Wednesday, July 19, 2006

Creepy


Last night I went to a going away dinner for my friend, Terry. Now Terry is quite a character, a clever entrepreneurial businessman with connections all over the place that you would never expect if you saw him padding about in his sun hat, Hawaiian shirt and goofy Crocs on the street.

The cast was certainly not part of our typical scene, which was part of the fun: Egyptian businessmen, Israeli scientists, the British ambasssador, the German biz dev director of an Egyptian luxury bedding company. But despite my reservations, we had a great time, mostly thanks to the Israeli scientist seated near us, who has been the director of the Israeli Academic Center in Cairo for the past three years.

Sariel embodies everything I love about scientists. He was funny, down-to-earth, passionate about his work and passionate about enjoying life to the fullest. He pulled no punches and definitely spared no one's ego, including one Oxford tutor whom he referred to as "a pompous ass." Did I mention that tutor is the one supervising the ambassador's daughter's thesis?

In the back of my mind, I spent much of the evening trying to avoid the slimy advances of a certain businessman that I had met previously at Terry's birthday. Thankfully he mostly behaved himself, but then I got thrown a left-hook by an Egyptian tutor who decided to tell me in the middle of a tirade about the culture of fear in Egypt that I had the most beautiful eyes he had ever seen in 45 years.

Huh?

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