Geneseo: The Melting Pot... Who Knew?

So I have been meaning to blog about some of my favorite people and places in Geneseo. Every week Eric and I have the lunch buffet at the Chinese restaurant. The food is quite good, but by far the best part of our lunch is Bill. Bill and his family own the restaurant, and Bill prides himself on "service with a smile". We are regulars so he automatically knows our drink order... "Hot tea! Hot tea!"... that is until I started mixing it up with the warmer weather and sometime get a diet pepsi. You could be having a crappy day, but after lunch with Bill everything seems better. He never seems to have a bad day, and is always chatting with Eric (who has been going there for years) about something often telling him to eat more food. Bill has had the day off a couple of times the past month it really just isn't the same without him.

Another one of our favorite places is Parkway Grille. It is just your basic diner, but is owned by a couple from Kosovo, Nick & Nurije. We have never seen Nick, but Nurije is always there running the register and chatting with us. One day after having my hair highlighted this winter, she wanted the number of my hairdresser. Another day I went up to pay and she was struggling with balancing their bank statement... she said something about not liking banks, then asked me what I did for a living... "I work for a bank". We both laughed a lot. The other day she got a hold of Eric and was encouraging him to start a business in Kosovo, with her connections, she said the region is ripe for new business. Then she told us about "her country" and we just stood there rather dumb founded. When she was there she worked with Mother Teresa giving aid to those displaced by the war. She knew a man who had was released from a communist prison after being there for more than 25 years, another one of her friends lost 55 members of his family in the war. I simply can't imagine seeing such horrors.

So here is to Bill and Nurije... they bring sunshine to our day, and are a part of the Geneseo melting pot.