Crossing the Street, Mountains and Coffee

by sharethewell

There we stood by the side of the road, watching car after car after taxi after bus whiz by us. Sarah and I were attempting to cross one of the busiest streets in town after a long walk around the city center. There never seemed to be a break in the cars and I was about to suggest giving up and getting a taxi when a older woman stepped out in front of us. She looked at us, chuckled a bit and stepped out into the traffic, motioning us to follow her. She navigated through the lanes, shaking her fists at a few different drivers. We reached the median and she turned and gave us the normal cultural greetings (“Welcome, welcome. I am your servant. Welcome, thank you, nice to meet you, I am your servant.”). We responded accordingly and stuck close as she crossed to the other side. Laughing, she turned, waved and went on her way as we went on ours.

A small gesture, but the hospitality of strangers like this woman means a lot more than you’d think!

Yesterday, some visitors from the US were here. We drove out to the mountains with them, stopped on the side of the road. It was a crazy view, the clouds were rolling in, covering the tops of the mountains and you could feel it getting colder by the minute. It was the kind of landscape that I thought “I should really take some pictures of this,” but I didn’t want to distract myself from experiencing it by trying to get a good picture. To make up for it, here’s a shot from downtown.

The clock looks and feelings pretty European and out of place here… but somehow, that makes sense.

Here’s what our mornings tend to look like:

We have a milk frother! Who knew? We found it at a second-hand store in town. With the coffee and we brought from the US, Sarah’s french press and our new milk frother, mornings are quite delightful.

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