My First Connections - Google Assisted

When Deb and I were readying for our first trip to Switzerland in 2005, I did my usual procrastination in getting contact information from dad and Jane. Both dad and Jane had suggested that Rein and/or his daughter Nathalie might be the best to contact because of their excellent ability with English. Because of my own delay in requesting email and phone information, the trip grew closer without me having established contact with anyone in Switzerland. So one day I decided to see if I might be able to find an email address or phone number of Rein and/or Nathalie on the internet. Probably because of their unique names (like my own), my very first Google search resulted in finding an Italian language web site where both of their names appeared with phone numbers. Using the Google language translating tool, I was able to discern that the web site involved some sort of table tennis association.

With the phone numbers in front of me and after doing an additional internet check of the time in Switzerland (9 hours ahead of me), I decided to call the number shown for Nathalie. It was a moment of "what have I got to lose" type of thinking. My call was answered by a female voice speaking Italian -- and I began to try to explain (in English, of course) who I was and why I was calling -- hoping that I had gotten lucky in finding Nathalie. You can imagine my relief when Nathalie identified herself, acknowledged that she knew who I was (remember, we had never met -- but "son of Wilmar" seemed to do the trick -- with thanks again for another unusual name!) and said that she was with her dad, Rein. She passed the phone to Rein -- and the resulting brief but warm conversation launched my own connection with the family in Gordevio. It was a wonderful moment that that has led to all that has followed. Dad wrote in his autobiography of his meeting of Rein, his wife Elly and their children Nathalie and Mathieu: "It was one of those situations where one instantly feels a bonding." My experience was the same.