Stumbling across the Arab League Summit at the Nile Ritz-Carlton in Cairo

I swear I just came here to get a beer, then the Jordanian foreign minister walked in.

Imagine my surprise as I finished up my side salad (humble brag - didn’t choose the fries) in the Nile Ritz-Carlton lobby lounge only to look up and see Ayman Safadi, the foreign minister of Jordan, striding past me with a small gaggle of presumably state-approved press in tow.

I wouldn’t have recognized every Arab head of state that could have randomly walked in while I was dining, but having lived in Jordan for multiple stints and closely followed news about Palestine for years, I was familiar with Safadi’s face.

I did a quick Google, and sure enough he is here in Cairo. Today he attended a preparatory ministerial meeting in advance of tomorrow’s emergency Arab League Summit on the reconstruction of Gaza. The meeting started at 3:30, and I saw him at the Ritz at about 6:45, so the timing checks out.

I had randomly decided to walk to the Ritz after ha…