I don�t know how it happened, but the next morning I found myself trying to convince the chairman of the refinery that he should waive the product guarantee. It was awful. I knew I was in trouble when I walked into the biggest office I�ve ever been in. I thought this was a shabby operation until I saw this area. One of the several assistants on hand offered me tea, coke, coffee, or breakfast. I�m sure they would have shined my shoes if I�d asked them. I decided not to get anything for fear that I would puke it up on the chairman.

This is one of the Israeli military outposts that was taken by Egypt from Israel in the war of 1973. The tour guide kept pointing out that the tanks were U.S. made, while the Egyptians used Russian made tanks . . . go figure.

When the meeting concluded, I thought things had gone pretty well. They offered to take me on a tour of the Suez Canal while they prepared the fax authorizing waiving the guarantee. When I returned, there was a fax, but it didn�t mention anything about waiving the guarantee. It turns out one of the guys at this meeting, who I�d encountered before, and who I don�t think understands anything about what�s going on, was not comfortable waiving the agreement, and subsequently put the kabash on it.

This meant I had to start the test all over again. This meant working all weekend instead of heading to Sinai Peninsula to see some of the interesting sights. This meant collecting a whole bunch of data to prove that a pile of gold was better than a pile of dirt. I was not pleased.

The next day, the data collection began again. I decided to have a positive outlook, since by now, I actually did know what I was doing (for the most part). The 3 day period will end in the morning.

This was my tour guide, Captain Ashra. Another really nice guy. He explained to me that conscription of university students is "random." He also explained that his promotion to Captain, which extends the conscription, is also "random." What luck that his degree is in English, thus making him an excellent tour guide.

Other than a few communication difficulties primarily consisting of the incredibly irritating Egyptian tendency to respond to everything by saying "Yes," everything has gone pretty smoothly (Read this: A Typcial Conversation). Tonight I came back pretty early and went for a walk.

I realized that I�ve worked about 85 hours this week. I�ve spent every night ordering room service and either reading work material, or working on calculations. I hadn�t seen much of Suez, so I thought a walk was in order. The Red Sea is just a stones throw away, so I headed in that direction.

Along the way I found a pastry shop, and had an awesome chocolate, cream filled pastry. In Arabic, I would say "layzeez" or "delicious!" There was a great path along the Red Sea to walk on. It wasn�t crowded, but there were a few people around. Mostly couples and kids after school. I watched the ships in the gulf as I walked, and almost every person along the way said hello to me. They would smile, and laugh. Probably most of them making fun of this strange American. But all of them wanted to say hi, and a couple wanted to shake hands.

Proceed to Part IV