Restaurant for Two, Please

How is it that you can dine in a busy central London restaurant and find yourself feeling as if you were the only patrons there? Dine with a good friend and you'll find out. This week I had lunch with one of my most favourite people in the world. I've noted before that I live among amazing people, and she is a prime example. With little time between my morning class and our lunch reservation, we meet at the station to shuffle to our lunching spot. We arrive just on time. The restaurant has a very welcoming, soothing ambiance. Instantly we are transported out of our crazy lives full of to-do lists and endless worries into a stimulating yet decompressing conversation. We are seated at a table in a quiet corner of the restaurant. Fully lost in conversation we feel as though we are regaining ourselves, remembering elements of previous lives. We share. We laugh. Despite attentive wait staff service and a full house, we are alone. It is just us. And just like that two hours have passed. Soon the demands of our busy lives find us checking our watches, mentally reviewing the day's tasks ahead and we are thus back out on the cold streets exchanging valedictions. Before we leave our table haven a mysterious yet cheerful creature appears at our table with little boxes of chocolates, as if from heaven above. What a perfect punctuation to such a perfect lunch.