Two Tall Travelers

When I came to Richmond the Booth family lovingly took me into their home and made me feel so welcome and at home here. I know Steve Booth from his visits to Salzburg with teams from FBC  Richmond.  I thank God for them because they were an answer to prayer.  Even though Barbara calls me “Christian” here and there :-), (the last Austrian in the house was my friend Christian from Freilassing), and that I almost had a heart attack from the wolf I saw on Tuesday morning in the backyard, they have been absolutley wonderful to me.

I got up fairly early the last day in NY since my chinatown bus left at 11am from 88 E Broad St. Having been in NYC for 4 days I knew my way around (or so I thought) so I planned to just cross Central park up at 88th street in the upper East Side, drop by the MET (Metropolitan Museum of Art) for an hour or so and then hop on the bus. I was a little curious about the Chinatown bus not leaving from Chinatown…

Well, leaving the hostel I just aked the receptionist about 88 E Broad St. and to my surprise… it was nowhere near where I suspected! It did indeed leave from Chinatown in lower Manhatten Had I not got this crucial info I would have hopelessly missed my 20$ ride to DC. So I got on the Metro (sleeping people all over) hopped off in Chinatown and rushed through the what seemed like thousands of Chinese with my map… Tourist! But I got there on time!

4 beautiful faces met me in DC. Jon, Sasha, Isabella, and Josiah. They had doubled since last time I saw them!! The kids are adorable. To say the least. Isabella is 19 months and Josiah is 3 months old. Josiah was fascinated by the first airplane (brothers Wright) in the Air and Space museum and Isabella loved the flowers at the Botanical gardens which we visited that afternoon.

I spent 4 wonderful days with the Webbs. Our time was filled with good laughter, good conversation about worship and the church, and watching Isabella mess up the three m2 around her place at the dinner table. She calls me “Cici” by the way. She is too cute!
Jon is the worship pastor at Dulles Community Church, where he led the music for two services in the morning and an evening event as well. It was food for my soul to be part of an authentic Christian community with Jon leading the music.

It was such a sweet time that I didn’t want to say our good-bye…having decided that Isabella would come with Cici to travel the world. But she stayed after all. I’m still caught in the webb though…

Can you guess the 3 things that New Yorkers do on the Metro? -sleep.-listen to an ipod-read. They don’t talk much on the Metro, which is surprising. Still, Americans are open to strangers and usually just start to talk. That’s what I like about them! What a change from the tight European Continent, where you barely look someone in the eye.