Dedicated to Evi

I mentioned the occasional people I meet when traveling. 

Most famous are Mr Rubarber and Mr L'Oreal ;-). 

I met Mr Rubarber coming back from Hong Kong through Finland. He was in Business Class next to me and came from China. His job: to buy and sell frozen fruit. He inspects the crops, buys the fruit before it is even existing and sells it before priced on the market... purpose: trying to beat the market. He had just SOLD 4 ton of Rubarber (sorry don't know the English and too lazy to look it up) without having a clue where to buy it and at what price! You have to have steal balls... especially because the money invested in this business was his and another wealthy men's! Bon, the guy was Flemish and funny so we exchanged some mails... however, when I made it clear I wasn't "interested", our premature email relationship died an early death... don't blame me, he was rich but too old for me, and not cute enough ;-)

Mr L'Oreal was a whole different story. I was still working for BNPP IP and coming back from Paris by train, I had just had some time to get some take-away food with me to survive. I decided to eat it at the bar and upon opening my soup I spilled it all over me, the floor, the table... with the most phlegm I could pull out at that time -I didn't blink- I went to the bathroom for paper, cleaned it up and started eating... knowing several people were watching me. Mr L'Oreal was amazed by my calm and started a conversation. We realised we both were traveling the world and decided to try and meet up somewhere. For several months after that, I sent him mails (and he did too) with my schedule, but we missed an opportunity to meet each time. I would be in Hong Kong or Tokyo one week, and he would be the other. One time we set up to meet in Paris, meeting he cancelled for personal reasons... It wasn't meant to be ;-) A pity though... he was even older, but could have let me in on all the beauty tips a director of L'Oreal group must know!