Yes, its getting hard now because of  Yousef. Yousef’s parents just gave me his Officially unlocked iPhone 4, that was delivered to their door in France. I’m sitting next to it… they’ve cancelled my order a couple of weeks ago. I’m supposed to take it and deliver it to him in Kuwait.
Lucky you bas ham 3alaik bel 3afya 🙂
For those who want to know what was part 1/2 of the mission click HERE
Remember my previous post regarding my idea if there is such a thing that will give me an option to have a prepaid Microsim for my iPad? Well just found one here in France which is simply do the work, Its simply cost you around KD3 for the Microsim with 4 days free net then you will have an option that either to subscribe for a monthly basis or you will pay per day.
just went to Apple’s latest branch which is located in Paris its the second branch in Paris and the third in France and just found out that its the largest in Europe, Its just one week ago was opened and for sure the iPhone 4 went out of stock from the second day of opening. But still they’ve the iPads in stock, Bought the 16 GB with 3G for one of my friends .
We were recommended this cafe by a couple of people, we were told that it’s an old classic cafe near hotel le maurice, and that it serves one of the best hot chocolates in Paris. We got there and it was crowded, the tables were mostly full, and the place is huge inside, so yeah it was crowded. We ordered a club sandwich because we were starving, a tuna club sandwich Read the rest of this entry »
I just came back from a one week vacation (Paris packages are just great!) and I miss it already.
I spent the first day of Eid in Kuwait with my family and flew to Paris at night. However since Paris is enormous and there are different places that many people visit simultaneously, crime has been reported from time to time so we were reminded of some areas to avoid in paris. We arrived in the morning and we didn’t spare a minute and went straight to La Duree for breakfast, after dropping our luggages at the hotel Read the rest of this entry »
This sign was on a small one room building near where we stay in france. For years we’ve been passing by without paying much attention. A couple of years ago Mom started telling me about this guy, who turned to be a great french philosopher. Apparently he stayed in our area when he was young.
I just googled and read about him. He wrote many books. I read that he invented modern autobiographies. I skimmed through his Confessions book and the first thing he wrote was a bit of a turnoff:
“I HAVE begun on a work which is without precedent, whose accomplishment will have no imitator. I propose to set before my fellow-mortals a man in all the truth of nature; and this man shall be myself.”
No imitator, huh? I bet he’s turning in his grave with the debut of every new autobiography and reality show.
Then I read a line that made me laugh:
“I believe no individual of our kind ever possessed less natural vanity than myself.”
I’m sure when this last line is put in it’s context may come off less self-absorbed/conceited, but still I find it hard to accept that someone would say something like that about himself and still think he has low vanity..
My father used to take us to this restaurant when I was a kid. Back then I didn’t care much for staying in the restaurant, I was more interested in the swings outside.
The place was run by a nice old lady, her and the cook were the only 2 people working there. Now the old lady has left and her daughter took her place. We went on friday and were greeted by the Chef, he showed us to our table, gave us the menus, brought the drinks, cooked the dishes, presented them and gave us the check!
The dishes are amazing in this little place. They’re very simple and not a whole lot of choices are there to choose from, but from my experience, you cannot go wrong with their limited variety, well.. if you’re going to order a goose liver or a monkey’s feet thats another issue.
This castle or château as they call em here in france is not so far away from our place, its less than 10 minutes away by car, and yet this was the first time we tried to take a closer look.
I like old buildings and the history behind them. I looked this castle up in google and it turned out to be older than what I thought. It was built in 1328 and owned by the Compey family of Geneva, it was passed to other owners later. In 1589 it was taken by force by the troops of Geneva who entered the Savoie region, till 1606. it is owned by a farm now.
Aix Les Bains is a beautiful and quiet place in france and it overlook one of the most picturistic lakes I’ve seen. The first time I ever been there was when Mom insisted we go see the place where the pasha (of an old egyptian movie) supposedly spent his summers. The pasha had a really good taste, I liked the place a lot. Read the rest of this entry »
Forget the APM post we want this machine instead to be in every Mcdonald’s in Kuwait. I would’ve loved using the machine that day instead of waiting inline for over 10 minutes. I don’t get it, why was there a line and lots of people waiting when they could’ve easily used the machines? I would have, had I spotted them before placing my order.
Spend as much time as you like trying to look at different faces and places, but the sooner you realized the better that you can never escape the gulfies (khalejeyeen) and their influence.
I saw this Automated Pizza Machine (APM?) the other day and thought its really a good and practical idea. You can select the kind of pizza you want then insert the money and in 4 minutes you’ll receive your order. The machine was attached to a Pizzeria restaurant and although the restaurant was closed at the time I passed by, it did not stop serving customers.
How come this machine is not in every corner in Kuwait yet?
I just read an interesting article on one of my favorite blogs, intlxpatr’s blog, the article is taken from BBC news and it says that a veiled Muslim woman was denied citizenship in france coz she, allegedly, practices “radical” islam.
Guys and Girls, Tell me, enlighten me please, Isn’t this story and countless other stories where we read that girls are not allowed to wear Hijabs to schools in certain european countries are prime examples of pure hatred and discrimination?
If I wear to say the N word I would’ve been called a racist, if I wear to say women belonged in the kitchen I would’ve been shunned by women and most men, if I were ever to say, God forbid, AC Milan suck and Qadsiya rules, I would’ve been assassinated by Milan fans. We’re always called out, without tolerance, always stopped mid sentence when something wrong is about to be said. Yet, we see the same self righteous people publicly displaying their hypocrisy without being called out often enough.
France, being the country that it is, which was responsible for so many constitution and has influence on most of the world’s constitutions as well, I think it the country I hate the most for being so hypocrite and racist. I googled and found that the french people are against the veil for 2 main reasons, the reasons are:
1-Wearing the veil symbolizes a woman’s submission to men.
2-women who wear the veil display their religious and community affiliation, which harms the unity.
My reply, respectively, to any person who believes in those 2 reasons:
1-Denying any woman education coz she wears a veil would make her even more submissive to men, coz she’ll end up with no education and no personal freedom to practice her faith, her choice of clothing and the school she wants to join.
2-So, by this reasoning, Unity will only be enforced by discriminating against minorities and their personal beliefs? is this some sort of an oxymoron? or just plain ignorance & stupidity?
This video say it best.
“Freedom of religion is guaranteed in France by the constitutional rights set forth in the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.
However, in recent years, some legislation and government actions were taken against some groups considered to be dangerous or criminal. Officials and associations fighting excesses of such groups, justified these measures by the need to have appropriate legal tools and the need to fight criminal organizations masquerading as legitimate religious groups. Critics contended that those actions unfairly targeted minority religions, jeopardized freedom of religion, and were motivated by prejudice.” – from wikipedia
Sure, yeah, now I understand their stance on the Hijab, I was so out of line with this post, coz you see.. France is a big nation that should put it’s national security and it’s people’s safety first, and those little school girls wearing the Hijab can be very dangerous! don’t be deceived by the cute faces, those girls are a threat to their national security! especially with their little scarfs on! they can smuggle weapons of mass destruction and nobody would be able to tell! You don’t want to happen, now do you!?
When I first discovered foret noir, or black forest, the cake (duh), I was not so fond of it. What is there to like anyway? it is supposed to be some kind of a chocolate cake that doesn’t taste quite like chocolate, it has this sour syrup that everybody on this earth hates with a vengeance, and its covered with this thin layer of cheap whipping cream (the ones I tried are cheap) then covered again with something that is supposed to look and taste like chocolate flakes. It is hatable. Almuhaissin, I think, is one of the main reasons why I’ve always hated the black forest, the other reason being the egyptian movies and the way they pronounce it’s name; belack foorest.
Anyway. I discovered this AMAZING cafe (actually, I didn’t discover anything. Mom took me to this cafe 2 years ago and made me try their foret noir) their foret noir is nothing like almuhaissin’s! its nothing like any other black forest i have ever tasted. First of all they got it right and won major points for cutting that sour syrup out of the recipe, then they scored even more points for including a chocolate paste (is it called paste? its a layer of melted chocolate) that works perfectly with the cake, very subtly sweet, it adds this whole other dimension to the otherwise boring cake and it kind of redefines the cake. Then there is the award winning whipped cream layer which takes it to a new level.
Mont Salève (1380m) is in france right next to the swiss borders. Its one of the nearest mountains to geneva and once you’re up there, you’ll have a panoramic view of geneva and all the cities next to it. I think I can see all the way to lausanne (I think Montreux is blocked by the Mountains near Evian).
You can go up there either by using the Telepherique (Cable car) or by car. I prefer using the car, gives a sense of adventure (I’m afraid of heights). We went there last week, by car ofcourse, my brother was in the driver’s seats, driving the manual car (which makes our heads go back and fourth with every gear shift!). The trip took less than 15 minutes. There is a little cafe on top (many cafes) which overlooks the whole thing and just a few meters away from the cafe there is this flying-edge where (crazy people, as mom would refer to them, elmeyaneen) jump off and fly with their parachutes.
This is the stadium where some of the UEFA games were held.
Every year Mom goes to the botanic shop near us and buys some more hydrangea plants to replace the old and dying ones. Sometimes she buys 2 and sometimes more, depending on how bad/good last year’s plants are holding up. When I’m here when and we go to the botanic, I always try my best to steer her away from buying the same flowers. Instead, I kept telling her to consider the top back pack sprayers in 2020 that are really useful for the garden, I try and try AND try! but to no avail. I don’t know what is it with these flowers and I don’t know why all the other gardens around us have this same flowers. these and the lavender. Once the mission to buy a different plant this year failed (failed miserably. We bought 3 new hydrangeas!) I insisted on buying these little dividers/partitions just so I would feel like I made a tiny difference this time 😛
