Wow, what a day! It all started when I kind of agreed the night before to allow the small group that I go out to lunch with on Sundays to come over after the service for a quick lunch and then we would be off to ice skating. I did some cleaning the night before so that they could come to a half clean apartment. (I didn't know if they would be coming over for sure. That part was never agreed upon. :) ) So left I home, met a friend on the way to the service and walked with her. We got there a bit late and just found any seat. Some friends that were sitting behind us told us we might want to move. I asked "why!" She said that she would tell me later, so we stayed where we were. Bordering on a bad idea. The guy that was sitting 2 seats away leaned over and shook my hand, then he proceeded to smell the coats the ladies behind us had laid on the seat next to me. The guy wanted to talk the entire service, and did sometimes just talk in a normal voice while everyone else was listening to the speaker.
After the service I was trying to figure out what was going to happen for lunch. One of the ladies came up to me. I asked her where we were going for lunch. She said, MY PLACE. My thought was, "I have to leave right now to get home and finish cleaning up." One of the ladies said she would take me, so I waited for her to get ready to go. We just kind of stood around, and kept waiting. More people kept talking to us; we found more people to talk to. It was finally decided that if we were going ice skating as was the plan, we needed something quick. So off to the food court we went.
After a quick lunch, where my brain was already tuning out of the language, we started out with 9 people in 2 cars. By the time we arrived at the place we were going we had 7 people. It took so long to get there that 2 people decided not to come.
Then, after skating for almost, our allotted hour, one of the ladies fell and split her chin! There was blood gushing everywhere. It was crazy! We got her off the ice and sitting down. There were no paramedics, just a lady who brought out some cotton and peroxide and tape, to tape the cotton on the wound! We got the cut to stop bleeding and headed for the nearest hospital. It was nuts, because of having to follow each other and loosing each other constantly.
After being refused at one hospital, we went to the next that would only be open at 7pm. It was 5:30pm by this time! We couldn't wait that long. One of the guys called the ambulance. We all just stood in the street while the ambulance arrived, and checked out our friend. They said she needed stitches so would need to go to the hospital. (I saw the gash after cleaning the blood off her chin, back at the rink, and knew it was pretty bad.) We all got in one car by this time, because there were only 4 people left. 2 had gone in the ambulance, and the last had been dropped off at the metro to catch a train out of town. We lost the ambulance on the way to the hospital, so had to find our own way. Our friend got stitched up, and we left to go get something to eat somewhere. We ended up meeting back up, with everyone that we had lost along the way, at this lady's home, for pizza at 8:30pm, and of course fellowshipped the rest of the evening, until 10:30ish.
It cracked me up at how crazy things got, and how everyone just kind of took it in stride. It was also interesting to be along for the ride, and try to keep up. I feel like life here is never boring.
This was the view behind me. Amazing!
I also had the opportunity to go to a conference a couple of weeks back. It was a refreshing but very busy time. These are some of my friends that I was there with.
And of course, the living accommodations were a bit tight. 6 ladies in this tiny room. It was fun, though.
And meals were interesting. Exact amount of food for 8 adults at each table. Bread at every meal. Local food each time. Not bad.
21st century hanging out with friends:
