Oh god how much I wish I took pictures of this! I have sunk back into my old habits of never having a camera with me, which is really too bad. Also, a really really frustrating thing just happened to me and you are reading the SECOND typing of this story. The first one was ALL deleted. Ugh. But here's the story...
So remember when I wrote about our hike in Abel Tasman National Park near Nelson, New Zealand? Well, so insignificant it didn't make it onto this blog, on the hike we stumbled upon a group of kids about my age while crossing a beach at low tide (it was very time sensitive because the beach didn't exist at high tide, so we were racing the clock!) They asked us to take their picture and so we did. They seemed like a really fun group. We ended up walking at about the same pace for awhile and ended up chatting with a young man from Germany. He explained that he was really only there with his one buddy from home and that the other three girls they had just met that day on that hike. Did we get his name? No, but he stayed back with us as we had to take off our shoes and cross the swelling ocean water "creeks" filled with sharp shells. He told us that he and his friend were on a world tour similar to the one I was just nearing the end of: Australia - New Zealand - Fiji - Los Angeles! Of course we had to ask their plans and it turned out they had none. I gave him my email address and told him to get in touch with me if he wanted any help trying to figure out what to do. And that was that!
Flash forward to about a week later when another kind stranger, Donna, put me up my last night in Auckland. When I asked her at the end what I could do to repay her, she simply said, "Pay it forward."
It was that day that our German friends, henceforth known as Marcus and Sebastian, sent me an email. They were in Fiji and needed an address to give US customs on their arrival and wanted to know of a good hostel. Hostel? Not in Los Angeles. After a few emails back and forth we determined that I would pick them up at LAX and that they could stay at Jeff's house for two nights while we all figured out what they should do to maximize their stay in the states. And oh how many people rallied to make it a good time in the states for the Germans! Their first night, my mom, Jeff, Scott, Melissa, and I took them to Mijares for their first Mexican meal. (When asked if they'd ever had Mexican food they answered, no. When asked if they'd had a margarita before they looked at us like we were insane.) The next day, my wonderful friend Rob took us on a tour of the Paramount Lot on a golf cart. Marcus and Sebastian were particularly stoked with their little gate passes with a map of the lot and a ticket that reads "Paramount Pictures Welcomes ___(name)___" Great souvenir, and I've got to hand it to Paramount for stepping it up since my days writing gate passes. We then did the touristy-ist thing - Hollywood Blvd and the Chinese Theater. Marcus and Sebastian really enjoyed picking out the other German tourists. That place is a zoo. That afternoon I had some work to do so Melissa met the boys in Old Town for a bit of shopping. They had some great success. That night, we went to a Dodgers game. Oh how I loved the look of, "is this for real?" on their faces during the seventh inning stretch! They did point out one thing though - why is the baseball championship a world series when the US is the only country in the world who participates? A bit narcissistic... And then to top it off, the next morning, Jeff's brother, Johnnie, drove the boys down to my grandparents house in the OC! Marcus loves the show OC (he also loves Gossip Girl...) It's not really my adventure at this point, but we've been getting really fun reports from my grandparents about their stay. Marcus was a sous chef and insisted on cooking a big dinner for them that my grandparents sound over the moon about, they got a picture I'm dying to see of my Grandpa (Poppy) sprawled out on a surfboard, my grandparents told them where to go one night when the were going OUT (and didn't get home until 3am!) Tomorrow my grandparents put the Germans on a train to San Diego (my grandmother is uneasy about the fact that they have no where to stay there) and from there they have an action packed week - Las Vegas AND San Francisco!
It's been fun seeing my part of the US as an adventure through their eyes... le sigh, I miss traveling...
Fabulous story!!!!
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