Downtown

Post presentations didn't skip a beat to move to our downtown hotel...The taxi driver waived our twenty dollar fare. My friend had been in Africa this summer on a grant, made donations to the local schools in Ethiopia. She had been to his city, "How did you see it?" he wanted to know." When we got out he said, "For what you did in my town, thank you."

We skipped the presidential reception to sit at the faux beach bar. Our bartender had a father that was a special education administrator in Chicago, small world. We convinced another first year student it was okay to skip the reception as long as we made it to the university dinner. It felt good to be in the open air. Met some OC businessmen, that assured us no one there called it that. Politics came up and although we stood on different sides what we could agree on was, "the educational system in the U.S. provides the least for students in poor schools." He picked up our tab and arranged to send my friend three computers for her classroom. Double checked with our bartender to make sure they had taken care of him, "absolutely, more than taken care of, thank you."

We walked to the dinner and although we were on time, evidently everyone was on hyper time and seated at the large table. The hostess greeted us warmly. We waited for the next table to be set happily. Taking our place at the kids table we laughed, still amused by the kindness of strangers. We trumped the large table: The hostess moved herself and her guest to our table, the person who followed her with her glass of wine also was invited to sit. While the hyper early folks sat at a table for twenty we sat at a table for six. The wine flowed conversation was easy and the whole evening felt just a little surreal...Oh yeah, and for the third time that day, our tab was picked up. Gracias.