Surprise Meetings and Ferry (not fairy) Rides

Picture yourself, standing outside the main train station, at one of the bus platforms. You are standing there with your spouse, minding your own business, waiting peacefully for the bus to come and take you to IKEA to meet a friend. You're waiting arm in arm when suddenly you get jolted! from behind! Someone has snuck up on you and made an accompanying surprising sound. Who could it be?

In the second and a half it takes you to turn around, you wonder. And this is exactly what happened to us--and more specifically, to F--last Saturday.
As he told me later, it's a fairly short list of people who would do that to him--and from that short list of people, who would be here in Kiel?

I similarly wondered who it could be and just assumed it was one of his fellow students in his Masters program. So when we turned and saw a short, blond woman with sunglasses there was a brief moment of further confusion.

And then the brains finally processed the visual signals--ah! F's aunt and look there!--next to her, F's uncle! --from Kaiserslautern...in southern Germany. You remember that we are in northern Germany, yes? About 7-8 hours north of there, to be more specific. (Even though both our cities start with "K"...) But there they were!

Remember this? Flashback to two years ago

We then greeted each other joyfully at that sunny bus platform in Kiel and learned they'd been on a cruise and had only been on land for less than 2 hours.
And to think, several factors combined, so that we were there at that point and time:

• We'd taken the earlier bus. We could've taken the later bus---and then we would have missed them.
• We were even taking the bus at all, because our dear old Freyja had given up the ghost.
• We were recognizable--one of us alone could've been unrecognizable (Apparently F's aunt recognized my curls firstl but only decided to approach us because she saw tall F at my side. Otherwise she would've shrugged off the resemblance.)
• My mane of hair was sporting its full curly glory--just think, I could've worn my hair in 2 French braids (that is again possible!) and then where would we have been?

Braided but unrecognized and alone :'(

Okay, here I'm not quite alone. My namesake is sitting on the shelf behind me :)

Okay, maybe that was a bit melodramatic, but still. It was a lovely happenstance that brought us together and we arranged to take the ferry up to Laboe on the following Monday. (An especially good plan, because--typical of people who live in places as opposed to people who visit said places--we hadn't yet taken the ferry up the fjord to Laboe :) Yet another good reason to have guests!)

Skip forward to Monday: We rode the ferry up the fjord, walked, waded in the water, and got covered in tiny annoying but harmless black bugs...*sigh*

There was fish food (not food for fish, but food made of fish), buzzing lobsters to let us know when the food was ready, and ice cream.

There were also tons of bicycles wanting to get onto the same ferry we did..but we still got a spot. Then we rode back down the fjord.

All the while talking, talking, talking :)

We talked about sailing ships and F's uncle could share his extensive knowledge in that area to add to our newly acquired sailing expertise. And when F explained the gist of his Masters thesis, he wasn't met with blank stares (okay..sometimes it's more of a smile and nod thing--then a pause before a new topic is begun...), but instead F's uncle and aunt chimed right in with anecdotes and theories of their own about the differences in cultural perspectives. (Do you think they're related?)

p.s. As indicated in the title, there are the amusing cognates "ferry" and "fairy". A year or two ago, there was a missionary from Iceland who served in our local church congregation.

At one point F was asking him about Iceland and if there are "ferries". The Elder immediately responded "We believe in fairies--" and then he stopped and we all laughed. F had meant to ask about boats that could potentially be ridden between Europe and Iceland. However, you may have heard of Iceland's dedication to their little people. Here's an article about some building delays caused be the locations of fairy houses. And here Wikipedia explains some more.

During our layover in Iceland on our move to Germany, they even included that delightful fact in their advertising for their country, essentially 'Iceland is great. Come visit Iceland. We believe in fairies and have great fjords, etc.' Great slogans, no?

Look! Possibly a fairy--or a mermaid with a glowing halo and definitely some jellyfish!