Friends of Friends of Friends of Friends

The events described within this post actually occurred almost two weeks ago, but I'm just now getting around to blogging about them. Why? Because I am a hip and happening young person with many social events clogging my calendar. Either that or I'm just lazy. I think the first one sounds a lot better, so we'll go with that.

A few months ago we were contacted by our good friend Anna who asked if we'd mind hosting some friends of her girlfriend who were going to be in Warsaw for a few days on their way to China. After Anna explained the convoluted chain of how she knew these people twice more, Lissa and I were, naturally, happy to oblige. After all, it's really not all that often that we get house guests here in the land of Poles¹.

And so, with much fretting -- both on our part and by our guests, apparently -- we prepared to welcome strangers into our home. Well vouched for strangers, but strangers none-the-less.

The visit turned out to be very nice; Richard and Malaika, our guests who are backpacking across much of Europe, Asia, and parts of Africa, were charming and were very excited by Melissa's movie collection and the prospect of sleeping in a bed for a few nights. To quote Malaika, "Everything's so plush and comfy. It's like being in America!"

We aim to please.

While they were here, Richard, a former landscaper, insisted that he help us repot our suffering orange tree. As can be seen from the pictures scattered throughout this post, we went a bit beyond just the tree. Our balcony, which I must thank Richard for helping me clean, is now adorned with flowers, herbs, and our orange tree (which currently has no oranges on it).

Richard and I were so pleased with out gardening efforts that we decided there was no choice but to eat dinner on the balcony. Before dinner, however, Malaika, who is a dancer, treated us to an interpretive dance in honor our freshly repotted orange tree.

The rest of the visit was fairly uneventful. We made Richard's week by going out Friday evening to see X-Men III and then we saw our guests off to the train station on Saturday evening. And then on Sunday we saw them off again. Apparently there was a 12 hour SNAFU with their train time. Poor Malaika was mortified².

In the end things turned out fine. Richard and Malaika were able to switch their tickets to a train leaving the next morning and they arrived safely in Moscow a few days later. From there they planned to head for China and, so far as we know, they arrived in Beijing sometime yesterday after a full six days on a train.

-Dave, Gardening God

¹Which is a shame because it really is a lovely country. Repeat after me, "I waaant to visit Poland! I neeeeed to visit Poland! I will happily pay Dave and Melissa whatever they want for rent while I stay with them!"

²I think she felt slightly better when I related the story of the time Melissa booked our tickets home from Colorado for February 3^rd as opposed to January 3^rd.