here are some pictures of the dinner, names: Helen (a baker / MBA student William met), Michael (co-worker), Charlene (lawyer who helped William get his visa), William (host and co-worker), me with eyes closed (classic Justin), min (another lawyer).

the dinner was fun. There were also two kids running around but they would not stay still for a pic.

the meal was Indian, Chinese, and pizza. Seafood and pepperoni which was not really a pepperoni taste i was used to but still good. The food was good and way too plentiful. It was good to meet and interact with some people outside of Microsoft. Also i kept hearing the word i was asking Michael about earlier in conversation. Everytime i asked someone to repeat the word though they would repeat the word following it. It turned out that it is a word that has no real meaning like like in conversation, a transitional if you will. So it was hard to get people to figure out what i wanted them to say.
the guy in this picture is robin who works with Charlene and min. min got William the apartment for a month. It was a great place. 3 bedrooms and nicely furnished. i ended up looking at a one bedroom there that i might take but it is pretty far from work. We'll see what happens. A Cypriot (janni) ended up coming later and bringing a bottle of Chinese red wine. Not the best wine i have ever had. i will probably try some again but don't expect a lot from them yet. It was cool talking to him about baghdatis. He was excited, wanted to buy a ticket to Melbourne and a ticket to the final match excited.
this is us taking a secret path through the parking lot to janni's apartment. At min's insistence we took this because it was so cold out. We ended up getting lost and walking around the parking lot for 20 minutes until we stumbled on the elevator back up to the other building. Quite the short cut.