Cambridge in Buenos Aires

I am 20 years old, and was born and raised in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the USA. When I was young I wanted to be an actress, and at the age of 8 enrolled in a local youth theater group that, conveniently, held rehearsals in the auditorium of my school. The group was comprised of about 30 kids, all from different parts of the greater Boston area. During the 2 years I was in the theater group, my parents, unimpressed with the academic level of the public school I was enrolled in at the time, started looking into private schools around our area. A small group of girls in my theater group (who I idolized- they were the oldest and immensely talented), were all students at one of the schools my parents were most interested in, and after hearing great things about the school from their parents, my parents and I were enthusiastic about my going to visit and taking the exams to try and get in. I did, and entered 6th grade when my theater group of idols started in 8th. As 8th grade is the final grade before high school in the US, we only shared the same campus for a year before they graduated (much to my disappointment). The last time I saw them, when they graduated, I was 11. Four years after that, on my 15th birthday, my family and I moved to Buenos Aires, Argentina. I did my remaining three years of high school there, and, the summer before starting at university, landed an audition for a supporting role in a movie. The casting director had suggested I take dance lessons (the character I was auditioning for was a salsa dancer), and so I started taking private lessons from a friend of a friend, who owned a dance studio on the other side of town. One day I was (miraculously) early for the class, and instead of waiting for my teacher in the studio, walked around the neighborhood for a bit. A few days prior, I had discovered that the building directly in front of the dance studio actually belonged to NYU, which was the university I had hoped to attend before moving to Buenos Aires. I was curious to know if, as a US citizen living in Argentina, I could apply and study there permanently, and planned to ask one of the many students that were always going in and out, but at the last minute my teacher texted me and told me he had gotten to the studio, and I decided to wait until after my dance lesson, so I wouldn't be rushed. An hour and a half of salsa dancing later, wet with sweat and anxious to get home and shower, I had all but forgotten about my plan to ask one of the random NYU students my question. But walking past, I saw a blonde girl exiting the building, in the process of locking the door behind her, and decided to ask her. Tapping the girl on the shoulder, she whisked around, startled, and I apologized for my lack of tact. I asked her the question and she told me she had no idea, but that the building was for students studying abroad, and she was fairly certain that to attend NYU you had to actually live in New York. I thanked her and made to leave but as it turned out, we were both heading in the same direction, and so we walked together for a few blocks. I asked her how long she was in town for, and she told me she was in Buenos Aires studying abroad for 6 six months, and had just arrived two weeks ago. Curious about my lack of accent, she asked me where I was from and I told her Boston. Surprised, she told me she was from there as well, and so we exchanged numbers and decided to meet later in the week for coffee. Upon meeting for a second time we discussed our Boston roots in more depth. It wasn't long until, alternating between shrieks of glee and surprise, we discovered that we had actually been neighbors, and lived a few doors down from each other most of our lives. Shocked but delighted with this new information, we discussed what schools we had attended, starting with high school. "Concord Academy" she told me. "Aah, I went to The Cambridge School of Weston," I replied, bummed that our similarities ended there. Then as an afterthought (because most people in New England who attend private high schools attended private middle schools as well), I asked her, "What about middle school?" "Shady Hill School" she answered. My jaw dropped. "What class are you? I went there, too!" "I was class of 2003. You?" "2005!" Doing the math, I realized that she was in the same year as the group of girls I had idolized in the youth theater group when I was 8 years old. Nodding enthusiastically and laughing, she informed me that those girls were her best friends, and she had gone to see the plays our group had put on many times. She only vaguely remembered me, but we both remembered the songs from one of the first musicals and had a good laugh singing them out loud in the cafe we were sitting in. Hours of conversation ensued, and, in search of more similarities, we compared details of even the most mundane facts of our lives, from what our favorite colors were to what shampoo we used. Among other things, we discovered that: -both of our fathers speak Portuguese (hers is from Portugal, mine is from Brazil) -both of us had beagles named Lou (and though my Lou had died years ago after being run over by a speeding car, her Lou was still alive. "Although," she told me, slowly, "the beagle we had before Lou was also run over by a car.")(This is bizarre because the neighborhood we are from is incredibly tranquil, and as there are many schools in the area, people are always very careful to drive slow.) -both of our best friends (who look shockingly alike- black hair, blue eyes, pale skin and freckles) attend the same university in Connecticut, and (upon later inspection) have taken classes together. (Also, her best friends name is Nora, my best friends name is Hannah, and she has a younger sister named (yep) Nora). This was all very exciting and funny- how insane was it that I should meet my old neighbor and classmate, whose existence I had known almost nothing of, in a foreign country almost ten years later? Our parents couldn't believe it, and it quickly became a nice, unique anecdote we shared with our friends. Four months after she left Buenos Aires, I arrived in New York City for a trip to look at universities and visit friends. She and I had kept in touch, but in the hustle and bustle of getting settled into a new apartment, I forgot to email her and tell her I was already in town. It wasn't until two weeks after I'd arrived that I finally sent her an email with my new number. She called, echoing my feelings of joy at being back in the states again, and we agreed to meet the next day. "What's your address?" she asked me, knowing that I was still trying to figure out the subway system and would probably get lost if I had to meet her somewhere. "I'll pick you up after I get out from class and we can get lunch somewhere!" I told her the address. She was silent. "Say that again? Did you say 3rd between 2nd Av and Bowery??" "Yeah...why?" "I live on the next block! On 4th between 2nd Av and Bowery!" I thought it was amazing how we'd met the first time, a chance encounter on the street, due to a chain of events that really only depended on a few overlapping seconds. And then to find that we had been neighbors and gone to the same school, that was crazy and fun. But when we found out that we were neighbors in New York City as well, without ever having discussed the living arrangements I was making there previously, that was just crazy. Today, our families joke that we were husband and wife in a previous life, because the connections between us are uncanny- from how we're feeling to the way we simultaneously say or suggest the same thing when we're together.