Adam CP #1

Yesterday at a little after 4:00 p.m. I met with one of my conversation partners, Abdulmohsen. He asked that I call him Abdul for short. He has a Master's degree in Computer Science and hopes to move to New York to pursue a PhD in Computer Science from a school there. He is from Saudi Arabia and has a strong command of English. He said that he comes from a very large, wealthy family in Saudi Arabia. He talked about how his family is so large that he has numerous family contacts and often is not able to identify everyone at his family reunions. He frequently travels across the world on vacations, including to large urban areas that are popular vacation spots such as Miami and Las Vegas. We had a conversation about Dubai, UAE, where he said that he has frequently gone on vacation. I mentioned that I used to attend an international school in the United Arab Emirates when I was much younger, and we discussed how much the city of Dubai has developed since the 1990s. We also held a conversation about Saudi Arabia's ban on alcohol and talked about American food. He asked me to name some examples of distinctive American food, which is a difficult topic due to the fact that much American food was invented elsewhere. However, I did give the example of southern dishes such as hush puppies and grits. We agreed that we would meet again during International Coffee Hour on Friday at 5:00 p.m., and he would introduce me to some of his friends from other countries.