...but I have to because it would just be crazy not to.
The other day I was working away in the Sales office and I happened to glance out the window (yes, they have windows in the office...but if you are reading this and you happen to work in a hotel sales office somewhere else and be jealous of said windows, don't be. The windows definitely do not make up for the rest of the grey environment, the smoke smell, the lack of good equipment, and general disarray I assure you). Walking past the window was a man dressed in dirty grey pants, a dirty striped button down shirt, and scuffed and torn shoes. He had something in his hand.
I took a closer look and said to my colleague from Cairo, "Oh my god, that guy has a gun". She glanced up and nonchelantly said "Meh...he's probably a plain clothes officer". I said "Really? He doesn't really look like one". To which she replied "Well...maybe not in Canada or London (where she is originally from)...but he could definitely be one here".
Alrighty then.
I've gotten used to having to go through metal detectors everywhere I go. Coming into the hotel. The shopping mall. Office towers. And I've gotten used to the 5 or 6 armed guards I see around the hotel every day and the uniformed lads with their machine guns and bomb sniffing dogs at every security check point approaching every hotel I have visited during my competitive set tours. I've even gotten used to the fact that the hotel that I am here to open lists "bullet proof glass" as one of its unique selling features and boasts about it in their local press releases.
But let me tell you what is a bit more difficult to get used to.
The other night during our 6 PM daily wrap up meeting the General Manager of the hotel did his usual "these are the priorities I see for the coming days and I thank you all again for being here" schtick and then he said:
"You are going to think that I am not serious when I say this, but I assure you that I am very serious. Tonight we have staying in our hotel the leaders and senior members of both Fatah and Hamas. They have been invited here by the Egyptian President for meetings. You will definitely see increased security presence around the hotel. I am going to advise you that before you go to bed you should lay out some clothes and your running shoes and ensure your passport is near by. If you hear commotion or an alarm goes off during the night, get dressed, grab your passport, leave the hotel through the back emergency exits and meet on Corniche el Nil, the street that runs behind the hotel."
That brings a whole new meaning to our inside joke about "evacuation outfits" hey Dr. Bonnie? And, to all my peeps at the Sheraton Suites, we've always thought we had the most interesting groups stay with us? I have to say, I never thought I would say that I stayed at the same hotel as not only the ruling violent and extreme political party in Palestine, but that their marginally more sane and peaceful opposition party was there at the same time.
Strangely enough I slept very peacefully that night.
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