Parties!

The Shanghai World Expo is populated by 2 kinds of people: the customers (mostly Chinese) and the staff (a mixture). The parties that go on after the expo closes are great, and include people from many different countries and regions. The one I have attended most often is that of the Malta pavilion, which is kind of chill and has mostly people who just want to sit and talk with each other. I have met many different people at Malta parties, such as: UN Pavilion staff from Sweden and Colombia who left tours in Africa to work here, Mexican intellectuals who have degrees in philosophy, Lithuanian people who speak Mandarin in addition to their native Lithuanian, formerly mandatory Russian, and optional English, Israelis, Australians, Nigerians, etc.

Then there's Russia's parties, which I have thus far missed, but I will be there this coming Wednesday.

Thursdays are Angola's amazing parties: amateur and professional artists painting pictures, powerful drinks, people from all over, dance music, and other forms of greatness.

I've been to special parties like the Chilean open house which I accidentally showed up at (we heard that Chile pavilion had cheap glasses of wine, so we went after Secretary Clinton left). They asked us at the door "Were you invited to the open house?" (yes, of course!) So we were treated to free wine and great company from intelligent, high class people from many different regions and ethnicities. When the party was dead, many people left for the Colombia pavilion, where there was more free wine and plenty of hot Latin dance music! We danced for hours, drank, and ate free pizza!