International House of French Toast

We suddenly became the proprietors of a youth hostel last night.  The blizzard that struck the cities actually shut the buslines down, which in turn stranded Ildar and 5 fellow foreign exchange student friends at the Mall of America.  We had several phone consultations, and at one point the 6 teens were going to try to stay overnight at the mall.  But then they learned everyone was getting kicked out by 9, regardless of if they had anywhere to go.  Or that was their understanding.  So we needed a plan B.  Our car was snowed into the alley and there was going to be no getting it out, but Jon happened upon a lovely neighbor who was up for an adventure.  The two of them took about a half hour to get the two blocks to Snelling Avenue, but from there were in the clear.  So I called Ildar and told the crew to hop a train to the 46th street station- which it turns out they did, only they shot right past the stop and had to get out a ways down, run across the platform and jump one coming back south.  But on pass number two they all got out and trudged through the hip deep drifts to a Walgreens where they huddled until Jon and Pat drove up in an SUV.  All 6 piled in and they made it back here with only having to get out and push twice.  They came in relieved to get out of the cold, and a bit damp- so we dug out sweatpants and socks for all takers and threw a load into the dryer.   We were able to find enough sheets and blankets and blow up mattresses to get them all mostly comfortable so that after a game of monopoly and a movie they were all able to get some sleep.  Except Theo- who was so keyed up to have a houseful of teenagers that he had real trouble turning it off for the night. He was right in the middle of their game, abusing power as the banker, attempting to give secret loans to his new best friend from Ukraine. 
In the morning we burned through 3 (small) loaves of bread at the International House of French Toast to feed the troops and then we were able to find enough winterwear to outfit our own private shovelling corps.  The five guys tackled the snow with much vigor, helping several neighbors and pushing out lots of stranded cars.  I think they enjoyed themselves.  I would have been out there too, but the boy from Yemen was wearing my boots, the Ukrainian was in my mittens, and the Moldovan was wearing my snowpants.  That left me and my boys, plus a Ukrainian girl, inside getting some tea and cocoa ready.  By noon they had all been picked up and our house almost echoed with the silence after being inundated with teens for the past 18 hours. 

All in all, it was great fun to have them here.  Even if they did demolish almost all of the four dozen cookies I had made just that afternoon!  I suppose that when you look at the hours of shovelling help we got out of the deal this morning, we got off easy.  Eli summed up the experience by saying, "Well, I guess you just never know what you are agreeing to when you say you will host an exchange student!"  But after watching Theo basking in the glow of his six new best friends, I'd say that it still seems worth it.