Hello, Neighbor

You never know who you are going to sit near on a plane.

On my flight leaving Kabul, a well-dressed Afghan sat down next to me. I noticed that everyone on the plane was being extra deferential to him. He spent the time on the short flight reading a book and sleeping. When we arrived at the Dubai airport, two women from the US embassy in Kabul that were flying with us told me that the man was President Karzai's brother. Hmmm.

On the flight to Switzerland the next day, two nice looking Arab men sat in the row with me. For several hours I tried to sleep (the flight departed Dubai at 1:30 am), but gave up started to read. At some point we stated to talk. There are hardly any native residents of the UAE, so a common opening question is to ask where a person is from. (Note: I have an alter-ego that I assume when I travel. There are plenty of people in the Middle East--and plenty of other places too--that think that Americans should stay out, so I alternate between being a college professor modelled after my friend Bob--causes trouble when we travel together--and an engineer that is in the region designing roads. And, to explain the fair hair and skin, I am always Canadian. No one hates Canada!) The conversation progressed and the man eventually told me that he was on his way to his family home in Geneva. Turns out my neighbor was a member of the ruling family from Sharjah, the emirate immediately north of Dubai. A real life sheik.