The Caribbean, gorgeous weather, endless sand beaches. Dr. Fil is tempted, but still, guess what she is most interested in 😉
Although observing animals closely can help understand the animal that has proclaimed itself superior to others.
Hope you enjoy these pics. Plenty more on their way if I find the time to connect and post.
What a trip! In more ways than one. The Chair of our Masters’ programme organized another unforgettable study journey. This time around it was an excursion to Israel where, in addition to seeing the iron repertoire sites, we were to sit in on lectures by esteemed professors. The group consisted of professors from the Faculty of Social Sciences and postgraduate students in the World Studies programme.
Chapter 1 – Istanbul
Our flight to Tel Aviv had a four-hour layover in Istanbul and I found myself buying a tourist visa along with three sociology professors just minutes after landing in Turkey and sooner than you could say hoşça kalın, we were in a taxicab on our way downtown. (By the way, check out the meaning of Omar Naber’s family name at wikitravel’s phrasebook.
What an impressive city! One word? Huge. Granted, there is only so much one can do in a new town in a bit over an hour, but we did take a stroll around Hagia Sofia, the Blue Mosque and had real Turkish coffee with real Turkish sweets at the famous Taksim square. If you order the “chicken breast pie”, please know that it is not simply a dessert resembling a piece of meat. It is ground cooked chicken meat mixed with milk and loads of sugar, made into a gluey thing sprinkled with cinnamon.
We had to go see the Bosphorus bridge, of course. Quite a feeling to be standing there at the very edge of Europe, looking across to Asia. Moving around the city, we made a friend. Hasan the taxi driver who happens to be happily married to a Bulgarian and so understands some basic Slavic words and phrases. What came in really handy is the fact that his neighbour is Macedonian and was able to translate for us on the cell phone. More about Hasan later. The important thing the first time around was that he got us back to the airport on time.
We arrived to Tel Aviv in the wee hours of Monday and I settled down into my hotel room at 4 am.
More… much more to follow. Action!
Here are a few photos from the walk around Istanbul at night..
collecting garbage ~ haunted house?
mysterious or spooky?
no escaping shopping malls ~ relax with Kermit the Turk
desserts of all types (chicken breast pie to the right)
Sütis Coffee Shop at Taksim Square (highly recommended) and the final stop before our return to the airport: the Bosphorus Bridge connecting two continents.
Hagia Sophia on a January Night; photo by dr. Fil
Istanbul is such a beautiful city, but sometimes the lights are dimmed by more than nighttime. The elightenment brought to the country by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk has not gone far enough to reach today’s understanding of free speech and academic debate, as Professor Atilla Yayla found, having just been handed down a 15-month suspended jail term on account of insulting the state’s founder. (Source: BBC)
Seems like ages ago, but in fact no more than a couple of weeks back, I walked into this bar in Tel Aviv harbour with a group of friends and after chatting away a lovely evening with my colleagues, listening to a group of friends playing and singing, they were kind enough to grant me a music request 🙂 As the singer didn’t know the words, she had some help, which sort of made it even more cool. Thanks, guys! 😉
Here’s lookin’ at you, kid. Yes, you!
Getting ready to fly south in search of sunshine and warmth, my blood pressure was raised at the airport successfully without coffee abuse. A man stranded here en route to England due to car breakdown was trying to call home to Albania to let family know he’d be flying the rest of the way, but it turns out that on a Sunday, one cannot purchase a phone card anywhere at the Ljubljana airport and the cards are the only way of using the pay phones.
Duh?!
As today is the Reformation Day and a day before All Saints Day, one cannot escape pondering over some sdeeper issues. I do not consider myself an atheist, but rather an agnostic. To me, faith is a very personal matter. I figure that whoever truly has faith in her or his deity/deities and the related peaceful ideas and notions, is blessed.
There are some places that give me a special feeling and one of them is undoubtedly the chapel in the Trier Cathedral that holds the alleged holly robe. Though it might be easily mistaken for a fortress, Trier Cathedral (Dom St. Peter) in Germany houses an impressive collection of artworks, architecture and holy relics.
It is also of considerable historical significance, as the oldest church in Germany. Today, Trier Cathedral remains a working Catholic cathedral and an important Catholic shrine that still receives pilgrims.
Christianity first arrived in Trier as early as the late 100s AD, although local legend has it that the faith was established in the first century by a bishop sent by the apostle Peter himself.
The history of Dom St. Peter begins in Roman times, when a church was built by Constantine, the first Christian emperor, over the palace of his mother Helena. Construction began in 326 AD, to celebrate the 20th anniversary of his reign (he also began St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome to mark the occasion).
The Empress St. Helena is known for her pilgrimages to the Holy Land, and pious legend has it that she brought back the Holy Robe of Christ from Jerusalem and entrusted it to her son’s new church at Trier. The Holy Robe is the seamless garment said to be worn by Christ during the Crucifixion.
It first makes an appearance in written documents in the 12th century; it was first displayed at the church in the 16th century for a period of 23 days, during which more than 100,000 pilgrims came to venerate it. It has been periodically displayed since then, attracting ever-larger crowds. The last exposition of the relic, for three weeks in 1933, drew 2 million pilgrims. In 1959, the relic was sealed in a splendid shrine in its own chapel, where it remains today.
(Source)
The chapel is closed to the public and the shrine is brought out into the main Cathedral area only once in every few years, so I am grateful to the friend who let us in and allowed us to experience the special energy flowing from the shrine and – at least I thought so – crystals, each of them embedded in a beautifully crafted sculpture.
I hope you will enjoy the VideoCard and that at least some of the atmosphere will shine through.
Last Saturday, I had the pleasure of meeting Raf at the Ahráyeph concert at the Lido in Leuven, Belgium.
What a great guy!
Note: He even mixes a fine daiquiri.
You might at times be able to find him at the Bar 33 in Leuven (Eng. Louvain), the cozy and picturesque capital of Flemish Brabant a short drive from Brussels.
The 33 is part of the longest bar in Belgium, which is composed of roughly 40 bars at the Oude Markt (Old Market). It rolls alternative rock music and while – obviously – serving good beers and other drinks including good whiskey, offers excellent cocktails at friendly prices in an equally friendly environment.
Proud owners of the bar who’d just taken over a month ago. I’ll have to go back just to see what more they’ve done with the place! I’m sure it’ll look great!
EDIT: Here’s a clip from the Ahráyeph concert:
