Dinner with Gao's Parents

We have just had the most delightful experience! You know the story about Gao, the Chinese fellow we sat by at the Shakespeare Festival.. (see Amazing Coincidenses earlier post)

Well  a few days after we got here, we had a teacher friend call the Dad here in Xi'an, and tell him we met Gao, the son, in U.S.  and that he conveyed his good wishes and was well and doing fine.

So Wednesday, I got a call from Rudy, a cousin, Inviting us to be guests for dinner with Gao's parents.   We agreed, and bravely got into a nice Toyota at our meeting place under the Rainbow Bridge.  Rudy went along as the interpreter.  They asked if we wanted Chinese or American food.  So to be good sports, we said Chinese.

Off we went to dinner at a lovely, formal restaurant.  We pointed at pictures of good-looking food, and had quite a delicious meal--most of which we recognized.  It was quite an interesting experience conversing with a couple who speaks no English, and of course our limited Mandarin.  But Rudy kept up the conversation for all.  We only had chopsticks to eat with, but I managed to scoop up a fair amount.  Tim mostly used his little soup ladle.  We told them his short, stubby fingers were better suited to spinning a basketball, than using chopsticks.

It has rained for 3 days, and I had a rather long difficult day yesterday.  I walked to and from classes in the pouring rain, had to teach 3 classes, 2 hours each.  First one started at 8:00 AM, and last one ended at 6:30 PM.  Yes I had a little nap in the middle, and Tim walked me both ways, carrying my books--throwback to junior high school.  So this evening's dinner was sort of a "tender mercy" to end a rather trying week.  I feel like a pioneer for sure.  

We also had pizza with the foreign teachers, 2 Koreans, 1 from Slovakia, 2 from France, ! British, ! German.  Then we met another American at Subway, with a couple of Indians (from India).  It's quite the international  community here.

My leg is doing better and I can handle the stairs pretty well. We are looking forward to being able to attend church this weekend.  Tim is teaching Priesthood lesson.  We have one TV Channel and it's a sports network that has tennis and basketball, so he is appeased somewhat--although no Megan Kelly.

We also are noodle soup at the Muslim Market on Saturday night.  The city wall and pagodas were all lit up.  Beautiful sight, but extremely crowded!