Recently, Ursula Schindler and her son, Michael Schindler, who live in Regensburg, Germany, visited at the Tonganoxie home of Merald and Shirley Tice.

Ursula and Michael were traveling in the United States in June. While here they planned to attend a wedding in Kansas City, which was close enough that they could stop and spend a few days with the Tices.

Ursula first met Merald and Shirley three years ago. The couple was in Regensburg and Shirley stopped a passerby, Ursula, to ask directions.

“I meet them in Regensburg. They make a tour through Germany. I was power walking.” Ursula said, gesturing how she moves her arms when walking. “I was going along the Danube. Shirley asked me something, we speak, we talked and I say I was in Kansas before.”

Ursula has a half-brother who lives in the Kansas City area.

During their initial visit, Ursula and the Tices became fast friends.

Ursula invited them to join her and her husband, Theophil, the next day for a tour of Regensburg.

Theophil is a surgeon and Ursula manages his office. Ursula is also a member of the executive board of German employers, a 7,000-member strong professional organization.

Regensburg has a population of 150,000. There are buildings there that date back to the Middle Ages.

It was ironic that the Tices had ended up in Regensburg at all. They’d planned to stay in Munich, 18 miles away, but the hotels were full.

“So we just looked around at neighboring good-sized towns and we found a Quality Inn in Regensburg,” Merald said.

The next day, the couple, who had been in Europe for two weeks, had a hankering for American fast food.

“We had seen a McDonald’s but we didn’t know how to get there,” Merald said. “And here came Ursula walking down near the river with her weights in her hands and her walking suit on.”

Shirley decided to ask directions and by the end of the visit Ursula had given them her e-mail address, her home phone number and had invited them to go on a tour of the town the next day.

“This was all while we were standing beside the Danube, the ‘Magic River,’ I call it,” Merald said.

While in Kansas, the Tices took Ursula and Michael on a whirlwind tour. Their daytrip included a visit to the Eisenhower Museum in Abilene.