State Dinners

Last night I went to a fancy dinner that was given by the Minister of Foreign Affairs. I'm not sure what exactly constitutes a state dinner but I would guess that this was one. We got all dressed up, well, as dressed up as you can get when you don't have any dress up clothes and you live in a place where 'dressing up' looks nothing like any clothes you own. We met some ambassadors and some other important people. After visiting for a while we sat down and listened to about 2 hours of speeches, mostly in Arabic so I don't really know what they were talking about. Then my country signed some kinds of agreements with several countries and, again, I don't know anything about the agreements since it was all in Arabic. Basically all night long I didn't really know what was going on, it seemed pretty important but I've never really been interested in playing any type of politcal game.

Before everything started I walked past the 'Saudi' table and accidentally made eye contact with one of them. That became an awkward 'I don't know what to do with male Arab stranger eye contact' kind of moment so I gave him a nod and he nodded back. Later on it turned out that he was important enough to sign one of the agreements! I was hoping to see Jimmy Carter, he's in town this week but he wasn't there. Later I realized that he could have been there and I wouldn't have even known. I wasn't born when he was president and I wouldn't exactly recognize him if I saw him. But still, surely someone would have recognized and pointed him out if he was there! I didn't take my camera because I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I left the house, but maybe there will be a next time.