“Back in 2007 I was doing the “Aussie working in London thing”. I was working at a recruitment firm, recruiting for investment banks, before the global financial crisis hit. At that time Australian candidates with investment banking experience were hot property. As soon as they arrived in the country I would be competing against every other recruitment company to secure them for my roles. I had booked in an interview with a candidate who had just arrived in London from Sydney. She looked great for some vacant positions I was trying to fill. It was a Friday afternoon and I eagerly awaited her arrival for our interview, but she never turned up. I called her mobile several times but she didn’t answer or return my calls. How disappointing.

The following day I excitedly set off for a long weekend in Germany. I boarded a bus that would take me on a three-day tour of the country. Seated just in front of me was a girl and a guy about my age. We got to chatting and I hit it off with the girl immediately. One of those rare times in life when you connect with someone instantly. Her name was Cristina and she worked in investment banking. Only later that evening when we had dinner together and far too many wines did we put two and two together and realise that she was my candidate who never turned up to the interview! She had met with another recruiter earlier in the day and accepted a job so figured there was no point in going to another interview. We had a good laugh about it and of course thought it was fate that brought us together on that bus and that we were obviously supposed to meet somehow.

In the months that followed we had cocktails and laughs all over London and our friendship blossomed. Cristina would never prepare vegetables for herself so I felt it was my duty to fill her up with vegetables every time we saw each other. We had a deck of playing cards that featured 52 hidden London bars and  we worked our way through them, visiting all of the bars, sometimes catching the tube to foreign and possibly dangerous parts of town. We stayed in a haunted castle, and saw shows in the West End. In short, we had a lot of fun! We shared the ups and downs of living away from home together and  it was one of the most enjoyable times of my life.

In the years that followed when we were both back in Australia and living in our respective cities (Melbourne and Sydney), we have only managed to see each other once or twice a year, but each time it is like we just saw each other yesterday. That is the thing about those sorts of friends, the ones who were meant to come into your life. I know the universe put her in the seat in front of me on that bus for a reason. So she would be in my life forever.

These two photos were taken 6 years apart, the bottom one in 2007 the night we met and the top one in 2013 in Sydney. Cristina is wearing my glasses in both photos!”