Another late night

Hello. Please note the time stamp of this entry again, please. It's 2:30 am, and I've just gotten in, courtesy of the firm, tired and smelling strongly of smoke.

But not because of the printer's this time. Because most of the U.S. law group was out at a hookah bar for several hours. Following a $700 dinner for 13 at a upscale Northern Chinese restaurant, where we had Peking duck and beggar's chicken and at least 10 other dishes. Following a fairly relaxed afternoon of work after rolling in just after 1 pm.

Yup. Solicitors doin' sheesha! Counselors with the calean! Attorneys smokin' the hubbly-bubbly! Barristers gettin' down with the water pipe! (synonyms courtesy of dictionary.com)

Actually, the mint hookah was pretty refreshing. The funniest thing was this really petite, delicate-looking solicitor trainee from Hong Kong who was puffing away like a pro and who kept saying, "I'm really happy," because when she was getting her LLM at Columbia, she used to spend cold winter days smoking a hookah with friends inside.

Ah, the life.

Tomorrow, I gotta stay in somehow, or wander around by myself. All this socializing is making me pretty grumpy. These are pretty bright, funny people. But I just long for a quiet evening with real friends. And yes, it's a summer event, but the married folks out and about at 2 am kind of amaze me. They work incredibly hard here (harder than New Yorkers), and they spend so much time together, and they still hang out til the wee hours together. Your colleagues become your social group, one of them told me. That's clear enough. It could also be suffocating. Well, one of the drawbacks of working in a small office in a foreign city.

Okay, really must go to bed.