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:
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...
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...
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.
we found this bookstore in a passage. this time, my wife's favorite place in Brussels.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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...
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
...for a while. Leaving the city of a thousand minarets to fly to a place close to where they are not allowed...
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. 
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...
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...
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.
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.
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...
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.
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).
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