Exchanging.

Dani and I spent the past weekend hangin' in the East Bay with exchange students from Norway, Sweden and Holland. And that shit was gangsta'.

I convinced my mom and dad to get exchange students through Lions Club because having a cool host family is a key part of the exchange experience. Two of my Italian host families were awesome, and that made my time trapped in their small mountain towns awesome. So my parents offered up their house to Sara and Mirjam from Sweden and Holland, respectively. Our friend and fellow Lion Bill had hosted a couple of years ago, so my parents convinced him and his wife Darlene to do it again. They got Rebecca from Norway, who does everything with our girls. I think my dad and my like having the girls around, since I'm not home anymore. My dad really loves schmoozing and being with young people. (I mean, he is a teacher, after all.) So I think they both are really enjoying the company of these young ladies.

Dani and I arrived Thursday afternoon, and Thursday night we took our foriegn girls to their first American baseball game. It was also Dani's first baseball game. So after a lot of explaining of rules and strategies, I think my Dad and I managed to clarify the game and got the girls into it. We took the girls to another game on Sunday, during which Sara told the man sitting in front of her that she was married to Jay Payton, the Rockies' left fielder we got in the Eric Byrnes trade. Everytime Payton made a play or came up to hit, this man would look over at her to see if she was paying attention to her "husband." My family sits in the section right next to the wives and family section, so we know for a fact that when baseball wives come to a game, they are not even paying attention to the game at all. I don't think I've ever seen Alex Chavez even notice her husband (with all his Golden Gloves) make a catch or get a hit. In any case, this dude totally believed Sara. Which was pretty funny to the rest of us. Unfortunately, Sunday's game went into extra innings--5 extra innings. So after 5 extra innings, Bobby Kielty hit a long ball to right field just over the wall to win. Finally! I think the girls all liked baseball, but extra innings was a little much even for someone like me who goes to a lot of games.

On Friday we went to Muir Woods and Stinson Beach--two places to which, in my 18 years of Bay Area residency--I have never been. Naturally, as I never go swimming or to the beach at home in the bay, I did not bring a suit. So I fell asleep in the sun at Stinson and burned the back of my calves very nicely. That night we went disco bowling up at Travis and no one in the bowling alley could figure out why Dad and Bill were hanging out with 5 college girls. The music wasn't loud enough at the bowling alley, but Sara and I were nonetheless trying to dance like Beyonce when "Crazy in Love" came on.

On Saturday, I took the girls shopping on Telegraph. European money is worth so much here, and my money worth so little there, so the girls had a lot of vacation cash to spend as everything seemed cheap to them. They found some cute clothes to wear that night to the Lions Club installation dinner, at which their presence was required. Before dinner that night, Bill had us hunt for District Governor Walter's wedding ring out in the rock garden where he had lost it earlier that day. Walter promised us $300 if we found it, and found it we did--after only 4 minutes of searching. (Word from my Dad is that Walter paid the girls yesterday, so $120 dollars is coming down to SB for Dani and me via mail.) The dinner itself was super-ass long and boring, so Dani started passing notes around the table.

When the Lions dinner was over, we headed into San Francisco to hang out with my best friend, Eric. Eric had planned an evening out dancing for the girls . . . but we wound up at some weird 80s club where only 30-year-olds were dancing to the worst 80s music ever. And this place was rated one of the hot 18 & Over clubs by SF Weekly . . . And we found this out after waiting about 30 minutes for our second cab to arrive at the club! In any case, we all had a really good time. I think Rebecca had the best time out of all of us because she was only 17, so we snuck her into the club with my military ID.

Dani and I had to leave on Monday, but we went with the girls to see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory before leaving. They're all such cool girls it was a difficult good-bye. Sara wanted us to stay until Saturday, but, unfortunately, we both have to work. We miss them already, and I hope they had a good time with us!