stranger in a strange land

Dinner last night was an interesting experience. Everyone at the table was from UK or Ireland, except for me and the husband of one of Ireland's friends, Evan. Evan asked me where I was from and I said "I'm from the US. I didn't vote for Bush." Evan said "Bush didn't run in the last election", missing my point.

Apparently he took offense to what I said, because he ignored me until the topic of running came up. He met his wife running with the harriers in Abu Dhabi. I asked if they had a web site or something so I could join and have a group to run with. He made some comment about "husband shopping" (he met his wife in the harriers) and then said he thought the harriers might be too competitive for me. And because everyone kept teasing him about his age I asked him how old he was. He said "that is the RUDEST question anyone has ever asked me". He wasn't joking, though I find his statement hard to believe because he's retired navy.

I tried to follow the other conversations going on around the table but was lost in idiomatic expressions and the inability to understand some of the accents. There was a conversation going on that seemed really interesting until I found out it was about a tv show about housewives. Every time someone in Ireland's group goes home they bring back the latest DVDs of TV shows that people like to watch here but that aren't on the TV. They asked if I had any DVDs. I thought about mentioning my 12 disk series on chaos or maybe my lecture series done by Neil deGrasse Tyson on the universe, but then decided to just say no.

Everyone was talking about this palace which is a 7 star hotel. Ireland and her brother and his wife went there Monday night for iftar (breaking of the ramadan fast, usually happens after sun down, and involves a tent with a ton of food - people sit around at tables in the tent eating and smoking sheesha). Ireland said she wanted to get married there. The whole dream wedding conversation went on for forever. I started thinking about what it would be like to be married to Neil. I could just see us sitting at a candle lit table, and him saying "Travel to the closest star would be an amazing journey. But if anything went wrong, you would die." Or "Black holes are fascinating things to study. But if you get to close to them, you will die." I think he's one of my favorite people and not just because he could get me into the Hayden planetarium for free (for more NdGT quotes: http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/12855.Neil_deGrasse_Tyson).

I rejoined the conversation when Ireland's brother mentioned someone was attacked by a great white in Australia. I started explaining some shark stuff to him but Evan interrupted me and said "Stop talking about sharks. They're too depressing."

This morning Ireland was in a bit of a mood because she stayed out late last night. And we had the worst taxi driver ever. I got to the base and a parade of French guys kept coming by my desk while I was trying to work making loud comments. Seriously, what is wrong with the French? Though, the nationality with a bad rap here is the brits. They get arrested more than any other nationality by a factor of 3, mostly for drugs, public drunkenness, and sex related offenses. Last year a british couple was caught having sex on the beach and they were thrown out of the country. One wonders what they were thinking considering you can get arrested for holding hands in public here. No, I'm not making that up.

The day ended with me finding out I'm getting thrown to the wolves tomorrow at the base. Some meeting with some commanders for which I don't even have a presentation to present. Then I'm meeting with some guys from Pakistan next week. I'm not looking forward to traveling there. The flight to and from Islamabad leaves at 3 in the morning and you have to be there 3 hours in advance. Then you get driven everywhere. You are only allowed to go to your hotel or the customer site. And Dr. T warned me the power goes out a lot, and he was almost injured there his last trip when he was running on the treadmill and it came to an unexpected stop when the power shut off.

The good news is, there is a lot of work to do. That, of course, is also the bad news.