Sunday, January 31, 2010

working from home


It's so good to be back to this warm weather. This will probably sound like I'm teasing my friends suffering from the snow and the cold, but I can't help it. Today, I'm working from home owing to a half day weekend due to travel. I set up on the balcony for the day and I enjoy the sun. This reminds me very much of Florida in the winter, warm (not hot) and sunny. I can't help but feel kind of nostalgic...

Saturday, January 30, 2010

I need to fill the refrigerator...


... even if for 2 weeks. It's a strange feeling when you're on the move most of the time and suddenly you realize you're back for 2 weeks and need to go grocery shopping. Not having to go grocery shopping is something I can get to used to very easily, but I don't think I'm really that illusional. The least I can do is buy a big cup of yogurt to avoid it as long as possible.

Friday, January 29, 2010

airport again

Without doubt, the most openly corrupt policemen I've seen so far are in this airport. The dialogues I had to experience go usually something like this:

- passport... oh, turkish!
- yes, turkish.
- kardash! (which means brother in turkish)
- Mmm...
- So, you give me baksheesh (which means tip in arabic).
- I don't have any baksheesh today.
- You give me baksheesh? (coming real close and smiling)
- I don't know baksheesh.

At least, they give up easily. At the second security check, the tactic is slightly different. I know from last time not to leave any money in my pocket. They do a hand check of the pockets and make sure they have you empty everything. When the money is in the open and your passport is in their hands, it's more difficult to pretend you don't know what baksheesh means. This time, they can't find any money on me, but my passport is handed from policeman to policeman accompanied by "turkish" (I have a feeling my countrymen are known here to be more flexible in handing out tips compared to Europeans for instance who might be offended if asked for a tip by the police at passport control).

The last policeman makes the most through and private check I've ever seen of my laptop bag, going through my folder, receipts, print-outs, pretty much everything. I watch patiently his futile attempt to find something which he can use to snatch some money from me. Finally, he gives up and hands me my passport.

Normally, for someone who's lived most of his life in more "civilized" countries, I find myself at ease in this part of the world, but tonight in this airport I'm feeling restless. Maybe it's because it's midnight and I have a long flight across North Africa, maybe it's my experience with the police. I put on my earphones and listen to my favorite music as I observe other people around me...

Thursday, January 28, 2010

hotel rooms

I have to say that I'm looking forward to going back home which for a few months is Cairo for me. It is where I have my clothes, bed, and the books I'm reading. Being a nomad sometimes makes you scribble notes to your wife on pieces of paper in the middle of the night. At least, the hotel room had a very comfortable bed...

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

one day before I'm leaving for warmer climates, it's gotten colder again. The field across from our friends' house is frozen and I wonder if the crow's able to find anything worth eating on this ice. Well, you don't have to be a crow to survive the cold of North Europe, but knowing you'll be flying to +20 deg C that day certainly helps...

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Adios Bruselas

this is my last night in brussels (for a while). I don't know how long a while. This depends on the commune and the Ministry of Interior Affairs.

Monday, January 25, 2010

st. catherine

we found this bookstore in a passage. this time, my wife's favorite place in Brussels.

Sunday, January 24, 2010

aachen


walking around in the open air market in aachen...

Saturday, January 23, 2010

marolles

One of our favorite places in Brussels. We're at the flea market, hunting. My wife is hunting for thin coffee cups, me paparazzi shots. Afterwards, we sit at a cafe and drink our coffees to warm up. Coffee is good, but food- not so good because it never arrives. True to the spirit of all Brussels' confused waiters and waitresses, ours takes 45min to bring our food and then hands it over to the wrong table where our plates are munched on before we can do anything. For the first time in Brussels, a waitress makes a poor attempt at apologizing and I realize that even though I kind of miss this city, I'll never be able to stay here for too long or I'll risk going crazy.

Thursday, January 21, 2010

pineapple

At work, they have sliced pineapple which is great if you've ever tried to cut a pineapple by yourself. It's like having to cut a coconut but more yellow inside. That's why I bring home work in the form of sliced pineapple.

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

privacy

You might have noticed I'm trying to stay as anonymous as possible and that's what I also prefer for my friends. Cover your face with your hands and add a little blur.

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

kraainem

back from Brugge and wandering in the garden at night, looking at the neighbors' houses covered in fog. I am where no one is. Everyone's inside. I'm the only one crazy enough to wander outside in this cold with a camera in my hand.

Monday, January 18, 2010

brugge

I can't remember ever taking a photograph of Brugge in daylight. All my photographs have dark alleys and water reflections from this mediaval town. In Brugge again. This time for 2 days...

Sunday, January 17, 2010

paparazzi

We were buying vegetables at the market on Sunday and I was as paparazzi as I could be. It was cold. My mind is still stuck at the place on the corner of the market where they heat the pastry we call gozleme on an oval tin plate. There was also Moroccan tea. I still want to go back to that time, sit one of those chairs and enjoy the tea and the gozleme in that terrible cold.

Saturday, January 16, 2010

kitchen

Our lives full of chemicals. We are all very sanitized...

Friday, January 15, 2010

birthday

I like this restaurant and the huge table where we can barely fit. Standing outside in the street, staring inside you get a fuzzy feeling. It's cold outside and inside is good food and company.

Thursday, January 14, 2010

night in brussels

For some reason, I felt like my biggest worry was that the battery would drain very fast in the cold Brussels night and I would be left with no juice to take any pictures. Yes, cold Brussels nights have a tendency to make people worry about stupid little things. One girl was reading at the bus stop, another was smoking pot close by, and we walked over to the car collectioner's gallery to decide which Bugatti we wanted for our next car. Emre settled in the end for the Rolls Royce and as someone who can be happy with small things, I decided I could live with that navy blue Ferrari.

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

still snow

Today, it kept on snowing. A long day in the office and go to the friends' house in the evening. I'm enjoying the short stay in the middle of Europe. What I miss is the light for my photography. The day is short and darkness falls fast.

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

in brussels


I have to confess the cold and the snow are refreshing for a change. This partly due to the fact that I know I'm going back to 20 something Celcius soon. When I arrived in the afternoon, my car was completely covered in snow. Actually, there was snow on the ground for a complete month which is not common. I put on my thickest clothes, survive the winter in Brussels, and observe the city where I'll be going back to in 6 months.

Monday, January 11, 2010

Light, more light...

Somehow, I didn't manage to fly today. I'll try again tomorrow. This means I could take the photo of the new lamps which should remind me of Cairo when I leave this place.

Sunday, January 10, 2010

last day in cairo...

...for a while. Leaving the city of a thousand minarets to fly to a place close to where they are not allowed...

Saturday, January 9, 2010

Back to Cairo

It's good to be back in Cairo on a weekend and continue with the discovery of this city that I'm beginning to like more and more. It also means to be back to driving in a traffic that I'm beginning to dislike more and more. Today's itinerary included Sultan Hassan and El-Rifai mosques. The former dates back to the Memluks. It was built in the 14th century and according to the fellow who hosted us in the latter and gave us tea, it's "number 1" in Egypt. It's also shown on the 100 gineh note. The iwans (which are vaulted halls covered on three sides with one side completely open) were really beautiful. El Rifai dates back to only 1912 and looks like was built to model Sultan Hassan on the outside. They stand next to each other, with only 10-15 m between them. I couldn't figure why any one would want to build a mosque so close to another one unless you have an outsized ego so you want make it more beautiful to outshine the older one (which wasn't the case here). We had a private tour inside El-Rifai where there the are the tombs of Khedive Ismail and family. It also houses the tomb of an unlikely figure from the history, the deposed shah of Iran, Reza Pehlevi. Looks like he had a loyal friend in Cairo.

When we were having tea with our new friend inside the mosque, I remembered once again how much Egyptians love sugar. After putting loads of sugar inside the tea, he showed us the sugar container just in case we needed more. For someone, who drinks his tea without sugar, coffee black, and Turkish coffee sade, it was like going back to the childhood times. Still, it was a pleasurable experience sitting in the mosque, admiring the inside, and trying to communicate in my broken Arabic.

Well, no more Cairo for 2 weeks. I'm leaving in 2 days which means a temperature drop of around 30 deg. Celcius which sounds to me like a joke!

Friday, January 8, 2010

Thursday, January 7, 2010

airport on a rainy night

I'm becoming more proficient at being a paparazzi for my blog. As soon as I saw the 'lady in black' staring out the window to the rain, I dropped down, zipped open up my carry-on, took out the camera and snapped the photo while on one knee. Of course, I was half paying attention to if anyone was looking my way as photographing a woman you don't know in this part of the world might suddenly make you new friends...

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

casablanca

amazing, simply amazing... After coming back to the hotel, I immediately put on my rain jacket and ran outside to go see the old medina. As soon as I walked in through the gate in to the old city, it was as if I was in a world which was very familiar, kind of like the bazaars I'm used to in Turkey such as Kemeralti or Tahtakale, but at second look, it was completely different. The feeling was different. Not only the way people were dressed up, but the looks, the indifference (I'm not used to not being noticed as a foreigner - people didn't seem to notice me until I lifted my camera to take a photo), the stuff they were eating and drinking (snail soup), the shady characters who looked like they were stoned, people simply standing there leaning against the walls as if they were drug dealers (only they didn't care about you when you passed by), old fruit, fish, vegetable sellers...

after 2 hours of walking, I noticed the minaret of the biggest mosque I've ever seen. I walked towards it and came upon Hasan II mosque by the seaside. It was so big, no matter how much I walked away from it, it didn't fit into my frame...

Until, I find some time one of these weekends to set up a photo website, I decided to share the rest of the photos of the day through Facebook

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

a long day in the office

This is why I don't like taking photographs with my cell phone. It takes longer for me to upload the photo here. Luckily, I don't run out of things to photograph going to work and coming back home. One other project could be photographing the old vehicles I see on the roads of Egypt. Especially, the trucks are pretty interesting. Maybe not as colorful as the ones in Pakistan, but very old indeed. On the back of most, it is written "Abaza". I heard that this is supposed to be the family name of a rich guy who looks like owns a big truck business. I have a feeling the name's kind of appropriate in this case.

Monday, January 4, 2010

back to egypt

Driving back home after a long first day in the office. I pull over and take the photograph of the day, disregarding the photographs I took with my cell phone in the morning. During the work week, it's either going to be early in the morning or dark after work that I caress the shutter. If even that is not possible, that I'll have to resort cheesy indoor macros. As long as it's 365 photos, indoors or outdoors, cell phone camera or camera obscura, macro or nano, it counts.

Sunday, January 3, 2010

ciao to the peacock

The vacation and family time is over. This is the last day in Izmir and time to fly back to Egypt. It's always been sad and it's always too soon, but hey let's not make this too tragic. The peacock will have some peace for a while without me harrassing him with my low side-kick. In return, I will have a relatively safer life without the risk of hitting the headlines as the first engineer to have his eye pocked by a fiery peacock. Talking about a safer life, either I'm becoming amnesiac or the Cairo traffic has improved dramatically in the 10 days I was gone...

Saturday, January 2, 2010

karaburun

From the Karaburun peninsula in Izmir. We set out to explore a deserted Greek village, but had to return before we got there because it was getting dark and the road resembled the windingest street in SF. On the way, we saw a piece of rock in the middle of an artichoke field. We pulled over and I climbed the beautiful formation. On one side, there was an old half-deserted village on the face of the mountain, on the other side green fields. My mother was pacing the field with thoughtful steps (maybe thinking about an artichoke dish with olive oil?). This photograph reminds me the thrill I get from looking down from a height.

Friday, January 1, 2010

The first photo

I was thinking about starting this blog the last couple of days. I even took photos just for the purpose of using on this blog which did not exist yet and I kept postponing it day after day when 5 min ago I decided to start the blog now and have the first photo from the first day of the year.

These guys are part of the family now (well, let's say the aggressive and curious part). They find us in the living room, on the terrace upstairs, and in the bedrooms, staring inside through the windows, knocking on the glass and pecking into wooden window sills. A couple of times, my mother found one in the bedroom after a door was left open, confronted with the amazing sight of the bird sitting in front of her mirror, staring at itself with admiration. When my mother screamed in surprise, the bird in response starting flying around in the room and scattering its cute little pieces of shit. We have 3 peacocks guarding my parents' house, keeping the family company, following us like our shadow in the garden, pecking our butts when the choose to, and attacking us whenever they feel especially brave or amorous (or both).