fishing at ain sukhna

 

Never ever go fishing on a rough sea after only sleeping 3 hrs. I thought I was immune to sea sickness. I couldn't recover until I slept for a few hours on board. Only after this much needed sleep, I was able to establish contact with the outside world, caught a fish, snorkeled, and started enjoying life again :)

shutnwdo 3

 

shutdonw 2

 

shutdwno 1

 

waw

 

my new wedding ring

the lady bug

 

I'm more interested these days in my dreams, especially the ones that I never seem to remember...

tibidabo

 

an amusement park with an amazing view of barcelona from the top. It looks like a place from an old movie or from anothe planet...

chiringuito

 

chiringuito a mataro

first day in barcelona

 

walking in the Gothic neighborhoud in Barcelona after almost 2 years. I'm telling myself this could be a city I could live in even if there are so many bloody tourists which I'm one of today...

can you name these fish?

 

street lights from above

 

a dream I had

 

beautiful day

This is where I like to be, wind on my face, dark blue sea in the distance, and my favorite fruit...

looking down from a hill

tell me which color you prefer...

yo Bulut!

leaves

The fact that more people used to know different trees by their names in the past tells me how we're becoming more and more disconnected from nature. So I decided to take things into my own hands. My favorite is this poplar leave which is white on one side, so when the wind blows the whole tree changes color between green and white.

Also, I hadn't realized that the fig leave had such a strong smell. It has this chocolate, woodsy, earthy and down to earth smell if you know what I mean. If you don't, don't feel bad about it. You're not the only soul so disconnected from nature. It's also great for costume parties. And most importantly, it's the only leave that I actually know a joke about. So overall, I feel very good about my knowledge on the fig tree.

So here on the spot I just made up this list of things I want to know for as many different leaves as possible:

1. How does it look like?
2. How does it smell?
3. Can I tell a joke about it?
4. Is it big enough to wear to a costume party?

satellite

Reminds me of the Eurovision song contest. Even though when you say "like a satellite, I’m in an orbit all the way around you", you don't mean a dish satellite. It was still a fun song. Regardless.

dried flowers

I can't claim I'm an expert in the field of dried flowers, but these have to be the weirdest dried flowers. Ever. I mean.

urla panorama

 

mezat

this is where the fishermen sell their fresh catch of the morning at an auction. It's the most fun and exciting thing I've seen in a while. I made the fishermen quite some money by driving up the cost of the cupra fish to more than twice the market value by bidding against a very proud old man who didn't feel like losing against me. By the way, I think he was an ex-army officer. I ended up buying delicious levrek for the dinner. The next day, when I visited again, the chef of the nearby fish restaurant was complaining that I was buying the fish he was eyeing. I might have to visit the restaurant to make up for this. At least I know that their fish are fresh...

twilight

my time to swim to the cliffs...

black sea

This is the sea that you can't see and it's the sea I enjoyed swimming out with my mask and flashlight at night. When you're far away from the shore, you turn off the flashlight and what happens then is either magical or frightening depending on what kind of a person you are...

Urla iskele

There's something magical about having the sea so close to where you live and the fact that you can be sitting at one of these fish restaurants 15 min from when you decide to leave your house. Hmmm, maybe I should move in with my parents...

bodrum

Can I have more of this kind of Aegean sea this year please?

high school graduation

drinking a coffee...

and looking at where I have to start walking to soon to get on the plane.

time for vacation

wow, what a feeling that is and how it sucks to come back and look at the mask and flippers which need to stay in the closet after it's over.

urban challenge

a small souvenir

this from a lady in rabat weaving carpets. Now I hang it on the strap of my camera bag to hang my sunglasses on.

too much electricity

and when that's the case, you can play with the lights..

no electricity

It was the first time I happened to be sitting at home in Cairo and there was no electricity. I prepared dinner in candle & stove light, ate a romantic dinner by candle light, and leaned back in my chair and wondered what I should do next. It was very peaceful. I didn't have the TV on and it was very quiet. Then the electricity came back on and I turned on the TV...

almond cookies

If you ever go to Casablanca, go to the Habous to buy some touristic souvenirs. Or don't if you say touristic souvenirs are the source of all our problems. But stop by the Bennis patisserie and buy these almond cookies. You will be a happier person.

Moseleum of Mohammed V

hotel

There's nothing like humor to get through hard times. Plus there's nothing like humor to get through life. I don't remember when I forgot to be funny and got serious, but it was the worst joke I ever made...

glass of water

world cup outside my window

morning after

If one morning, you wake up and find that your life ceased to be what you thought it was, maybe it's not too late to remember how you once dreamed your life would be...

taking a break

10 Euro pomegranates

If you want to pay 10 Euros for a kilo of pomegranates, you need to go to the open market in Leuven (they looked great though). And finally, we found a place close to Brussels where we can have a decent breakfast, something other than croissant and coffee or tost with jam & butter...

sablon

neighbors' dog

Playing with the neighbors' dog is a lot of fun, especially if he's starving for love and attention.

I love summer time

night outside window

turkish coffee

 

I live in the land of Turkish coffee with cardamom. When I order my coffee in Egypt, it's "ahva Turki" and it's sade since I drink it without sugar. Egyptian arabic is easy on the tongue so they get rid of the Ks when it's the first letter of the word. Kahvah becomes ahvah, Kala (Kale in Turkish - castle) is ala. And cardamom is kakula in Turkey though I hadn't heard of it before coming here. Most of the time, the coffee is already mixed with cardamom which means you don't have a choice if you want to drink Turkish coffee in Egypt. That's why my first week in Cairo, I had come to the sad and hasty conclusion that I wouldn't be able to drink Turkish coffee in this country because of this weird herb in it, but it's funny how adaptable human taste is. Over the months, I've actually gotten to enjoy cardamom.

When talking to Egyptian friends about drinking Turkish coffee, one mentioned he couldn't stand it when he drank it in Turkey because it lacked the cardamom. Another mentioned this week that he wanted to go back to Turkey just to drink the Turkish coffee there one more time! So opinions are divided here as well. The Egyptian population is divided into exactly two on this important topic if a sample size of 2 is enough to extrapolate this to the whole population which I think we can do in this case since humans do not really know why they enjoy a certain taste and I've changed my mind on cardamom in a few weeks of drinking it under the pressure of Egyptian waiters.

So how's good Turkish coffee made? This week, I read a book* on coffee which I have to say made me drink twice more coffee at work all week (2 cups instead of one every day). Apart from the history of coffee which I think most people know about, from where it originated in Ethiopia to Jordan where it was discovered by the Ottomans and introduced to Europe (some say at the gates of Wien) and finally to South America thanks to the conquistadors , it was also explaining how good Turkish coffee should be prepared. So I gave it a try today and the photograph is from this experiment:

1. Use cold water (which I already knew, heh he)
2. Mix the coffee with the water in the pot (cezve) before putting it on the fire
3. Don't mix the coffee again while it's on the fire until it starts to fizzle
4. Mix it once it starts to boil - this increases the foam
5. Bring the foam to the center with the spoon
6. Once the coffee begins to rise, take it off the fire

To the above, I added what I normally do - that is transfer the foam into the cup and boil the coffee one more time before pouring it in the cup.

Also, don't forget the glass of water that's served with the coffee. Drink the water before the coffee, so your mouth is cleared of any other tastes or flavors and you are ready to enjoy the taste of every little particle of coffee in your mouth...

* sohbetin bahanesi kahve - deniz gursoy: This guy had also written a similar book on tea which I had read several years ago and which made me experiment with the preparation of Turkish tea back then. I owe him thanks for making my Turkish tea/coffee experience more enjoyable.

midnight knuckle push-ups

 

more angles

 

I've always been fond of straight lines, horizontal and vertical and try to compose my frames between these two with every now and then a diagonal between them. So I have to force myself to press the shutter when subtle angles are in the frame which I'm trying to do more and more...

grapes

tractor

remote control

wall paper