Yusuf visits from Dubai
It has been so busy lately and I haven’t had a chance to blog about a very important event that occurred 2 weeks ago. My good friend, Yusuf, flew all the way in from Dubai to visit San Antonio for a few days.
I met Yusuf 5 years ago when I studied abroad in Seville, Spain. I lived with his family for 6 months. We became very good friends and have kept in touch since then. Once I graduated from college in 2005, I took my mom and my sister to Spain for 2 weeks. I was able to visit with him then and my sister and mom met him and his family. It was so wonderful! It was like I had never left.
There is something very special about Yusuf. He is incredibly intelligent and is gifted in languages. His native language is Spanish, but he speaks fluent English, Italian, French and German. He understands the history of languages. He translates the meaning of words, not just the words and he can do that on the fly. It is really incredible!
I knew this young man was going to go far! In his last year at the university, he applied to work at the United Emirates. Out of 3,000 applicants, less than 25% are accepted and he was one of those individuals. He moved to Dubai and has been working for the Emirates for 2 years now. He has seen the world and has such amazing stories to tell and beautiful pictures to show. I am going to start a picture gallery for him so I can share his photos.
He has calls me every chance he gets and we keep in contact through email. When I found out I was getting married, I knew he had to be there. He will be standing in my wedding!
So over the holidays, I get this ecstatic email from Yusuf saying that he was flying to Houston. The Emirates had just started a new route that went directly from Dubai to Houston. Since it was new flight, they weren’t flying daily yet so the attendants had a 3 day layover. Yusuf was going to be on that flight which means he would be in Houston for 3 days! I couldn’t believe it! I immediately bought him a Southwest airline ticket to San Antonio. My family and Jason were all so excited to meet hi
m!
When Jason and I went to go greet him at the airport, it was like I had never been away from him. It had been 3 years since I’d seen him and it felt like yesterday. It was such a wonderful feeling. The first place we go is to Rosario’s to eat Mexican food and drink margaritas. My brother Wayne and his girlfriend Layla and my sister Sarah all tagged along. It was funny because my brother doesn’t know Spanish and gets nervous so I told Yusuf to talk to him in Spanish so all he said was “como estas” and my brother said “Wayne.” Haha, it was so funny!
My mom planned a lovely dinner party at her house for my friends. We drank wine, ate salmon and shared Yusuf’s photos. It was a good time. I knew Yusuf was tired though. He had a 17 hour flight and was very jet lag.
The next day we took him to the Guenter House for breakfast, to the San Fernando Cathedral (built by Spaniards), the Alamo and to La Cantera. Oh and we went to get him fitted for his tux for the wedding. Him and my sis crashed in the car, it was jam packed weekend. We then took him to Los Barrios for his last dinner before he left. He couldn’t believe how much we ate. He also couldn’t believe everyone spoke Spanish. He said he felt right at home.
So he left but he will be back for the wedding and he will bring his friend Abraham. It will be such a fun adventure!