Back to Frankfurt... Eleventh Day: Eleven Faithful Apostles
Friday, January 5, 2007
By eight o’clock in the morning, St. Louis time, the girls had already boarded their plane towards the somewhat touristy city of Frankfurt, Germany, where they would stay the night and have most of Saturday to explore the city. A roughly four and a half hour flight to Frankfurt, followed by one nearly twice as long the next evening.
And Dad had, indeed, placed a call over to their hotel at ten o’clock on Thursday night, St. Louis time, to straighten out the issue with the ATM card. As it turned out, the ATM machine (though never dispelling the money on command) had decided to charge them a $37 fee both times they attempted a withdrawal. A rather cruel unexpected expense for the girls, which Dad discovered after reviewing the transaction.
Mom and Dad were both able to talk with the girls for awhile, despite the fact that they had been awaken after only five and a half hours of sleep. The girls had, however, been given an executive suite for their last night in Cairo – perhaps an oversight when their hotels had originally been booked.
“You should see the sun rising over Cairo…” Rose had said groggily over the phone, “it’s so beautiful…”
Despite being very tired, they both said that the trip was “awesome”. They had been meeting people from around the world, including Canada and New Zealand, etc. Rose had already taken about a thousand pictures and had been keeping a journal.
And somehow she had run into some insects on their first night in Cairo, which had left a certain rash on her hand. But it must have been rather an insignificant irritation compared to the marvels they had witnessed already over the past days.
There was something magical about one’s first trip overseas. Even five and a half years later, Hungary was still a glowing page in Collette’s life’s book. The marvel of the whole experience still hadn’t faded.
Another Friday morning and another meeting with another loan officer. And another gray day in January. By the end of the day, OLeif and Collette had still not settled on which loan officer they would choose. But they had a good idea. It was an interesting process, learning how to buy a house.
Randomly, while they had been sitting in the loan officer’s office, Collette had noticed a white hair in OLeif’s goatee. Time was on the move.
Wasn’t it only yesterday that Collette and Diana had been rambling through the woods down the road from the English’s, naming the nooks and glades. She remembered Violet Vale – a small forested patch between a yard of evergreens and a house on a hill, covered in purple blossoms every spring. It must have already been ten years ago that they named that place.
Meanwhile, OLeif was thrilled over the format of his new desktop, which included wiggling screens and falling snow. The things they embellished on technology…
And Collette made him a pizza while he finished the first season of 24. But not long after the pizza came out of the oven, there was a knock on the door, and three laughing people on the other side. Ben-Hur, Augustus, and Molly had come over to kidnap them for the evening.
It ended up being a weird sort of night, also involving Magnus and Samantha – taking them over various parts of town, including Wal-Mart, the bowling alley (where they never played a game), and to Denny’s, where they were definitely the loudest table in the room. The night ended towards midnight and was accompanied by strange dreams on Collette’s part.