There were two girls who thankfully did not follow this standard and were immediately social from the get go. The first was a receptionist visiting Santiago from Scotland, and the second, Izabella, a perpetual backpacker from a small town way out in Siberia. Both were great company and although I may not visit Scotland this time around, Izabella does spend a portion of her time in Moscow and speaks fluent Russian. I’ll cross my fingers and hope we can meet up again in Russia, but we shall see.
During my last few days in Santiago I reached out to my relatives in Gijon that I mentioned earlier, Pepin and his wife Carmen. While my aunt and uncle visited them in Gijon several years ago, there is generally minimal contact with this branch of my family tree, so much so that my own mother has never actually met either one in person. Thanks to my uncle, I knew their names, address, and phone number, but considering how last minute everything was, I was skeptical the plans would actually pull through.
Nevertheless, it was a once in a lifetime opportunity. I have no idea when (or if) I would ever be this close to Gijon again, and even if I did return years from now, there is no guarantee Pepin or Carmen would still be around. I was fearful of communication issues since neither of them spoke a word of English (and my grasp of the language was merely conversational at best), but I made the call and left a voicemail hoping for the best. It must be rather perplexing to get a phone call out of the blue from a remote relative in the States who just happened to be passing through Northern Spain.