London

I only spent one night in London. Having been there on multiple occassions before, I felt no real need to see the sites (again). After a brief visit to the National Portrait Museum (going through the last day of my trip and not seeing at least one museum would have been just wrong somehow) I spent the rest of the afternoon in London shopping and then decided to see a movie.

And then the least likely thing to ever happen, happened.

I bought my ticket to A Scanner Darkly (if you like Philip K. Dick, then go see it, or if you just do a lot of drugs, go see it, or if you just really enjoy high concept cartoons, go see it) and walked into the lobby. I walked past someone who looked vaguely familiar, but seeing as how I have met hundreds, upon HUNDREDS of people this trip I am very used to seeing familiar people around, so I ignored it.

I sat down in the exact center of the theatre, as I could determine it, for the best audio quality (simulating audio accurately is very difficult, and impossible with multiple listeners, so theatres calibrate their audio according to one point in the theatre, typically the very centre of the theatre seating. Movie geek aside - Done). After a few minutes the familiar looking man walks in and sits a few rows in front of me.

"Huh" I think.

"That guy looks like Barry.", Barry being my old roommate from Yellowknfe.

"Actually, that guy looks A LOT like Barry."

"...."

I get up, walk down a few rows and look over to the man. He looks back. We just stand there for a few minutes. Slowly a look of complete and total disbelief takes over both of our faces.

IT IS BARRY!

Barry had just finished working the summer in Gambia, Africa as a biomedical technician and was spending sometime in London before heading to Edmonton and then back up to Yellowknife.

So after randomly wandering London (Pop. 7.5 million), and picking any old movie theatre to go into, I run into my roommate from halfway across the world.

And that was London.