Palo Alto CA - Jan 17, 2008 - Palo Alto, California, United States

Have you ever met someone new and had that “don’t wanna let you go” feeling? Well, that happened today at the dog park. Aisha and I met Sheri. She was a great listener and a good talker too. I chatted about our trip, we talked about our lives, and she even told us about a recent trip she had taken to Israel. We invited her to a Martin Luther King event we were going to the next day, but since she was bush she instead asked us to dinner on Wednesday night and we accepted! The amazing part of our conversation was that she confessed she had JUST returned from a 10-day trip to Israel and literally had only about 6 hours of sleep since arriving at midnight the night before! What a great first impression with so much jet lag and so little sleep!

What has surprised me during this trip is how willing people are to spend time with total strangers. Why are we less inclined to do this with someone we meet who ISN'T traveling? Is it because we might find out we don’t like them and be stuck with them? Because we might have to face them again? Wouldn't it be great to at least try and see what comes of it? You never know until you ask.

Dinner with Sheri was delicious, not to mention fun and unforgettable. Sheri invited her neighbor, Howard, to dinner with us and we also were able to meet her husband Gerry when he got home from work (at our favorite website in the world, Google). It was terrific meeting Howard and it felt so good to truly laugh (Howard is quite the fun and funny guy).

We will also be forever grateful to Howard because after hearing Aisha talk longingly about learning to play the guitar, he gave Aisha and Soleil his guitar that he was no longer using. Thank you Howard. We know that Sheri and Howard will be long-time friends and we look forward to our paths crossing again.