Der Tag; part 2

Chapter 1 part 2

Of course when you meet in passing and develop friendships in fifteen minutes over ice cream, (which everyone ought to do before they die) there is little you can do with them, all of your plans are more or less set, and you cannot throw your plan away and wander around with your newfound friends. You can however exchange contact information, and that is what we did.

                Our hotels were conveniently close, and they came to visit me every day on the promise I would one day visit them. I never did. I truly did want to, but I never had the time, even though I should have. They understood and did not mind however, and when it was time for me to return home, they came to see me off, and we made absolutely sure that we would write each other.

                And then I let their memory slip into oblivion, and honestly I had forgotten them until they loyally sent me a letter and an Email. From that point a friendship developed and blossomed between us, and Miri, Eli, Ursi and I became very good friends. We used all of the resources we had after that to stay in contact; the pen, the computer and the telephone became our means, and we talked as much as our schedules allowed. Unfortunately with the difficulty of Swiss school, (Kantonschule) as often as we could was not so often after all.

                I was simply overjoyed when I got the message informing me Mirjam was coming. She broke the news in the fun “guess what!” style we all know; as I was rushing to school she told me she’d be coming to the United States, and then I asked where.

                “Are you coming here?”

                A single word “Yes.”

                Needless to say I was late for school that day. I started asking her a host of questions, and allowing my thoughts to run wild. I asked for her itinerary and plans, and she told me she would not be coming for four months. I didn’t care. The point was she was coming, and I was in trouble when I got to class.
                As the days passed and zipped from the drizzly days of February to the slightly sunnier days of March, Mirjam, her friends and I spent the days fantasizing over her impending arrival. I could envision myself being the ultimate tour guide; meeting them wherever they arrived and chaperoning them all over the place, as if I was an adult actually hosting them as a friend. I could not imagine anything else, but slowly more details of their plans emerged, and my thoughts became more rational.

                The Schnüringers would be arriving in late July in Los Angeles, and drive around the American southwest going as far as Lake Powell, before returning through the desert and coming up to San Francisco. They would be in San Francisco for three days over a weekend, arriving on Friday and leaving after Monday. I would only be able to see them on one of those days, and I knew I had to make it count, so I chose to meet them on Sunday, although I did not know what they wanted to do. With still a month to go before their arrival, I rapidly began to put together a plan; how to entertain a family of four Swiss people in the City of Fog, while not ruining my own wallet.