY place. Quelle convenience, as they don't say in France).

Anyway, Michelle lives in an apartment complex reminiscent of Melrose Place, minus the swimming pool into which evil hags and cheating boyfriends are pitched from balconies by broken-hearted, mini-skirted tenants, only to come back to life in dream sequences next season. But in contrast to Melrose Place, Michelle and her fellow compound-dwellers are a merry bunch of thirty-somethings that enjoy every opportunity to get together over a bottle of wine, particularly when the weather is nice, woops sympa (well remembered, readers).

But given that the weather wasn't too flash on Friday (and even less so for the rest of the weeeknd), the partying was relocated indoors, to the apartment of a man we shall call Ken, because that is his name.

Anyway, on entering the apartment I got down to doing what you normally do when you enter someone's apartment for the first time - I went snooping.

All along the corridor down to the kitchen (where we hoped to steal a beer each), were photos of Ken's worldwide travels. But they were scenic photos and I immediately identified the Taj Mahal, and the canals of Venice and then - what's this? A photo of Riomaggiore in the Cinque Terre? And then I let out of a small squeal when I realised that the photo also clearly showed the apartment where I stayed with Mum, Dad and Redda when we went there in October 2005.

My squeal must have been slightly more audible than intended, for several strangers came to see what the hallway commotion was all about. My eyes were wide and I was pointing at the photo, showing Courtney (and anyone else careless enough to be assembled there) where I lived. Ken came over and checked it out, and we talked briefly about his travels there, but then he took his cowboy hat and guitar back into his loungeroom to resume the impromptu jam session that had started up.

And then to discover photos on the wall of his relatives who are Scottish? What the? They're from Glasgow you say? Aww the memories came flooding back.

Fortunately I did not start blubbering into my beer, but I DID have to stop short of hugging Ken, channelling Anne Shirley from Green Gables and say WE ARE KINDRED SPIRITS, YOU AND ME. Who knows, if I'd done that someone might have tried to throw me in the non-existent pool. Or perhaps I might have just flung myself into it to save time - how embarrassing.

But you'll be pleased to learn that I have been welcomed back for a future wine consumption session in the apartment's courtyard. And I think I'll go too, because the people there seemed very nice.

And I didn't finish snooping in that apartment.