this is iowa city.

this is iowa city, in the days before valentine's day...

a guy is sitting at a table alone at the java house. his wife, i presume, comes in to show him pictures they are both overly excited for. he leaves his stuff behind, and he walks her out and comes back to sit down alone again. minutes later, his wife is walking back to the table, all smiles. and they kiss and she's off again. no words. just smiles and kisses.

last night we got 7 inches of snow. i awoke at 7:15 this morning to my dad telling my cousin, princesse, that she didn't have school today. i slept for an hour more, dreaming that my classes would be cancelled...all schools, including colleges, within a 150-mile radius are closed, except for mine.

sitting in the java house again, a small group of about 7 cute little children are sitting at some tables they've pushed together with an eccentric caucasian woman with inch-long dark hair and glasses (whom i later found out is the mother of 3 of the biracial children sitting at the table and whose husband is nigerian), a smiley woman from kenya with her head wrapped beautifully in butter yellow cloth, and a blonde cheery-eyed woman. i told the kenyan woman that my mother was from zaire and she asked me if i spoke lingala. i said no because there are only a few words that i can decipher and then she started saying words like 'sangonini' (spelling?), which is how many congolese greet each other. minutes later, the group of children started counting in swahili.

sometimes i love this place.