My friend Cristina from Buenos Aires and I have known each other for 15 years. We met in the BBC Learning English Facebook group to brush up our language skills and got part of a group of people who organised online meetings via Skype to practise our speaking skills.

15 years later, we are still a group of seven friends from countries like Argentina, Brazil, South Korea, Pakistan, Italy, Slovakia and Germany, now organised on WhatsApp. Today I met Cristina in person for the first time. She was visiting Berlin for a few days with her husband Oscar.

It was so easy and wonderful, as if we were meeting regularly face to face. We laugh about the same things and we all enjoy Bratwurst with Kartoffelsalat. It doesn’t matter if there are thousands of kilometers between us or just a table at a restaurant.