Meeting a distant friend

Over the weekend I did something that I have been meaning to do for a while which is to meet a friend from the other side of the globe. Gemma and I have known each other for a couple of years but only formally met in Montreal when our paths crossed recently. A couple of years ago I exchanged emails with the a href=”http://www.goldenkey.canterbury.ac.nz/”New Zealand chapter /aof my a href=”http://www.blogger.com/www.goldenkey.org”honor society/a. Gemma was their communications person and put me in touch with some folks that would be attending the Arizona conference that I attended. We connected again through myspace and finally on Facebook. A while back she commented how she had been able to buy a ticket from New York City to Toronto for $12.00. She would then be heading to Quebec City for a World Youth Summit. I could either meet before or after the summit. Getting together before the summit proved hard to schedule so we opted to meet afterwards. On Friday, met in front of a href=”http://www.blogger.com/www.mcgill.ca”McGill University /aand had supper at a nearby Italian restaurant. [The caesar salad and pizza were great.] We went across the street to a href=”http://www.benjerry.com/”Ben amp; Jerry’s /aice cream as even though she has been in the U.S. for six months she hadn’t experienced the marvelous Vermont ice cream. We concluded the evening talking at a local coffee shop. As the clock was striking midnight, I headed back to Ottawa and she departed for Toronto-New York City-Washington, DC.