Fate

How do you prove that fate exists? You cant, I cant, but this even has led me to believe that fate exists, in some fashion. Why? Because after some time, there is no way to believe that so many coincidences can occur in a row. Its like, the probability would be uber small, after 0.5 to the power of n events. Hehe
Anyway in case I forget, heres what happened:

After being brought to the dorm, it was dark and somehow I remembered (incorrectly) where the exit was. Ai-yu-ko san passed me the keys, and after checking out the rather cool map, I decided it was time for adventure and headed out to explore. My room was number 3, and I thought it was somewhat queer that they would label the exit as room 1, since they should have done that for a dorm instead of an exit. But then, I was sure that I had entered from that door, so anyway, it could just be that Italians are weird right? The key fit into the lock, but wouldn’t turn. I tried the other key, with the same result. I tried again, again, then ai san came out, waving hi and talking on her phone. I was getting rather frustrated, so I turned harder, and to my horror, the key snapped into two. Just then, another girl entered the corridor using a door that I had failed to notice until now. And that door, was the REAL exit.

After gabbering in gibberish, I finally managed to explain to the two of them what I had done in my stupidity, and ai-san went “mama mia” and went off to find the boss, whose name I never knew. Eventually, after much embarrassment to me, the key was dug out after the key chain was re-wired into a hook.
I was feeling super bad so I went out and bought the aiyuko san and her husband a limon wine while getting that girl a bunch of grapes. Aiyuko san was super happy to receive it and promised to share it with me later that night. (she never did). Since the key was now destroyed, I had to ask aiyuko san to let me into the house using her key. After that, I tried to open the main door, and once again I could not turn the key in the keyhole. I was super frightened that I would break it again, so I gingerly turned it, but to no avail. Just then, the door opened from the other side, it was the same girl from room 1 and she was going out. What a coincidence to run into her again! I was going out when she came back earlier, and now she was going out when I came back.

Anyway, the girl was also rather surprised that I bought her grapes, but maybe it was because I passed it to her with the price tag still on. But she did say “Thank you very much”

Fast forward the rest of the day, I explored a bit around Florence and decided to end the day at Piazza Michelangelo to potentially see a brilliant sunset. Halfway up, there was a building and a courtyard where we could snap some pictures of the town down below. Once again, I spotted the frizzy hair. It was her again! After a “ciao” and some awkward laughs, we went on our way, and I bumped into her again on my way down. Now, meeting her there was not much of a coincidence since there is only one place to see the sunset, but the meetings at the hostel were rather freakily timed. I also bumped into her again while queuing for the bathroom, perhaps again not much coincidence since everyone needs to shower, but still you cant take away the magic of the moment, where you keep running into each other at the most uncanny of moments, especially since I ran into ai-san and the guy in room 4 a lot less often.,

So here is my account of why I believe in fate. Sure, its not like we will end up as life partners or anything, she lives somewhere in northern Italy (umba???) and knows limited English. I don’t even know her name or her age. But still, I would like to believe that some knot in our lifelines had tied us together for those few inexplicable moments. And heres the additional part, I believe that fate lays the groundwork and its up to us if we want to pursue a friendship or take things anything further. Surely life cannot be just like in the movies where everything falls nicely into place for you. It was totally up to me to gather up the courage to ask her for a picture together, or to get her contact, but once again my guts deserted me and it is one of the regrets I have on this trip. After all, it was also some form of fate that had led us to this hostel at this day.