A weekly ode to the joys of moaning about your holiday, by Tim Roxborogh.
I once bumped into a relieving teacher from my primary school while on holiday. I didn't say hi.
There was a feeling of moderate guilt, but my main memory was of being so thrown by the whole thing that I didn't know what to do. Until that fateful Mangawhai Heads day as a 12-year-old, I'd not felt the jumble of emotions that hit you when you bump into someone you know while on holiday.
The initial surprise is often followed by awkwardness: will you now have to hang out with them every day of your vacation even if you don't really know them that well? Will you stop for a proper conversation — possibly involving food and/or beverages — or will you just do a passing "hi"? But while a passing "hi" may be appropriate if you cross paths at the Te Atatu Peninsula Countdown, does it really cut it if you're overseas?
Orin this case, Mangawhai Heads, outside the mini-golf course, 1994. So I hid in the bushes until she'd passed by, staggered at the coincidence that two people connected to dear old Colwill Primary School in West Auckland could find themselves on holiday at the same place at the same time. And that's with Mangawhai being a mere 90 minutes away.
Imagine what the awkward-level is like when you're overseas. I know a couple who bumped into semi-friends of theirs in a small village in the south of France. What are the chances? Two couples from New Zealand both find themselves (pre-the social media era) in a non-touristy dot of a town on the other side of the world at the same precise moment in history. Surely that warrants a meal at the very least, and possibility even a meal plus a catch up the following day. At least!