Once I met a swiss girl

Once I met a swiss girl. She came from a small town right on the edge of german and french switzerland. When speaking english she had a french accent. When speaking german she spoke in swiss dialect. When speaking french I could not understand her. I never really liked the sound of french language. Listening to her made me feel different.

She was funnily obsessed with the fact that not only her hometown was called Freiburg, but that there was another town in germany called the same. She told me about how she visits it once in a year, just because of its name.

Every person, she turned to with a smile on her face and an open heart, willing to accept her opposite as was. No thought of judgement ever crossed her mind. Though she was really mad at me, for not bringing a rain jacket when travelling. Rightly so.

We would walk through town and discuss how I disliked buildings that were painted to make them look like they had a pretty architectural structure. She argued that without the paint, the buildings plain walls would look even worse. My point was that they should have built a more demanding structure from the start.

One time we spent an evening looking through a travelling catalogue. Every page about every part of the world, she read carefully. We played this game, where you would randomly open a page, and whatever country you landed on, you had to travel to. I landed on the pitcairn islands. You have never heard of them, I am sure. We agreed to make plans and sail together to those ominous islands. Over time more stops were added, a ship was chosen (it had to be a pirate ship) and even the musical instruments we had to bring were carefully picked. She wanted to bring her kalimba and I promised to learn the guitar in time. She thought a guitar was boring and wanted me to learn the flute. You can’t shred a flute though.

As we were both married to ourselves already, we went on a perfect fake date.

Admiring the elegance of dolphins, while figuring out how to free them from the aquarium was a great start. She made the mistake of telling me how she had never been on a ferris wheel before. So naturally I took her to the ferris wheel. We were the only ones on it. (I just need to mention that a street musician started to play the flute right next to me. She would have been so happy). On our third extra spin, which the operator so kindly took us on, she talked about how easy it would be to climb the ferris wheel. When asking on why she thought of doing that, she explained that she had climbed every possible building in Freiburg (the swiss one), due to her being a naturally gifted climber. I imagined her trying to climb a house with painted on ornaments.

After sharing a pizza at the stair overlooking the gorgeous highway, where there could have been a promenade, but wasn’t, the final stop was a concert I randomly heard about that day. I didn’t think of going, was however intrigued due to it being a Chet Baker cover act. I love Chet Baker. As we wanted it to a be perfect fake date, ending it with listening to someone falling in love too easily seemed spot on.

The whole thing took place in an archaeological site. Were there was once a roman arena, there is now a concert stage. Have you ever seen a fancy place like that? I haven’t. We both actually preferred the pre-act, as he wasn’t having a monologue after each song, which we both couldn’t understand as neither spoke italian. When the crowd laughed, we would look at each other and laugh with them. About what, I don’t know.

Next day, she departed earlier than I expected. It was a quick goodbye.

I wished her a safe way home. She reminded me to be ready to sail the sea.

Auf Wiedersehen.

The day after she left, it began to rain.

The already broken umbrella I used, was annoyingly often caught in the wind. I should have brought a rain jacket.

I will think about her for a while.

I will think about how she was part of a hostel mafia, how the swiss word for tischkicker is completely incomprehensible or how fun it was to get lost with her in this city.

I had deemed the city as not fun before.

Things changed after her.