We chatted a little at the bus stop, then more on the bus. I made the classic mistake of asking her about school and stuff and not picking up on obvious “more interesting” tangents she suggested (example: she said “I’m making dolls based on the film House of Flying Daggers“-I asked about dolls instead of talking about what a cool film it is), but after some time I got on to stories about the cool stuff that happened to me yesterday, which kept us going for ages, though it also meant I was carrying the entire conversation. I tickled her under her cheek at one point when we were talking about babies. There was still loads more to talk about when she left, and we shook hands (left for some reason-maybe I shuold have hugged her) but didn’t swap names or anything.

This sort of thing is really my goal with talking to strangers: crack the young women, and everyone else is easy.