This Is Us
Serendipity vs. iPhone
Why stumbling upon something meant something
Here are some moments from before the iPhone:
Due to a train strike I have ended up in Luxembourg. I have no friends, no connections, no map of the place. I meet a Canadian who is about my age at a youth hostel. We decide to go to a discotheque. We start following signs for a disco called Sens Unique which my high school French tells me means One of a Kind. We make circle after circle of the city. We go down alleyways and backroads. We ask directions of strangers and strike up conversations everywhere. Along the way we talk about our estrangements from our parents, our obsessions, our dreams for the future. We realize, eventually, that Sens Unique means “One Way.” We have been following one way signs all over the city for more than two hours.
I arrive in what was once called Leningrad by train with no Soviet money. I learn that the only way you can make a phone call is with a 2 kopek coin. This coin is worth about .000001 cents. I have plenty of dollars but no way of acquiring this nearly valueless piece of currency. Though I studied Russian throughout college, I have this idea that I can barely speak it. It’s embarrassing. I ask a stranger. She listens to my odd sputter of words. She takes pity. We talk for a while. I start to realize…
