So it is a small world after all...

Yesterday, I walked into a café in Bethlehem, remembering that a friend from Atlanta had mentioned knowing someone that worked there. I happened to walk right up to the guy, at the same time that he was working on an application to study at Georgia State University! Seriously, what are the odds? We chatted a bit about what I am doing here, and he knew my program right away, mostly due to his connection with the head of an organization that I had a meeting with later that day.  

After this, I headed over to a coffee shop nearby to spend the afternoon studying Arabic. This particular coffee shop is in Palestine (obviously) but has a bit of an American feel (with American-style coffee selections & resources for travelers). It sort of feels like the alter-ego of the Palestinian-owned coffee shop that I frequent back in America :) I was sitting there thinking about how this place reminded me of home, just as the song "Georgia on my Mind" started playing. No kidding.    

Then time came to make my way to that meeting, for which I had been given vague directions that went something like, "Go to a supermarket whose name I can't pronounce, make a couple of turns somewhere around a church, pass some ATMs, then enter the first floor of an unidentified building." If you are at all familiar with my sense of direction, you can imagine how this went. Serendipitously, as I was walking the completely wrong way, I heard someone say, "Cait! What are you doing here?" It was a friend who I had met earlier, who knew exactly where I needed to go and sent me straight there.  

On the way, I needed to get something to eat, but didn't see any places that were open... Until I stumbled upon the small restaurant that my friend had recommended as the best falafel in the whole area. To top it all off, once arriving at my meeting place, I soon realized that it was actually the home of one of my professors.  

I feel like I could extrapolate multiple meanings from this day: For one, perhaps we are all connected [even across the world] by more than we may realize. And second, sometimes things just seem to work out better than we could plan, usually when we least expect it :) 


Random, unrelated picture of Palestinian sweets