From A to Z

Whoopity freakin doo Kristi. You ran into a friend, want a Swiss made time piece (Swiss medal) or a chocolate bar (Swiss cookie)? I will take the chocolate bar thanks, I don't wear a watch.

So if you are an Expat or soon-to-be-Expat, one of your major concerns is making friends. I liken it to the feeling you had on your first day of school, or if you are like me, first year of college. Crazy questions run through your brain and you have several Stuart Smalley moments: Will I meet anyone? Will anyone like me? Will I have a social life? Will my social life consist of 3 year old American TV re-runs and half a bar of chocolate every night (hey, don't knock it)? Will I have to talk about George Bush all the time because I am American? Can I just say "I voted for Obama" and smooth things over immediately? Why is it snowing so freaking much?

For me, questions like these ran through my brain constantly before and during the first two months of living in Switzerland.

The good news is, making friends was and is easy. Far easier than I anticipated, but they didn't land at my feet like pennies from heaven. I had to make it happen. A future post will discuss this in more detail, but what I found bat crap crazy was what transpired yesterday evening.

On my way home from class, I saw my bus on the horizon. Anytime I see my bus, the one that drops me off a 4 minute walk from home, "Chariots of Fire" pops into my brain and I start walk/running towards it. Just the day before I saw this bus pull away when I was 15 steps away from it. No waving, no jumping, no mouthing of "I will give you a five spot if you stop", was going to stop this bus driver. If I didn't make this bus, I would then be stuck with a different bus which dropped me off much further away and let me tell you people, it is frackin cold out.

So I put my head down, concentrated and made a bee-line until this person started shadow defending me, like Kobe on Iverson. At first I thought it was one of those odd moments where someone coming at you was trying to move out of your way, and you were trying to move out of their way, but you moved in the same direction...only for one or both of you to pull a groin muscle in the process. I then however realized that I knew this person and this person was a friend of mine.

We stopped and chatted and I forgot all about the good bus. After exchanging pleasantries, I slowly walked to the bus stop, and like the day before I witnessed the good bus pull away when I was not but 15 feet away. I smiled as it pulled off as it was a very small price to pay for the realization that I had somewhat made it here. I never thought 5 months into living in a foreign land that I would randomly bump into a friend, a stranger yes...this happens daily actually, but a friend? No. It was proof that the Boy and I are slowly but surely building something here, what that something is, remains to be seen. As I got on the crappy bus, thoughts of the cold walk home exited my brain. I was warmed and amazed by the fact that I could at random, bump into a friend, in the city of Zurich and that dog-gone-it, people like me.