Iraqi-bloggers' meetings

As I promised I would post about the Iraqi bloggers' meetings, I'll be posting about each get-together in a chapter. It would be like series. I hope I won't miss something but if I didn't mention some things it's either one of the group had already wrote about or it's something we like to keep for ourselves. I'll start the chapters by dates from the earliest up to the recent ones.


Chapter No.1
Meeting Anarki 13

Before leaving UAE some bloggers knew my plans about going to Jordan and we decided to meet. Landing in Amman, without any access to the internet, I had a problem meeting the guys. So I asked Morbido to be our on-line-messenger. And thanks to her anarki and I, after several sms and phone calls, we were able to arrange a meeting in a mall in front one of the most famous shops. I told him I'll be wearing green so it would be easy for him to recognize me.

Being away from Amman for about nine months I found it hard to go here and there alone. My university group was away and some of them were busy with the summer course or their jobs. The places were a bit different so my little sister became my only friend and guide in this vacation. Add to it, I didn't won't to go alone because though I read anarki's blog a lot but I didn't knew him. Going by myself would give a bad image of me.

As my sis and I reached the mall gate, there was a metal detector and women to check purses!!! What all that fuzz is about. Anyway, few steps before we reach the escalator a relative caught us and started to chat about when did we arrive and how long are we staying and… and… and.. to sum it all, she wanted to hear the whole story. As she talked on and on I was looking at the people going here and there and I started counting girls wearing green. After about 15 minutes talk I had to excuse ourselves and tell her we have friends waiting for us. We started walking to the shop and the number of green shirts reached 14 and then 15 was when I noticed my sister was wearing green too!

Standing in front of the shop there were two tall guys. Both were wearing black with eye glasses on. Bother of them were staring at people, waiting for someone. That moment I started to smile trying to make one of them smile back and say "Hi. I’m Anarki" but it didn't work so I grabbed my mobile to call or miscall as we agreed earlier.

And there he was. BINGO. The guy in the corner smiled and took steps towards us. I took a step forward to say "Hi. I’m Attawie".
With a polite bow, he introduced himself. I introduced him to my sister and then we searched for a calm place for the chitchat.

It was strange for me to meet a stranger. I've never done it before. But as bloggers I felt like we were old friends just catching up. Our talks were mostly about the situation in Iraq. Then we talked about blogging and bloggers. Then we found out that we share same friends and know the same circle of people.

As shy as I am, I tried my best not to be that shy girl. Whenever the conversation was over I started another. We talked about movies, music and many other things. When the conversation was about computers, PlayStation and videogames, my sister was there to take my part because I'm a complete ignorant in these stuff.

While we were sitting, my other sister and my mother's friend passed by and I introduced them to Anarki.

Then we took a tour in the mall leading us to what I consider my Disney land. Music, movies, books, magazines, CDs and DVDs, old and new, everything we can think of in Prime. We talked about music and movies again. Then time passed quickly and we had to leave as soon as we can, because taxis were crazy next to the mall. They overcharge double and they refuse to take people to nearby areas.

As a polite Iraqi guy, Anarki waited with us, and our friend, in the taxi queue until we got our taxi. Finally we exchanged goodbye salutation and goodnight and parted.