Last Sunday, I had the pleasure of meeting up with Bader, the man behind Kuwait Blogs. He was in Riyadh on a short visit, and we had a pretty good three and a half hours; drinking, eating, laughing, and talking about almost everything.

When he called for the first time, his voice over the phone made me had the impression that he is much older than he actually is ;-)

First, we stopped at Dr. Cafe, the Saudi alternative for Starbucks (well, we have Starbucks all over Riyadh, but many people think Dr. Cafe is better), for a drink. Bader had mocha, and I had lemon juice. I’ve never been a big fan of hot beverages.

Plus the big number of Bluetooth devices he found in there, Bader was amazed when he read at the newspaper at the coffee shop that more than 34,000 Saudis went to Dubai to take part in the IPO of a gas company. Actually, that’s what I meant when I talked about take chance of the long weekend to do something useful.

Then, we went to Ya Mal Al-Sham restaurant on King Abdullah Road. As Yamal (that’s how we nickname it!) makes the best shawarma in the capital, we had chicken shawarmas. During the dinner, we talked mainly about blogging, and how could one builds a community around blogs. Bader has promised to help me on a project I’m working on, which was really kind and generous of him.

It was around 01:30 when we finished our dinner. As I had very early classes and he had a plane to catch the next morning, we both had to take off. He said he might visit my beloved hometown of Hassa soon, so we could meet there. We even think about driving to Bahrain together to meet Mahmood and Haitham there.

It was really great meeting with Bader. I had a lot of fun, and I am looking forward to meet him again. So, don’t believe those who warn you from meeting strangers from the internet. I have met more than three persons through my blog so far, and I can tell you they all were fine, and everything went really good. :-)