Tony Blair for Lunch

I went to meet my friend Michelle for lunch today to discuss our Thailand plans. She suggested a place next to where she works called Jones the Grocer. I thought I'd be some crappy supermarket fastfood or something.

I was wrong...

It was actually quite nice. We were there around lunch break for all those business people that worked a couple of blocks away. The place was filled with expats, all in their suits and ties. 

Michelle was wondering why it was THAT crowded. It was usually crowded but today was just insanely packed. 

Well, the reason was, just like I was there having lunch with my good friend Michelle, Tony Blair was also there having lunch with his good friend Sheikh Mohamed Bin Zayed, the crown prince of the Abu Dhabi. 

I picked up my phone and texted my friend, who replied, "Go tell him that Saddam Hussein is working in Shakespeare."

Saddam Hussein, The Waiter

 I was at this really beautiful cafe here in Abu Dhabi called Shakespeare & Co.


It's actually quite attractive, the interior is Marie Antoinette (the movie) meets Alice in Wonderland... and always makes me think of little girls playing tea time.

When we were making our orders, we noticed the Indian waiter's name tag read "Saddam". As a joke, my friend's husband asks, "And is your last name Hussein?"

The waiter laughs and says, "Yes.." 

If anyone has ever dealt with waiters in the UAE, you would know that a lot of the time they don't hear you, but they just nod and smile anyway, sort of like the penguins in Madagascar with their "Smile and wave boys, just smile... and wave" attitude.

So we ask him again. He heard us the first time, and explained that Saddam Hussein is a very common name where he comes from. 

*As soon as I get access to my scanner, I will be posting the sketch I made of Saddam Hussein, the waiter. 

Chris (Martin); The Doctor!

I just got back from Thailand a few days ago. 
I was there with my sister and her ex-boyfriend. (They were already "broken-up" when we went there, some mights say its weird, but who am I to judge)


Being the good tourists we are, we took the advice of the fine people of lonely planet, took the skytrain over to the weekend market in Bangkok. It was pretty great actually, just to look, but not really to buy anything because I felt it was mostly junk, and I don't really like junk.


Besides, if it was junk I was after, I could always get it from Egypt rather than traveling halfway around the world. 


Me n my sister were looking at some junk that was laid out on the floor, when suddenly there was a loud clap and before you could say "What the..." the street vendors had all disappeared. Of course I wasnt that surprised. I spent a good 11 years living near a commercial street in Alexandria, and I know that something like that only means the cops are coming. 


A tall blond man was standing right next to us, he laughed and said, " Must be the police." 


I smiled, my sister smiled and I went back to chill with my sisters ex who had found an AWESOME bar right across from where we were standing. A street bar, perfect in that hot monsoon-y Thai weather. 


My sister and I are compelete opposites. Appearance-wise and personality-wise. To cut a long story short, she's the crazy loud one, and I'm the shy intellectual one. 


She stood there and chatted with the English guy for about 40 minutes. I was so exausted and not ready to entertain anyone, so I kept thinking "Please don't bring him back, pleeeeease don't bring him back..." of course my prayers weren't answered and they both came to sit with us. 


He ended up being a really interesting guy, he was a doctor, graduated from Nottingham, and has been moving around since he graduated. He was 33, lived in Egypt for a few years working as a diving instructor,  did some rescue courses in sweden and siberia, had to dig a hole in the snow and sleep in it, had to endure sleeping on a frozen lake.... and finally, he wanted to do a course on tropical diseases (I think) and took the train from europe all the way to Thailand. 


He had just payed his rent earlier, and was broke. So my sister decided to buy him a drink (or two).


I realised that in this materialistic world, there are still people who don't care about money. He lives a free life, without any constraints, without a desk job that would kill you slowly day by day, without climbing the corporate ladder and worrying about the fancy car, the fancy suit and the fancy girl. I'm really glad that I met this guy. I'm at this stage in my life were Im about to finish my masters in September, and must have a plan and know what my next step is going to be. My parents expect me to go on with a PhD but that is over my dead body. Or they expect me to get a really fancy job at a multi-national architectural firm in Abu Dhabi. 


Me? I want to be free as a bird. I want to act, paint, sing, teach, travel... but most of all.... I want to have no restrictions. As soon as I returned from thailand, I went out with one of my friends and expressed my feelings to him. I really liked Chiang Mai and felt like I should move there. He suggested I look into something like Doctors Without Borders, funny enough, there is such a thing as Architects without borders. I registered with them, but I hear it can take a while to get placed somewhere. In any case, I realised what I wanted to do. Something noble, charitable, and selfless. I now have a goal... finish masters, move to Thailand.


I talked with that doctor about a lot of things, about his personal life, commitment, money, career, and music... a topic we dwelled on for a while. I suddenly realised the striking resemblance between him and Chris Martin, the lead singer of the British band, Coldplay. He said he got that a lot... is it just a coincidence that his name was also Chris? 


I like to think that we met Chris Martin at a weekend market in Thailand, broke and alone,  pretending to be a noble (inspirational)  doctor. 



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Blog Virgin

So, this is my first blog ever! I've been thinking about doing this for a while. I considered writing a diary, but what's the point? No one will ever read it because it's too personal.

I just woke up, turned on the TV and there was Amy Adams, blogging about her cooking in Julie and Julia. So i thought "Hey... I can do that!"

I'm going back to Egypt in a couple of days. My "best friend" is getting engaged to my cousin. 

I thought I'd put those days behind me. My family lives in Abu Dhabi, while i was stuck working on my masters in Egypt. Then the revolution happened, and on the 4th of February I was finally out. 

My biggest concern is the return to the drama that i tried so hard to get away from. A crazy professor, a super jealous ex-boyfriend, a crush on a friend whose already engaged... my best friend going after my crush...

Another thing I'm dreading, is this serious talk that i have to have with my controlling older sister. If there was a woman on the planet who lived her life like a promiscuous man, that'd be my sister. Think, Demi Moore in Disclosure, when Michael Douglas was accusing her of raping him.

If my sister ever ends up in such a case, I wouldnt be too surprised. 

So I have to talk to her about her life, the point of it, where is it heading, why does she keep going through men as quick as a clean-freak goes through underwear. 

If i survive that talk, I promise I will blog about it. Just stay tuned.