Would You Like Fries With That?

It never hurts to compliment someone’s style or help take their picture, and that’s how after a walking tour of the old city I came to make two new friends.

Francesa was visiting Germany from Milan, Italy and Pam from New Jersey, USA. Both travelling north to south from Berlin, Francesa through a town that sounded like Lisbon but she wasn’t sure and Pam through Dresden. We’d all been on the same walking tour, and towards our last stop I had struck up a conversation with Francesa who then stopped to take Pam’s picture before I invited them both to lunch and we all agreed we should try these PGI snags.

We took a table inside (away from the infernal wasps) and discussed economics, politics, the housing crisis (present for both the US and Australia but not so much in Italy), fashion as a political statement, consumer power, recycling, our degrees (and student loans – again only for Pam and I), the broken promises of the millennial generation (Francesca laughed at me when I said I was nearer in age to a geriatric millennial than I was to her as a Gen Z) and travel. It was right about then we thought we should probably introduce ourselves. And exchange Instagrams.

We talked through lunch and then headed back to the market square where Pam wanted to spin the golden ring and make a wish, I took them to a gingerbread store I’d found earlier that has been making Lebkuchen for 400 years and Francesa took us to a Christmas ornament shop where we exchanged family traditions, and because I know my Mum reads this – you’re safe, I didn’t tell them about the tree we set on fire one year – only that an Aussie Christmas is in the middle of summer yet we still be dreaming of a white Christmas.

All in all, it was a great way to spend an afternoon and connect with other solo female travellers. These girls are pro so I learnt a lot.