Riding the Bus with My Sister ... and brother too, I suppose :)

My mom is the best. There are a scant 22 days until I leave, but scarier than that figure are the mere two days left with my brother J before we're separated until Christmas, and the seven days left with my sister, A. My leaving for the Loran expedition on August 11th combined with their camp-going is what's causing this, and I'm very excited (for them and me)! But the realization that there's so little time left is awfully strange. That's where Maman comes in. After spending a marvelous three days with E (one of my good friends from Québec last summer) and her/my new friend Z, my mom decided to initiate the setting aside of some time for my siblings and I. In the form of bus riding. Interesting, n'est-ce pas? Well, I suppose there's no harm in learning life skills while bonding! (The three of us aren't exactly adept at bus-riding in our lovely city, so this was to be practice.) It seemed a little silly at first - ride bus to mall, then downtown, then back home - but I think that a lot of the seemingly sillier things in life can make for some of the best experiences.

So, the bus we did ride. (Big adventure, right?!) Well, as it turns out, it was quite fun :) The best part was follows:

While riding from the mall to downtown, we sat somewhat silently. I was people-watching, and a rather charming interaction caught my eye. There was a young(ish) man, maybe late 20's or early 30's who sat across the aisle from a woman of about the same age. Now, I can only relate to you events from my perspective, but it seemed to me that they didn't really know each other, and the man had just struck up a conversation. He had an open, honest, and smiling face with an expression that seemed to reveal he had just broken through a shy reservation to speak with her. Now that he'd succeeded, he looked quite pleased, for she certainly appeared to enjoy speaking with him. She laughed at all the right moments, which only served to further widen the man's smile. They were certainly hitting it off! I wish I'd known what they were saying, but they were speaking in Spanish, for at least a while.

Then the bus stopped, and an elderly lady came onboard. She sat right next to the young man, asking him to scoot over to a window, and effectively stopped the flow of conversation. The man gave the young woman an apologetic, regretful look, then chatted a short while with the newcomer, before their conversation dissipated into nothingness.

I turned to J and A to see if they had noticed, and the greatest thing was that they too had been watching all the while! The whole exchange. We were all sad to see this developing friendship be brought to a halt. But as it turned out, the older woman left just a few stops later, and with an eager smile, friendly conversation returned between the younger pair. It was a delight to observe.

Call me a silly romantic if you will, but truly! Even my tough brother noticed those two. It was all in the man's eyes - J himself said that he looked "so sweet". And as we got off the bus downtown, I heard the young man tell the young woman, in English, that he was pleased to meet her, as he gave her a warm grin. ¡Mágico!

Then we were all business again, and got ourselves delicious fries (with malt vinegar!) and sorbet. A pleasure of a day... Merci Maman.