backpackerStories | Buying a shirt in New Zealand.

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^{The streets of New Zealand. By @cnandofer}

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Two times in my life, I felt as if I was being part of a movie. The second time, happened to me while I was in New Zealand. It may be because It's a very small country, or because most of the people I met were not sure about where they will be the next month, the next week or even the next day. But random re-encounters was a very common thing to experience.

The girl wanted to buy a shirt.

I went with a friend to buy a shirt that she wanted in a city 20 minutes away from Te Puke. We arrived at the main street where it was supposed to be the store, we couldn't find it so we parked the car and start walking and searching for the shop.

A little bit after we started to walk, Chistina saw something that took all her attention, a blonde guy singing on the other side of the street. She saw him and he saw her but she was not sure. It sounded like his voice, he looked like the American that she met when she arrived in New Zealand. Grant, the first person that she held hands with, in her life (true story). The guy with who she lived for three weeks when she found herself alone in her travels. But it couldn't be, Grant's plans were to stay three or four more months in Queenstown, a city very far from where we were. So we keep looking for the store.

Finding the shop was getting challenging.

We went in some shops but we couldn't find the one that we were looking for, so we decide to come back by the other side of the street to keep looking for the shop and to see the mysterious musician from closer.

We were outside the bank, something around ten meters from him. I said to Christina that I will film her with my phone in case he was Grant.

At that moment she realized that it was him, it was Grant! She got crazy, she yelled at me, 'put your phone back in your pocket, don't even think about making a video!' She had a smile like few times I have seen in my life, her face was red and her hair was blue. She walked to him and said, 'hi'. Grant smiled, stopped singing and hug her. They talked for a moment, I don't know how many time it was but I could see how happy they were to see each other again.

New Zeland really is a small place.

It turns out that Grant has been living for three weeks in the same hostel where Christina lived when she arrived in Te Puke, in the same room and probably in the same bed. Te Puke is really small so it is very weird that they didn't meet in the town before but they met that day, one day before of her departure.

They met again that night at the caravan park, They wouldn't see each other again after that day, but that day they were together. That day, They were happy together.

So, what about the shirt?

By the way, we found the shirt. The shop was just in front of where we parked the car but we didn't notice it at the beginning. If we had gone directly to the shop, they hadn't met again.

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