title: Happily Lost In Time and Place
author: Erika Atkinson
description: Erika Atkinson was born on the prairies of central Canada, in southern Manitoba, into a family of penurious Russian Mennonite immigrants. There she spent her childhood and young adulthood until age eighteen. Having little interest in formal higher education, she instead began preparing to join the Canadian Foreign Service. She came to Washington, D.C., via Ottawa, Canada, a journey that became the ignition point of her travel interests. She lived and worked as an academic administrative assistant in schools, colleges, and universities in Canada, the United States, and Europe. Now long retired from the nine-to-five, she continues to expand her archive of travels and travel experiences. She is the author of HAPPILY LOST IN TIME AND PLACE (EXIT Press, 2012) and lives happily in San Francisco's Castro neighborhood.
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  **CONTENTS**
  
   _Chapter One_
  
   _Chapter Two_
  
   _Chapter Three_
  
   _Chapter Four_
  
   _Chapter Five_
  
   _Chapter Six_
  
   _Chapter Seven_
  
   _Chapter Eight_
  
   _Chapter Nine_
  
   _Chapter Ten_
  
   _Chapter Eleven_
  
   _Chapter Twelve_
  
   _Chapter Thirteen_
  
   _Chapter Fourteen_
  
   _Chapter Fifteen_
  
   _Epilogue_
  
   _Excerpt from_ _ _After the End__
  
   _Back Ads_
  
   _About the Author_
  
   _Books by Amy Plum_
  
   _Copyright_
  
   _About the Publisher_
  
   ** _ONE_**
  
  A NEW CITY. A NEW LAND. A NEW LIFE. OR SO I had hoped.
  
  I left my friends, my country, the home I’ve had for a hundred years to escape
  a girl who has seen only seventeen summers. I put an ocean’s distance between
  us just to discover it wasn’t far enough.
  
  We traded places: She’s now in Paris, and I’m in New York. And therein is the
  problem. This is Kate’s town, and it’s like she never left. She’s still here.
  She is everywhere.
  
  In a week of walking the city streets, I feel like I’ve seen her a hundred
  times. From the American 