We were watching Darb elzalag and when this little kid appeared Saleya mentioned who he was, i didn’t have any clue even though i’ve watched it 100’s of times 🙂
You can watch the full video and for this shot you can forward it to 2:49 maybe after hearing his voice it will make it more easier to figure it out 🙂
Now that I’m full and looking at all these pictures, I can’t help but remember what my college professor (she’s Iraqi) told me when we were discussing the similarities of our dishes (Iraqi and Kuwaiti dishes). She said “we have many things in common, but we’re much more sophisticated when it comes to food, mostly because we were hugely influenced by the turks. Whereas your dishes, you of the gulf countries, your dishes aren’t presented well and sometimes I can’t even look at them. Look at your harees or whatever you call it for example, It looks like something that has been chewed and returned back”
Ista’3farallah.. But I think she really has a point! 😛
I think no one here dont know “Tomkyari sadeeqo.” Now here we have the original clip where they sampled the whole thing for the infamous kuwaiti operetta “Bsa6 Alfagur.”
We’ve completed our first year in the blogosphere. It’s been an extraordinary year for Me and Mishary. We’d love to thank you all for the love and support.
We wanted to make some changes to the theme for this occasion, but that proved to be impossible since me and Mishary we both suck at designs and graphics.. But thanks to Ahmad, we managed to do a tiny beautiful change. We changed the background color to black. I thought that was a nice facelift (If you can’t see it, then you should hold the shift key and click refresh). I hope you all like it, coz to be honest, thats the only change you’re going to see for a loong time 😀
We’ve also added Ad spaces on the right. If you want to place your ad in one of the boxes feel free to contact us.
Again, thank you guys for this past amazing year. We appreciate all the help we’ve been getting from all of you guys. We really do.
We went this time without Yousef. We used to go with him almost every year since 1998. He didn’t want to go because we were going early in the morning and returning the same day at night. He wanted to stay atleast for a night. I don’t know why He doesn’t enjoy the exhibition.
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..
In January of this year I visited Kuwait for the first time in my life. It was not a long ahead planned visit. The decision to go was influenced by coincidental circumstances and made only 2 days before my flight took off. Because I was never in the Middle East before, I looked forward to it as a very interesting possibility to see more of this part of the world.
One of the only few facts I knew about Kuwait was from years back, 1973 to be exactly. Being an 11-year old boy I remembered that Israel was in war with some Arabic countries (the Jom Kipoer war) and due to that conflict The Netherlands were embargoed oil supply. Kuwait was one of the leading OPEC countries who denied to sell oil to The Netherlands. As a result of that our PM Joop den Uyl, took some hard measures to deal with this problem and did implement an official ‘no-driving Sunday’. Even though it took some time to get use to it, it became a special and welcome variety of our usually weekend spending. With the whole family we went to the high-roads to roller-skate and bicycle on this new ‘car-free’ playground. Together with lots of other children we had a great time enjoying ourselves in the cleanest air of the week.
At that time I was too young to realize what the political background of the issue was. The only thing I remembered was the sound of fear and fright in the voices of my parents regarding to the subject of ‘war’. Being in the middle of the cold-war and still in fresh memory the second world war, there was a lot of fear for another ‘Great War’. Unexpectedly I was introduced at that time in the world of global-politics. Especially by the honorary-consul of Kuwait, the most respectful Sir Mahmoud Rabbani. As no one else would be able to, he explained the point of view of the Arabic countries to the Dutch television viewers in a very clear way. For this achievement there was a lot of respect for him among the Dutch people. In retrospective, I think, he was one of the most unfortunate diplomats of his time. For accepting an invitation in a cynical television program, in which he did receive a copy of a funny song ‘Kiele kiele Koeweit’ (a Dutch totally innocent song about the oil crisis), Mahmoud Rabbani was heavily criticized by the Arabic countries he represented. This was really a pity; it was mainly because of him that the Dutch got so much more understanding for the problems of the Palestinians. But may be that’s the fate of a popular diplomat abroad.
Having Kuwait now visited twice, I must say that I’m still overwhelmed by the hospitality, warmness and the liberal thought of the Kuwaiti people. The second time I was accompanied by a television crew for making a documentary about a 10-year old Kuwaiti soccer player ‘Sayed’. The crew and I had a very nice time and great fun shooting the scenes with Sayed and his family all around the country. What an amazing talent has this boy! The film was broadcasted in The Netherlands already and received many positive reviews.
Due to these positive experiences I hope to visit Kuwait again soon, but at this moment I have only one (urgent!) question for the Kuwaiti Government. ‘Can you please cut back the oil supply again?’ It’ll bring back some wonderful memories of my youth and also helps the battle against Global Warming. Thank you in advance!
Marcel
What an interesting piece huh? 🙂 I loved that he liked Kuwait and had positive things to say about his visits. As for his request, I highly doubt the government would consider such requests. 😛
Here is a trailer of the documentary they did with Sayed.
For more information about the documentary visit Soccertalents.
Thank you Marcel for sharing your experience with us.
Our last poll was ‘What is your favorite Ramadan dish?’ Over 200 people decided the following:
Harees / Yereesh 32%
Tashreba 29%
Muchboos 16%
Em6abag 3%
I don’t care 20%
The tashreeba, my favorite, won the second position. It so deserved to be a #1 😛
Our new poll got to do with Ramadan too. The Gergai3an is an old Kuwaiti tradition, where kids go door to door, on the 13th, 14th and 15th of every Ramadan, singing a traditional tune and in return get a handful of goodies (chocolates, nuts..etc.) We all went gerge3ing when we were kids and I remember that we couldn’t wait to measure our bagfuls of goodies and see who got the most.
So, What do you think of Gergai3an? You can submit your answers using the poll on the right sidebar.
This place is probably one of the worst looking shops and most unsanitary place to pick some food or drinks at, But amazingly it’s extremely crouded at every single hour of the day. I love this place, The best Karak (Tea with milk/Chay 7aleeb) can be found there.
My Mother and I were in the car the other day. An old guy with black clothing and a black hat wanted to cross the road and i stopped for him. Mom then pointed out that this guy is a jew.
This got me thinking about how we’re always taught to hate the jews, never talk to them, not be friendly with them..etc.
Me: How come we’re taught not to like and interact with jews? Mom: No, there is nothing wrong with befriending the jews. Me: But we were always lectured on how its almost a national duty not to like them. Mom: We don’t like Israel. The country and the government but not the jews themselves. The prophet (PBUH) had jews connections and did trade stuff with them. Me: oh.. Mom: We were talking about the jews in Kuwait the other day and flana (a relative of ours) told me this interesting story about them living in Kuwait back in the 30’s.
There was a street in Kuwait that was famous coz a lot of jews were living there, they called it the jews street, “fereej ilyohood”. they lived among us till the 1930s. They used to come visit every once in awhile. They liked my mother’s mother. They left kuwait in the late 30’s to Israel. They were rich people; they did a lot of lending and saving, they also had lots of gold. When they decided to leave Kuwait to Israel (via boats to Basra, Iraq), the news travelled fast (back then everybody knew everybody else, literally) so some young men from various Kuwaiti families (young guys from the royal family too) wanted to steal the jews’ gold. They waited till it was dark and no one was around, then went to the jews’ boats and dug holes in them. When the jews set sail in the early morning the day after, the boats started leaking and eventually they started sinking.
Almost all of the jews lived in Kuwait and left with no harm and were treated nicely. Only a small group were targeted by an even smaller group of Kuwaitis (Sawwadallah wyoohom) and when their boats went down, they left a lot of gold behind.
The restaurant was recommended by 9K2HN. He ate at this restaurant with his family and cousins more than 20 years ago. He came to know about this restaurant when they were staying in one of Geneve’s hotels back in the mid 80’s. Back then they weren’t familiar with the country as much as they are now, so they asked the hotel and were recommended this restaurant. They took a taxi and went there. They liked it and kept the restaurant’s card. In the coming years, whenever they wanted to go back to this restaurant, they’d go to the Noga Hiltion Hotel (Now its Kempinski) and take a taxi from there to the restaurant coz its so hard to get there without a taxi. fast forward to yesterday.. 9K2HN, his brother and me wanted to go back there. He dug up the restaurant’s card and used modern day technology to get there, A.K.A. the GPS. The waiter was very surprised to see the restaurant’s old card with us, He said he recognized the logo but not the card itself coz its too old.
master, over at fyonkat just wrote a post about her embarrassing encounter with a waiter in geneve, Read it here, and She inspired me to write about my own embarrassing encounter with a waiter. It happened in 1996. Here is how it went:
Me and my friend were sitting in a cafe near the lake. We ordered cokes and the waitress brought them over, she was very friendly and all smiles.
I tend to spill drinks at restaurants. Sometimes when I try to describe something my arms make drawings in the air and other uncontrollable motions. Lets just say I can’t sit at a cafe or a restaurant without making a scene and most of the time the spilled drink finds it’s way to my shirt, and this time it was no exception 😀 I spilled the coke all over the table with one swift motion. The waitress came running and said “C’est pas grave” (no problem) and brought a towel and started to clean the table.
Waitress: So…who is the pig! Me: *pointed at my friend* HIM! he’s the pig! He spilled it!
The waitress smiled.
Friend: Me. Me: *I was amazed at how he was ok with being called a pig* Waitress: what day you were born? Me: 1st of january. Waitress: wow! 1st of january! on new year! Friend: and I’m on 25th of december. Waiter: WOW! he’s on new years and you on christmas!
We all laughed and chatted for awhile and then she left. I then asked my friend about the “pig” thingy and then he said..
Friend: She did not say PIG! she asked who is BIGGER! OLDER! not who is the pig!
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.
When we were on the train on our way to Salzburg, we talked about the things we still remember from our last visit 20 years ago. I said that I still remember The Sound Of Music home, the old walking street with the cafes and shops, our hotel (which assumed I would be ok sleeping in a baby’s crib! I was 6 and did not find them funny at ALL) and I remember that we bought 2 toys from that old street, we bought a little orange warm attached to a transparent nylon thread and a puppet with strings, it was an ostrich with beads-like legs. The warm did not last long, but that little ostrich puppet lasted well into the early 90’s.
When we first entered the old town, memories started flowing back. less than 20 meters into this narrow walking street, we saw something VERY familiar. We saw that little ostrich puppet with its green hat and red feathers! it looked exactly like the one we bought 2 decades ago! Mom said that I SHOULD buy it. So I went up to the lady carrying the basket full of puppets and started talking to her. It was raining and I was trying to open my wallet and holding the umbrella at the same time, so she offered to carry the umbrella for me, she was so nice and speaks english fluently, so I thought I’d tell her about our old puppet..
Me: You know, 20 years ago I came to salzburg with my family and they bought me a puppet that looks exactly like the ones you’re selling me now. Puppet Lady: 20 years? Well, I’ve been selling these puppets for 23 years. Me: *stared at her* oh.. really? Puppet Lady: Yes, 23 years. No one sells them except me. *smiles* Me: You mean……? Puppet Lady: It’s probably me who sold your parents that first puppet. Me: *Shocked* Puppet Lady: *laughs* Yes it was me.
^This is the old town in Salzburg, a walking street with lots of shops and souvenirs shops can be found there, and all are in old buildings dating back to the 13 centuries. You can see above the mountain and overlooking the town there is an old castle, this castle was built over 600 years of constant work and remodeling. The tour guide said that every king (archbishop?) used to change things and remodel it and no one lived up to see it completed.
^20 years ago we sat at this restaurant/cafe. I remembered once I saw the path leading up to it!
It was a long LONG trip by train. It took us 8 hr and 45 minutes, 1 train change in Zurich and God only knows how many stops till we got to our destination. At first I did not feel like doing anything, I wanted to sleep, but the coffee I drank for breakfast did not help at first so i turned to the ipod. after the train change in Zurich, the train was much comfier so I did finally manage to sleep. I slept on and off for almost 3 hours. 3 hours in any other trip would’ve been really impressive, but not in this never ending trip. We ate lunch in the in-train restaurant, it wasn’t the best meal ever, but it managed to waste some time without us noticing, which is good.
We finally arrived, checked in, left our bags and headed out again. It was raining by that time. We went to the old town, which is breath taking to say the least. The place is very beautiful. I’ve been here once 20 years ago 😛 and I was shocked that I remembered a restaurant in the old town (I was 6 years old then) and when I tried to remind Mom, she remembered! Read the rest of this entry »
This video shows the mobile revolution since 1985 till 2008, i remmembered some of the mobiles which i was in love with before but when i looked at them now mesakeeen e6la3aw efashlooon 😛
When we were on the train on our way to Salzburg, we talked about the things we still remember from our last visit 20 years ago. I said that I still remember The Sound Of Music home, the old walking street with the cafes and shops, our hotel (which assumed I would be ok sleeping in a baby’s crib! I was 6 and did not find them funny at ALL) and I remember that we bought 2 toys from that old street, we bought a little orange warm attached to a transparent nylon thread and a puppet with strings, it was an ostrich with beads-like legs. The warm did not last long, but that little ostrich puppet lasted well into the early 90’s.
