The modern dictator

Sunglasses and cleavage

2011-05-16T09:36:00.004+02:00

The Arab uprising came as a surprise to everyone, literally.

To the West, who was torn between the joy of spreading democracy and the risks of higher fuel prices. To the Arab leaders, who didn't know their people had a voice. And to the protesters, who probably didn't know they had a voice either.

The other unexpected outcome was the government's response to these protests. Since protesting is a virgin territory for both the people and the authorities, no one really knew what to expect. Tunisia and Egypt did well, Lybia and Syria aren't.

No one can really help Lybia as their leader is a self-centered, self-absorbed lunatic with a bad sense of fashion. But I think that in Syria's case, there may be some hope. If you think about it, no one may have challenged the Egyptian, Yemeni, Bahreini or Lybian governments in the past, but someone already fought the Syrian government: Lebanon after Hariri's death.

The Syrians may not know how to defeat their government, but we do. We fought the Syrian authorities for more than 10 years, trying out every single strategy until it finally worked in 2005 (we are so avant-gardistes, by the way).

So here is a tip as to how you can get your freedom in Syria.

Love the camera and the media, it worked for us and it should work for you:

International pressure is what will make Al-Assad bail, people abroad need to know what is going on in Syria and you need to be all over the news. I know it isn't easy because of the tight media control and the government cuting off internet and telephones. Nevertheless, many photos and videos still make their way out to the world and this is what you need to focus on. You also have to make it worth the risk for the journalists to come to Syria and take some nice shots of protest scenes.

So this, for instance, is a no-go:

What is that? A crowed of stinky men?

This is what you want:

Two words you have to keep in mind: sunglasses and cleavage.

With such hot and glamorous protestors, the world will start paying attention to your cause. The world is a superficial place and the young viewers from the West are your target. Don't forget that in their perspective you are competing with the latest Lady Gaga video and the only thing you are currently offering them is a bunch of Arabs protesting in dusty flipflops and out of fashion ripped off shirts.

So I repeat in case you didn't get it the first time.

SUNGLASSES:

I know this pic is probably from the 2006 war

And CLEAVAGE:

Trust me, this will allow you make it to the top news, because look at the BBC website, you're number 7 in the top 10 of the most read news. Number 7? That's so weak.

Another small tip for the international viewers' convinience: be multi-lingual. Don't sit around in a square and shout like cattle, carry big signs in several languages, ideally French, English and Arabic.

I actually think this poster is still available somewhere in Beirut, let us know if you need it and we can send it to you ASAP.

I hope these tips were helpful. Please do not hesitate to use this blog as a platform for any questions you may have about taking down your government.

Syria, you are welcome.

FREE NAKED HOT GIRLS PUSSY

2011-02-05T00:32:00.000+01:00

The world is a chaos.

The arabs just discovered the term "democracy", the food prices are rising causing many poor countries to starve, Haiti is a mess beyond any human tolerance level, communism still exists, but most importantly: I have found a steady-conventional-9-to-6 job in Switzerland.

After having spent most of my savings travelling through Latin America, Europe and the Middle East, it is time for me to recapitalise in order to travel again in a couple of years (boss, if you're reading this, please don't fire me, it's bullshit. As I told you during the interview I am committed to stay with you for EVER!)

So what does that mean? Well it either means that I will blog about boring, uninteresting stuff that the blogsphere is already dealing with.

Or it means that I will stop blogging because I have become a normal, boring and conventional person like you with nothing interesting to say.

Well, I chose the latter.

You may also be wondering why there are hot, almost nude girls with big boobs washing cars in this post - I can explain. Out of all the interesting posts I have written in a year and a half of reign, the post Damn you hot girls is the one that got the most hits...and BY FAR! It has received 1'472 clicks and the next most popular post only got 335.

Most of the people viewing this post were from Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Pakistan or the UAE. And I doubt these guys were laughing about my sarcasm in that post, but were rather touching their microscopic erected penises since porn is blocked in their respective countries.

I am proud to have provided free porn to these guys through my blog - but pleasuring rich, overweight, hairless, horny Saudis was not on my to-do list.

Don't think that my dictatorship has been overthrown by some lousy horny arabs, like Egypt or Tunisia, I just thing that one should know when to stop.

This also explains the title of this post - I am hoping to attract those desperate young guys seeking free porn on the internet and have this post exceed the other one's clicks.

So voilà, it is an au revoir, not an Adieu. I am off the air until I have something exciting to say again.

Eja ma3ak habibi? Did you cum? Ooooooh yeeeeeaaaaaahhhhhh!!

Now clean up before you sister questions the origin of this white sticky liquid on the keyboard, yalla!

Egypt, Egypt...

2011-02-01T10:00:00.000+01:00

Dear Egypt,

What are you doing? First, you totally stole Tunisia's thunder - who by the way started all this. Now nobody even talks about it anymore, haraaaam. You even shadowed protests in Yemen, Jordan and Sudan and that is not cool. You have to learn how to SHARE the attention.

On the other hand, you are doing a little Beirut strategy here, aren't you? I quote (BBC News):

"Organisers say they hope one million will come onto the streets in what is expected to be the biggest show yet.
Some protesters defied the curfew and continued to camp out in Tahrir Square through the night, saying they would stay there until Mr Mubarak's 30-year-long rule ends.
One demonstrator, Tarek Shalabi, told the BBC that groups were camped out in tents or sleeping out in the square, and described the atmosphere as "overwhelming".
"We're here because we want to make a statement. We're not going until Mubarak steps down," he said."

If it translate in Beirut terms:

Organisers say they hope one million will come onto the streets in what is expected to be the biggest show yet.
Some protesters defied the curfew and continued to camp out in Martyr's Square through the night, saying they would stay there until Syria's 15-year-long rule ends.
One demonstrator, The Modern Dictator, told the BBC that groups were camped out in tents or sleeping out in the square, and described the atmosphere as "overwhelming".
"We're here because we want to make a statement. We're not going until Syria steps down," he said.

--------

Well at least I am glad we inspired Egyptians - though I hope they will get more than a million people at this rally. The Beirut rally gathered about a million people in a city of about 1.5 million, so if Cairo wants to Beirut it, they'll have to gather about 8 million people (Cairo population being over 10 mio)...come on Cairo, you can('t) do that!

Also, be careful about the results. Since you've been living in shitty conditions for the past 30 years, it is only natural that you'd want to have the Muslim Brotherhood in power for the next generation as it brings food on your table everyday - it kind of is like the Egyptian Hizbollah.

Remember: these regimes are only good when they are transitory - but like communism in Cuba or Radical Ismalists in Iran, these guys tend to stay for longer than they should and you'll be miserable again in 10 years. And I think it is worth mentioning how having these guys in power will ruin your everyday lives by imposing strict muslim traditions and how it will negatively impact tourism, which represents about 6% of your GDP.

Don't rush into conclusions, learn from Lebanon's mistakes. Look at how Hizbollah is fucking up our lives today.

Egypt, you are welcome for the advice.

Cuba: a glass of rum, a cigar et voilà

2011-01-22T13:21:00.000+01:00

Traveling continues and my next destination was a rather special one. While the political turmoil continues in Lebanon, I have had the chance to visit another country torn apart by some very bad political decisions made about 50 years ago - Cuba.

When I got there I had no idea what to expect as the closest thing to a communist country I have ever been to is France.

After having been ripped off by my taxi driver from the airport, I checked in to an overpriced hotel by central Havana. The unfriendliness of most of the staff was shocking but understandable since my one night at the hotel represented about a two year salary for them - literally.

Communism: standardization at its best

I had never appreciated communism, actually I always thought that it would be okay to put communists in concentration camps because they chose to be communists - unlike Jews or Gipsies who didn't pick their origins. And this trip to Cuba did not make me change my mind.

Communism is just wrong and goes against human nature. It is in our blood to fight for things, to be better or worse, more successful or not, stronger or weaker - you can't force people to be similar, we just aren't.

Sure, everybody knows the famous Cuban propaganda "they have free education and health care" - the Cubans themselves are actually convinced that this makes them more special than anybody else on Earth. But it isn't as beautiful and magic as it seems. As a friend of mine, who is an expert on Latin American issues, puts it - they have the higher literacy rate in Latin America but not the highest education rate nor the best education.

There is a difference between knowing how to read and being educated - most cubans can read, but they don't have degrees - or rarely ever do. Moreover imagine I am studying Economics at the Havana University, how will the professor teach me the different economic models - particularly capitalism? The education gets very bias and since it's an island it gets much easier to control everything that gets into the country.

And health care? Why would I want to stay alive if it is to live in such terrible conditions?

I think we have to relativize this slogan and ask ourselves if our freedom isn't the most valuable concept our government can offer us.

How sad is the situation you ask? Sad enough so that a mother was trying to sell me her 16 year-old daughter on the street - well I am irresistibly hot, but come one! People are asking for anything on the streets, from milk, soap, pencils to money.

I got myself a personal little concert in exchange for a small bottle of soap and another one of shampoo from the hotel.

Communism doesn't only stop here. On the Malecon of La Havana (seaside promenade), the entire area is deserted. My guess is that it used to be one of the fanciest and most exclusive areas in the city housing the elite of Havana, but since in communism everybody is equally miserable, the wealthy people either fled the country or became insanely poor and this is what happened to their neighborhood.

Forgotten, abandoned and dilapidated. This area is right by the sea and only a few blocks from the old town - you could just feel how important and wealthy it was. But hey, communists are allergic to money so let's just leave this area to rot.

Walking there, I felt like I was in post-war Beirut.

La Havana isn't as joyful and colourful as everybody says. It actually is quite sad and destroyed - it is a perfect reflection of the regime's old and outdated policies. Though I have to say, if the city were refurbished, it would definitely be the nicest city in the Americas. In your face Buenos Aires!

The Malecon was totally deserted, no bar, no restaurant, no shop, no residence - it was very bizarre walking down what seemed to be a grandiose street, all by myself. Oh, well not totally - there was one cafe called Al Abadyia (which means "the end" in Arabic, I thought it was rather appropriate to the area), and there was one fisherman trying to make a living or maybe just trying to feed his soap-less family.

He had no clue that "fishing" was such a strange concept for foreigners - we get our fish from the supermarket in a box and they look like finger sticks.

Capturing the fisherman at work

The communist concept is to be considered as a short term solution to economical disparities and social unrest - not to be adopted as a constant way of life. Look at their supermarkets:

You can't see well? Here's a nice little zoom:

So yes, why would one want to have a great health care system if it is to live like that?

Why would one want to celebrate the revolution if this is what it led to?

But I will not only trash Havana - if you go to the touristy part of the city, the old town, then you get an idea of how beautiful the city can be if all the communists die.

It is not just rubble and misery. Cubans are actually a very happy population despite all the shit they have to cope with. Music is always playing everywhere - mind you they only have live bands, which is amazing - people are drinking (at the tourists' expense) the most delicious rum EVER while smoking a freshly wrapped cigar. I'm not a cigar person, but the Cuba Libre / cigar mix is just out of this world.

The tourists that come to Cuba are mostly here to see what a communist country looks like - kind of like going to a freak show - and that was my motivation too. So as much as we enjoy taking pictures like this one:

Then we have to keep in mind that this guy has been driving the same car for over 50 years! This is his actual car, not some show he puts on to attract the tourists' attention.

Or this guy is actually driving his mum on this awesome motorbike and if you ask him, I'm sure he'd prefer another newer vehicle.

It is very beautiful and charming and typical, but also kind of sad. It's like the country stopped in 1958 while the world kept evolving and changing.

If you come across this in NYC, then it's typical and charming because they are doing it on purpose to be retro. In Cuba it is actual life (though totally vintage!)

After taking the legit' taxi back to my hotel, I decided it was time to see something else in Cuba.

I rented a car and drove about 4 hours away from La Havana on an empty communist-folie-des-grandeurs-style highway.

I noticed that the most popular way for locals to travel around is by hitch-hiking - but when I say popular, it means people rely on it to move from one place to another. So I picked up a few decent looking people and took them as far as I could on my way. It was a great way to talk to locals and learn a lot about the country. The best part is that they were like a live version of a GPS telling me where to go and which roads to avoid - everytime I dropped one off, I took somebody else.

After a long but enjoyable drive, I made it to Cienfuegos. A colourful, clean and beautiful small town by a lake in the southern part of the island.

The town was established by the French and you can clearly see that in the architecture of the city where you can find many manoirs overlooking the lake, an Arc de Triomphe by the main square and everybody walks with a baguette stuck up their asses.

Even though people were also asking for a lot of things on the streets, I preferred Cienfuegos to Havana because it was overall less sad. People were much friendlier, laid back and talkative (not only begging). The city itself is what you'd expect from Cuba with its colourful buildings

Its 1960s style

And its other popular and legitimate public transportation system

The lake side - which looks more like a seaside - is filled with old houses that make you feel in an episode of Mad Men or somewhere in Louisiana in the 1960s.

Communism is also very present but in a much less aggressive way. Even though Havana isn't what I would call a fast paced city (at all), Cienfuegos is even more relaxed and easy to get around all while exploring the real Cuba.

Though you are constantly reminded of who initiated the revolution, the famous icon of modern revolts - Che Guevara. Who, by the way, is an Argentine loser with a puberty beard who had to go all the way to Cuba to get heard. No, I don't like him.

I'm pretty sure he only does this to get free drinks from rum-soaked tourists like me

After a lovely day in Cienfuegos where the sun sets beautifully behind the huge lake, I travelled to 1970s California:

Lakeside sunset in Cienfuegos

I wish - but no, I went to Trinidad (de Cuba). I do mention the "de Cuba" part because my parents called me in panic because they thought I was somehow taking a car from Cuba to Trinidad and Tobago.

Trinidad is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, it is a very beautiful little town in the mountains a few kilometers from the sea. It reminded me of Cuenca in Ecuador - tile houses and small paved streets were what made this city an incredible destination.

Beautiful as it was, I didn't enjoy it much. I have been approached by people asking me for stuff every single second. It was unbearable and I ended up protesting that "if their current regime is making them so miserable than they should just make another revolution". I didn't get many answers, people were probably not even listening, they were just spotting the next tourist to hassle.

It had a lot of little cafes, shops and restaurant on every street corner. It is a beautiful, colourful and refurbished little town with a huge amount of tourists.

I didn't stay much over there as I couldn't sit anywhere without being approached by a solicitor and asking me for stuff. As I was walking to the car, I took the wrong way and saw how the local, non-touristy Trinidad looks like - it wasn't very impressive and I had about 5 guys coming all together at me trying to sell me counterfeit cigars.

There is one thing about Cuba that immensely surprised me: the safety. After having travelled extensively around Latin America in the past year, security was always an issue even in Argentina. But Cuba is even safer than Switzerland. I walked around after dark hours in the crappy neighborhoods of Havana, carrying soaps and other stuff with me (I was doing santa), and never had any type of trouble.

Even when I passed next to a group of hostile-looking big guys sitting on a top of a car listening to music,: they ignored me. Others would greet me politely but people would mostly just ignore me - which I hate because I like to be the center of attention!

I think it is that safe because the police is very VERY strict regarding contacts with tourists and especially if something bad happens to the tourist. Since the main funding partner of Cuba collapsed because it realised communism sucks, the USSR, the Castro Brothers need to find another way of funding this expensive utopia world, and tourists seem to be the ones paying for that.

Because it is very expensive for tourists to travel around Cuba. You can pay up to 25 or 30 USD per person in a good restaurant in the city, which is a lot since the monthly salary of one Cuban worker is of 10$. You can pay up to 300$ per night in some hotels and they're not the best. So the authorities need to maintain a safe environment for everyone so that no one gets discouraged of coming to Cuba.

But Cuba is changing. Slowly but surely. They have just allowed private businesses to be opened - because up until now everything belonged to the State. Though people still can't get loans to start their businesses! The US are easing the embargo and increasing the relationship between the two countries, which will help a lot the Cuban economy.

The communist bubble won't burst as fast as it did in Russia, but it is starting to deflate because people are getting really tiered. I mean I understand communism would work in cold, gray, boring and mean Russia - but not in colourful, friendly, sunny and salsa-energized Cuba!

To all you commies: go take Economics 101.

A look at yesterday

2011-01-13T17:21:00.003+01:00

Like everybody else on the Lebanese blogsphere, I will comment about what just happened.

In order to understand why is Lebanon so messed up today, we have to understand historically what happened. Do you know what happened?

During the Ottoman empire there was no Lebanon, it was part of Greater Syria - but the region of Mount Lebanon always benefited from a certain "autonomy" because it was different - it had Maronites in it (you know, the Christians that are ruled by this loser). When the Turks left the region, Lebanon and Syria were placed under French mandate and Jordan and Palestine under British mandate.

Several years after that agreement, there was still no country called Lebanon; until on day the Frenchies noticed that Mount Lebanon was different religiously and culturally. They decided to seperate it from Syria (which explains why Syria is so eager to win it back) and create Lebanon.

But limiting the country to Mount Lebanon only wasn't very wise since there isn't a lot of agricultural land in the mountains. So Paris decided to expand a little bit to the North, the East, the South and take Beirut along the way - Beirut is originally Sunni and Orthodox, not Maronite. The Maronites are kind of like the Incas - they stayed in the mountains and hated the seaside.

In that process, the French not only integrated agricultural land to the newly formed country, but also included many Muslims which they first considered as cheap labor that the Christians could use on the farms.

Beirut grew to be a major cosmopolitan city gathering - in different neighborhoods - all of the Lebanese sects. The rest of the country is similarly shaped and the everlasting clan leaders (Frenjieh, Mouawad, Jumblat, Gemayel, etc. - basically the same crap we still have today) who made it to the government as regional representatives did not understand that it wasn't a big "clan reunion" but a democratic country. And they still don't understand that now - they fight for their seat, their image and their presence more than they fight for the country itself.

Overall, Lebanon is screwed up as a democracy because we are made of many different religions and cultures. And as much as everybody denies it: christians don't care much for muslims, muslims don't care much for christians and sunnis and chiia don't care much for each other. So how can you run a country on this basis?

So a confederation seems to be the closest thing to a possible outcome for Lebanon. Different regions would be managed individually, and the people would be responsible for the guys they elect in their canton. The only thing I would be afraid of would be that once we get divided into cantons, the clan leaders d'antan would come back and dominate their respective regions like their ancestors did - but it's a risk I'm willing to take.

Seriously, couldn't you just shoot him...while he dances?

2011-01-07T18:49:00.001+01:00

Dictator of the Caribbean

2010-12-24T15:59:00.008+01:00

Wait no more reader, I am back. After blogging about Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador, my tough life as a man of leisure took me to Mexico - Cancun to be exact.

As I left the old and cold European continent, it did not come as a surprise that my first contact with Latin America was in Miami. I had heard a lot about it being very Latino but never realised it was actually owned by them.

I had a five hour layover in the city and decided to go for a spin in town and meet up with a good non-latino friend of mine. Every hip person knows someone in Miami, and it's even cooler when that person's not Latino.

From immigration to customs, the taxi ride and the coffee place, I was spoken to only in Spanish - not one single encounter in Shakespeare's language.

Notice how poor Miami is. This is a guy selling Coca-Cola cans on a red light.

My stop in Miami was rather short but I had the time to feel unimpressed by the city - maybe because the weather was crap.

Empty apartment buildings, globally known as Condos. Miami was among the most hit by the US real estate crisis

After flying crappy American Airlines and feeling bad about having put on some weight this year, I made it to Cancun, Mexico's most famous Caribbean destination.

You probably all heard about Cancun in American movies when young university students fly there for Spring Break to get drunk and fornicate as much as they possibly can - well it's pretty much that in real life. Though most of the tourists now were couples, young and old, going to all inclusive resorts - but all and I mean ALL of them (99.75%) were from the US.

It was the first time I went to an all American mass-tourist zone, it's even more pathetic than the European version. When an area is highly US of A infested, then everything becomes American. First, you have to tip 10 to 15% everywhere and if you don't, then Jose Pedro Gonzalez Dominguez gives you the "I'm not satisfied with your cheap attitude" look - and as a non-American who is not used to tipping a guy for just anything, I got this look quite often.

Then, you get all these very real American clichés.

1) The "Caution wet floor" is literally everywhere, even in the obviously wet places: by the pool - this is all probably to avoid a potential law suit.

2) The fit and sexy American men:

3) The young, loud and drunk - please note the 2 drinks in his hands, it was about 11am (in an all inclusive resort):

4) And the ALL YOU CAN EAT BUFFET with SPORTS!!!!

I felt more in America after having spent a couple of hours in Cancun than after 5 hours in Miami.

Though, regardless of this unattractive tourist populace, Cancun has nice beaches, soft white sand and a warm sea. Also, the Mexicans are among the nicest people I've seen in Latin America - not only because they want a tip.

What most people don't know about Cancun and its surroundings, is that it was the home of...

Chichen Itza: the Mayan Capital in the Yucutan peninsula

..the Mayas. Yes, this great Central American civilization chose the Caribbean sea as its home base and just with that, they won many points in my heart. It may not be a very known fact because Cancun is the last place on Earth where you'd expect culture to be found, but if you look thoroughly in the tourist brochures offered by your hotel, you'll find great cultural activities hidden behind Amusement Parks, Water Parks, All you can eat buffet or Outlet Shopping tours.

Since I also had the chance to discover the Inca culture this year, I couldn't help but compare both. It wasn't as easy as I thought since getting information about the Mayas was rather hard and limited even though I had a tour guide (within a big group) while visiting Chichen Itza.

The Mayas played a very ancient version of Basketball. The winner had to be sacrificed and given to the Gods

I had never had such bad tour guide and as a European wannabe - but Lebanese at heart - I blame it on the Americans, yet again. This mass tourism doesn't necessarily bring the brightest of people and to keep mass tourists interested in a 90-minute tour it has to be interactive. So instead of telling us about the Mayan culture itself, their architecture, their beliefs, their lifestyle and so on, I witnessed a tour filled with stories of who killed whom, who hated whom and details about how they sacrificed their men by chopping their heads off. I kept interrupting the guide to ask him very smart questions - as one would expect from me - and he was pleasantly surprised to see that someone cared a bit more about the culture than about their circumcision techniques.

This is a Cenote - a hole in the earth filled with fresh water. You can swim there while being surrounded by this beautiful scenery

So, Incas v/s Mayas, who wins?

- Culture: well they were pretty similar - they worshipped the sun, they sacrificed people, they were ambitious, they both had a civil war and they both got dominated by the Spaniards. I can't get really much deeper in the Mayan culture, but I haven't seen a Maya Cola in Mexico, whereas there is an Inca Kola in Peru. Incas (1)

- Famous site: even though the pyramid is very impressive, Machu Picchu is still out of this world. Incas (1)

- Location: The Andes or the Caribbean? As much as the Machu Picchu's location in the Andezon is one of the most magnificent sites I have ever seen, choosing to be next to the most beautiful sea in the world is really something I respect. Mayas (1)

The archeological site of Tulum, the Mayan port

- Physical appearance: both native populations (mixed with Spanish blood) are not what I would call attractive, but Incas have small men with big noses and huge women with enormous shoulders. I was less horrified by the Mayan population of Mexico. Mayas (1)

View from the Tulum port. Tough life being a sailor in the world's most beautiful and calm sea (unless there's a hurricane)

- Current tourism: Both have the same techniques of organised mass tourism involving a lot of child labour and tacky events. But I was particularly disappointed by the guide in Chichen Itza compared to the fantastic guides of Peru. Incas (1)

Child labour always makes tourism cheaper

I guess the Incas win that battle, maybe because I haven't learned much about the Mayas or just because I am bias after having lived in peru - you should go and judge for yourself.

The Coba Pyramid - the tallest in the peninsula, and you get to climb it

The entire Yucutan peninsula is very forested and green - a sensation I like especially when you get to see this view from the top of the Coba pyramid

So if you ever go to Cancun, do enjoy Hooters and Coco Bongo but take the time to go outside of the hotel strip and discover some of the fascinating Mayan vestiges that are still there. The seaside along Cancun and the South - what is called the Riviera Maya - is all very beautiful and paradise-like (though filled with hotels and resorts non-stop for about 200km).

Now, let me get back to my rum on this beautiful beach while you read this next to your heater.

Conspiracy theory

2010-12-05T13:58:00.003+01:00

Last time I felt like having tabbouleh, French fries, hummus and eggs (beyd 3a banadoura) - a basic and easy Lebanese lunch.

I went out to buy the hummus because it was the only thing I couldn't be bothered doing myself. After getting the overpriced parsley in the vegetable section, I moved to the "exotic" aisle of the supermarket. I grabbed the French-made Lebanese bread - it's decent - a can of Al Wadi Al Akhdar hummus and headed to the check-out counter.

On my way out, I passed in front the meat and dairy fridges and notice something new - they have a special fridge displaying a wide selection of fresh Lebanese tapas: Hummus and Baba Ghanouj / Moutabal. I thought it would be a good idea to try this fresh hummus and see how it tasted because I know I'm not a huge fan of Al Wadi Al Akhdar canned foods.

I took this new fresh hip and cool hummus in my hand and started reading about its origins. At first I thought it came from Lebanon, or that some Lebanese guy here in the region was making it and selling it to the supermarkets.

But as I took a closer look, here is what I find:

It was all written in Hebrew! It was made in Israel!

I was shocked that an Israeli company would produce "Lebanese Style" Hummus. I mean, I was glad to see that after making this record breaking pot of hummus in Beirut, the Israelis finally acknowledge that this particular dish is ours and not theirs, but still...to put "Lebanese Style" on it was pretty surprising.

I know that this isn't the hummus they sell in the supermarkets of Tel Aviv, it's just an export product because they know that the Lebanese food sells well. It's like when I walk in some "Lebanese Shawarma" place in the dodgy streets of Geneva and see that it's owned by a couple of Egyptians who display their pyramids on the counter of the restaurant.

Like "Swiss Made" is the label used to sell good quality products, "Lebanese" helps sell any oriental food, because no one would want to eat Egyptian, Jordanian or Syrian food - even though it's pretty much the same.

Israelis noticed that and despite the current state of war between the two countries, well, business is business. Something that would NEVER happen in Lebanon.

Though this hummus was DISGUSTING! It tastes SHIT!

So I'm going to go back to the supermarket to take a closer look in this hummus fridge, because I'm sure I'll find they're selling the delicious "Israeli hummus" right next to it. This way, people will think that Lebanese hummus sucks and that the Israeli one is great. This is all a conspiracy by the Zionists to promote their own hummus!

Bastards.

La Dame Blanche

2010-12-01T15:02:00.004+01:00

I hate winter. It's horrible and cold and messy and racist. Yes, winter is such a white supremacist - look at it!

Winter made it to Switzerland a bit too early. I don't like it because you have to add all these extra layers of clothes, cap, gloves, scarves, carry an umbrella around, put on big and unfashionable shoes and freeze your ass off when you go to the outside world - how can you enjoy this?

You have to think about all these little things before leaving your mansion - even for a small walk to the supermarket! My brain has to constantly be the "active mode" during winter in order to plan my walk outside and get everything right - am I wearing enough clothes? am I wearing too much? Shall I take my umbrella? Will it rain later? Is it windy? Shall I bring my sunglasses? etc. etc. In summer you only wear a t-shirt and don't have to worry about anything else.

This only justifies my theory that (most) rich countries are situated in cold regions and poor countries in warm ones. Because with harsh winters like these, Northerners had to be prepared to get through such rough times. Organise wood for the fire, a resistant roof, food and supplies, heavy clothes, take advantage of the sunny days for agriculture - nothing was taken for granted.

Whereas populations in warm places didn't have anything to worry about. It's always hot and relaxed so they take it easy all year long. They could plant their crops almost anytime, they didn't have many problems, except water related issues but most of these guys settled around lakes and rivers. Heat makes it tougher to work and labour hours were much less strict because what couldn't be done today could be done tomorrow - no horrible winter ahead.

And these habits and traditions are what shaped today's world. "Northerners" are more organised, efficient, strict and calculated people. Everything works (well, it is supposed to) because they think everything through.

Whereas "Southerners" are more relaxed about everything and let things go until the next day (and next, and next, and next...) If something doesn't work, well, they'll fix it after the siesta because now it's too hot to work.

So when you take an Englishman to Mexico, he'll have a hard time understanding why is everything so messed up. Well it's because it's hot and beautiful - and instead of working you should be hanging out at the beach and sipping on your Tequila Sunrise.

When Europeans travel South, they organise and plan everything, as if everything was supposed to work out exactly like in theory. And then they get mad and grumpy when things don't go according to plan. I think they just have to adapt themselves to the local pace and be a bit more spontaneous.

So what does winter bring? Miserable, unfriendly, rigid but organised people?

And warm countries bring you friendly, relaxed, flexible but messy people?

After having lived in Lebanon and then in Switzerland, I have to say that both bring a certain advantage. If there could be a mix of both, that'd be great: reliable and friendly people in an organised yet flexible and warm country. It is hard to get, but not impossible.

I have to admit that snow is nice to look at when it falls. To savour a warm and delicious hot chocolate while looking out the window and admire the poor and homeless struggling to get warmth and shelter.

Well, that's fun for 15 minutes, and then what? I need SUN.

Lebanese exports make it to Switzerland

2010-11-24T11:32:00.002+01:00

Oh la la...this is so tragic! How to go through a power cut?

1) take the stairs and not the elevators - at least we have generators to cover for ("unexpected") power cuts!

2) save the files on your computer - at least we have a UPS for that!

3) make sure your alarm has fully operating emergency batteries - use your cellphone! Who cares about being so punctual anyway?

4) unplug all sensitive electrical items - ahh, that's why we have to change the TV set every 3 years!

5) make sure the electric installations are not damaged - we don't have any, so that's cool!

5) don't open your fridge in order to keep your food fresh - I guess they don't have Picon or Smeds!

Beirut Urban Day

2010-11-19T14:34:00.009+01:00

Welcome to Dubai:

No, wait. Welcome to Istanbul:

Just kidding - Welcome to Beirut.

Beirut is the capital of Lebanon, a third world country in denial of its status. When I left Lebanon five years ago, I thought it was bad - now it's worse.

Politics, religion, traffic jam, plastic surgery, show-off, people, prices, pollution, greed, corruption, Dubaiification, etc. everything has worsen, but there still is one small part of this country that is authentic, and I wanted to experience it again.

It was Adha, a muslim holiday, and the country was (supposed to be) off. In my mind, when it's a holiday, people stay at home with their families, relax from the weekly chaos of the city and take it easy. Some go out to the few open shops and restaurant in a quiet atmosphere, kind of like (but certainly not as bad as) Geneva on a day off:

But I seem to have forgotten what Beirut is like, this is trying to get to the city on a day off:

After surviving traffic, the day starts in a hip Bistrot Libanais called Basma in Ashrafieh serving delicious Lebanese mezza in a traditional urban ambiance.

The hummus melts in your mouth as you mix it with the gently cooked delicatessen such as Samboussek or Kebbeh. The fruity smell of the narguilé emanating from the nearby tables and floating in the air without ruining the taste of the food you're delicately chewing, unlike cigarette, but instead taking you back in time when Lebanese were simpler people enjoying a meal without iPhone's What's App and Blackberry's BBM.

When you're having an urban day, you can't have dessert in the same place you had lunch, because you have to experience new places and discover new sensations.

Since the BUN (Beirut Underground Network) is still under construction since 1873, we were forced to take the car through the city and live typical Beirut street scenes like this one.

We then made our way to a newly opened bakery in Hamra who's name suggests a rather sexually funded behaviour. Besides displaying an overweight and unattractive salesperson who's judgmental looks made me feel uncomfortable, Sugar Daddy's bakery offers quality cupcakes that will give you a culinary orgasm.

In order to enjoy these fine sweets, we made our way to the beach at Raml el Bayda (literally translated: white sand), a beach I wasn't much aware of, right in the city nearby the popular corniche.

It's a proper beach. Unlike the typical Lebanese beach - which consists of a swimming pool, a VIP section, 5 overpriced restaurants, 3 bars and a dirty sea access, all this for about 20 US$ - this beach has a big strip of sand, a bar / restaurant, chairs and umbrellas - all this for free (unless you want to rent the chairs and umbrellas, but that's pretty normal).

The beach is extremely clean, it is impossible to find a piece of rubbish anywhere because the city hired two darker skinned people who constantly clean the area because dumping things inside the bins is still a hard task for people.

If it weren't for the "ya Mhammad jib el talifone ta sawwer el baba", the ladies swimming with their clothes on and the men dressed with a manually cut pair of cheap denim, you could almost feel somewhere in the Caribbean.

It was very unusual to be at the beach in the middle of November while biting on a delicious Oreo flavoured cupcake and humming its deliciousness out loud. The sunset is among the nicest I've seen as the sun is perfectly perpendicular to the Lebanese coast and the sky was crystal clear.

Urban day continued in the city center by having a cup of coffee with another urban friend talking about urban stuff and being totally urban. Beirut Urban Day was a very pleasant experience that I highly recommend you to do in order to get your mind off of your weekly city lives.

Why Lebanon will never know peace

2010-11-18T12:11:00.004+01:00

Because too many powers are at play and it's all so messed up, mixed up and tied up that it is impossible to find a solution - because there isn't any.

Take this knot for example, it illustrates only about a tenth of how complicated the situation is fucked up in Lebanon.

Hezbollah: The cancer of Lebanon. Trying to turn Lebanon into an Islamic republic with the Christians' consent - thanks Michel Aoun. This armed militia is stronger than the Lebanese Army and it has created a government within a government in the Chii'a regions. They rule by fear - threatening the country with an invasion every time the government thinks about taking a decision they don't like. They threaten Lebanese peace internally and with Israel - they're the scum of the country. But they're smart.

Michel Aoun & Co.: Loves money and power. Hezbollah gives him money to finance his new TV network (OTV), his advertising campaigns and his party (I guess the 40 million USD he stole from the government before he cowardly went to Paris weren't enough) and power by promising him the presidency (the president of Lebanon has to be Christian Maronite). Michel Aoun & Co. is dragging the country into an abyss because of his folie des grandeurs and his unsatisfied desire to become president of the next Islamic Republic of Lebanon. I wouldn't want to gratify him too much by saying he's the tumor of Lebanon, I'll just say he's a simple but painful wart. Also my dear Michel, if you were Orthodox, Hezbollah wouldn't even care about you.

March 14th: A bunch of useless and ball-less guys decided to get together and name themselves after a date. They put the son of an influent man in power - Saad Hariri - though he is probably the weakest and dumbest politician I've ever seen. Being the son of someone still isn't an acceptable skill in politics - except in the third world. They are trying to make things go forward, but they keep getting interrupted by March 8th - yet another date - which is Hezbollah + Michel Aoun & Co. + some other losers.

Iran: Finances Hezbollah with several billions of dollars a year along with countless weapons and artillery. Iran wants to add Lebanon to its lame-ass Chii'a axis of evil and uses Hezbollah as a serious threat to Israel in case the US try to attack Teheran.

Israel: Could eradicate Hezbollah if it wanted to, but it doesn't really want peace. If it has peaceful relations with Lebanon (Hezbollah), we'd be taking away a very big threat from the Jewish state and they can't justify being in a state of war with half its enemies anymore. And they certainly don't want that because it is this risky situation that attracts all its Jews to the country and "Aid money" (mostly weapon money from Washington). Sure they'll still have problems with the Palestinians - but it's nothing that a giant wall can't solve.

The US: They want to defend Israel no matter what, but they also want to establish a democracy in Lebanon. They're a bit confused as to what to do because everything is so tied up together - well, who wouldn't be. They want to disarm Iran but can't act on it otherwise Hezbollah will attack Israel. They also finance Israel's artillery but help Lebanon with some aid money through USAIDS from the American people (thanks guys!)

Syria: Still can't accept the fact of having lost Lebanon as an occupied territory. They enjoy the sectarian tensions in the country and open their borders to let in all the weapons and money from Iran to Hezbollah allowing an even more unstable situation. This way, Syrians sit back and do nothing while Lebanon is the battleground of all powers. The Syrian-Israeli border hasn't had one clash over the past twenty years - in Lebanon it's a daily thing now. Syria's relations are improving with the US and I think it explains the sudden change of attention from Syria to Hezbollah regarding the Hariri tribunal. The US are being very delicate with Syrians because it's an important geopolitic player in the region.

This is a very superficial analysis, so you can imagine how messed up it is if you had all the details. All this for a piece of land of only 200Km long and 60Km wide with no resources nor political power on the international scene. I don't get it.

BCN

2010-11-14T19:03:00.006+01:00

Welcome to Barcelona, Spain...no wait Catalonia.

It's probably the 10th time I go to BCN, a city that never bores me. One of my closest friends lives there, so I have a second home in my favourite city - a luxury not many can afford. Summer is great in Barcelona because the weather is fantastic, the beach (right outside the city) is beautiful, the food is cheap and the nightlife is buzzing. The winter is great too because you can escape the horrible grey skies of Northern Europe.

I was there just recently and while Northern Europe was freezing, sun was shining in Barcelona and the skies were as clear as they can be. It was about 20 degrees outside and not one drop of rain during my stay (well maybe just couple, but it doesn't count).

Fashion-wise, Barcelona isn't at Milan's level. People are rather badly dressed and the youth adopted the "free Catalonia", socialist, two different socks / two different shoes, homeless-type of clothing.

And there are the weirdos.

The Gothic quarter is where the heart of Barcelona beats. This big pedestrian neighborhood is filled with people going in and out of the many shops and boutiques which make this area the city's shoppers' paradise. Restaurants and cafés fill these narrow paved streets punctuating your shopping days with pit stops for food, coffee and churros. At night, the face of this area changes to let you in its bars, pubs and clubs making Barcelona's night scene one of the most respected in Europe.

The food is delicious, ranging from seafood to carnivores' delicatessen. It isn't easy to find a good paella as most restaurants serve the pre-cooked defrosted paella as shown on the pictures in their menu - and that they proudly display on their restaurants' windows. But it isn't impossible to find one, you'll just have to ask the locals - in French or English, because if you try Spanish with them, they'll answer in Catalan just to prove a point. A rather ridiculous behaviour I find. I've been to a restaurant called Les Sept Portes (that's in Catalan, not in French) and it has a delicious paella. But the restaurant is a bit uptight and has a queue outside, like a nightclub, and lets groups in every 5 or 10 minutes, even though the restaurant was half empty inside.

Tapas-wise, you'll be in heaven. I highly recommend the Basque taverns that you'll find all over the gothic quarter (Irati or Orio to name a few) - the concept is great: you have a bar full of tapas on a piece of bread stuck together with the help of a toothpick. You fill your plate with these delicious little bites (you'll have to like fish though) and put the toothpicks in your plates because this is how the waiter counts how many pieces you've had - it's 1,80 Euros each. Needless to say that the floor is filled with toothpicks as well as the toilets' bin. As a proud Lebanese, I always throw a couple on the floor, hide another two in my sleeves to go and dump them in the WC and my favourite one - I think I'm the only one to do it - is to hide the toothpick in a piece of bread (I don't eat all the breads, I'm watching my figure) and no one will notice, it's amazing! It's not to save money, but it's kinda mandatory to do that.

Don't miss the tasty Jamon del Pais or Jamon Iberico that you can enjoy on a garlic-y piece of baguette on which you add some fresh tomato paste and olive oil. Still don't feel like it? How about now:

This is vegetarians' hell

Gaudi is BCN's milestone. He is the city's most famous architect responsible for many of Barcelona's recognised work. The Parc Guell, the Sagrada Familia, the Pedrera and so on. He has a weird roundy way of building his pieces, some love it others hate it. That's a real artist.

Gaudi died before he managed to finish the Sagrada Familia and you can clearly notice it once you're there. The old part of the church consists of hand-cut pieces of stones and an incredible attention to detail. Whereas the new part of the church that the spaniards are building is all very industrial and modern - and not the beautiful kind of modern.

Gaudi foolishly died in Barcelona at the end of the 19th century as a tram ran him over. Since he use to dress up pretty much like the new-age "Free Catalonia" kids of Barcelona today, people thought he was a homeless guy and nobody helped him. He then died like an insignificant piece of crap on the streets of the city that now looks up to him (and thanks for all the tourist revenues).

Don't blame me for this picture, it's not easy to take the photo of this great church. Things were even harder because of the Pope's security fences

Ah yes, the Pope was here. This son of a bitch, criminal follows me everywhere I go. When I was in London last September he merely made his way to the UK and now he was in Spain.

Spaniards don't really like him and contrary to people's belief, only 14% of Spanish people go to church and practice catholicism - one of the reasons this Douchebag Pope was there - to restore faith in the church but also in the values of Christianity.

Yes, because with Spain's socialist government, it is very easy to abort a child, to divorce and to have gays getting married - such an offense for a fag Pope like this one who only wears Prada.

Europe's values no longer match with the Vatican's but it seems that they're not willing to abandon the fight. A "Kiss-in" was organised by Barcelona's gay community where guys would discretely stand in the crowd and start making out as soon as the pope passes by in his Batmobile. A peaceful and harmless way of expressing love, but that was too much for the Pope - he probably got a hard-on in his silly little white dress.

A massive security perimeter was set all over the Pope's route so that no one would kill him - I guess he doesn't trust "God" to protect him, that must say a lot about his faith.

One thing made me happy though: the choice of the chair provider for the entire event. It's called Casa Gay

I'm not sure wether it was the Pope's personal request or the Spaniards way to screw the Vatican over, but it was real. All the chairs and other equipment were provided by this company and each and every chair was labelled Casa Gay. Hopefully the Pope's chair too.

Europe's third world

2010-11-11T10:06:00.004+01:00

Italy, where to start? It is a mix of first and third worlds, a terrible destination but also a delightful one.

A friend of mine told me "you are spoiled by Switzerland", and it is true. Everything is simple, convenient, on time, reliable and clean; Italy is the exact opposite. It is an ongoing chaos which I find hard to understand - and I come from Beirut.

First of all, I would like to say that Italy has by far the friendliest people, the best quality of food and coffee and the nicest language of all Europe. But this isn't enough. Their food is easily exportable and their language may sound nice but I have a hard time taking it seriously - nevertheless the people are undeniably nice.

I arrived to Milan, but took the train to Venice the next day. The first thing I saw in Milano Centrale was this special section for "delays". I took trains in several European countries and never have I seen this section integrated in the timetable.

And it's true. In 3 days in Italy I have witnessed over 10 delayed trains. In Switzerland I saw only 2 delays in 5 years.

Venice:

A beautiful and romantic city.

Everything is very cliché, the gondolas, the canals, the narrow alleys, the palaces and the medieval sensation.

It is unfortunately infested with tourists. They are everywhere, taking pictures of themselves with the gondola, the canals, the churches and the big squares. As soon as they click on the capture button, they all gather around the camera and look at the picture and comment on it - it's live version of Facebook all over the place. What happened to quietly look at the pictures after the holidays?

This overly touristed island has the most horrible Italian food in all of the country. It is hard to find a decent Trattoria serving quality food for a normal price. Pastas are cooked in industrial quantities and pizzas look like a thick piece of bread with vomit on it.

Once you get over the delicatessen in the city, you'll enjoy walking around the island, going through small dark alleys surrounded by rustic dilapidated buildings connected to each other by clothes lines.

You'll fine about 3 churches per square meter, the main one being San Marco's church on San Marco's immense square. Whether you're in Italy, Switzerland, Lebanon or Peru, churches are the same: they love money. In this gorgeous Cathedral, for example, it is forbidden to take pictures or videos - even photos without flash.

But worry not, because Jesus has an answer for that. For just 20 Euros, you can get the DVD with pictures and videos of the Cathedral. You think money will of course be used to refurbish and maintain the church, but no - inside the Cathedral, you can find a little box asking for money for that exact purpose, and next to it another box for the regular purpose of buying new cars and jewlery for the priests. I couldn't take a photo of these boxes, but if you buy the DVD, you can see them.

Please note that you can also buy the Video Cassette for 5 Euros, in case you forgot to update your home appliances.

Despite all the tourists, tourist shops, crappy food and Christian presence, Venice is a wonderful and magical place that you have to visit before you die.

Lake Como:

I heard that George Clooney and other Hollywood stars have their homes along this beautiful and luxurious lake. Well, I'm not sure why.

Living in Switzerland for about 5 years now, I know lakes quite well - and Como is overrated. Take Lugano for example (Italian part of Switzerland), put it back in the 80's, make it very dirty and over-urbanise it: you get Como.

To be honest, I have only seen one small part of the lake, but I'm guessing it's the most important part because I was in the city of Como.

I took a boat to sail around the lake - it was beautiful, but too many homes and bad urban planning on the surrounding mountains. That's why I'm putting a shaded picture so that you can only see nature's work.

Milan:

Big city, shopping, gorgeous people, chaos and fantastic food - this is Milan. The North of Italy is supposed to be very modern and developed compared to the South where people enjoy the Far Niente and live the easy life. Having seen how chaotic the North is, I'm quite curious to see the South now.

Milan is full of people walking right out of a fashion magazine, no kidding. They are tall, beautiful and dressed with the most expensive brands in the country.

The heart of the city is the Duomo. Technically it is this breathtaking Cathedral:

But today, it is this covered shopping area. Its main Square has for sides to it: Prada, Luis Vuiton, some expensive Italian brand and...and...McDonald's! Probably the only thing you can afford under this glass roof.

Open during the day,

And at night. Very impressive.

If you leave Milan via Malpenza airport, don't worry you are still in 2010, it's just a trick Italians do to make you feel like you're in 1983! I wonder how all these fashion stylists who live in Milan accept to transit through this airport. It's terrible!

Italy is a wonderful place, I have been several times to the beach in Tuscany but it was my first time to Milan. I think that it is a tough city to live in because it gathers the worse of everything.

In the first world: everything is so rigid but at least it is reliable and punctual.

In the third world: it's chaotic and impossible to perfectly plan something, but on the other hand everything is so flexible that you can get around easily.

Italy is inflexible and chaotic.

Painful Monday

2010-11-07T23:36:00.003+01:00

1) This little girl had such a pretty face, now it's imprinted on her backyard's floor:

2) This guy, Emile Boc, is now Romania's Prime Minister:

3) The dad probably deserves it, too bad he didn't get shot in the head:

4) Need some coffee mate?

Below 0

2010-11-02T10:10:00.004+01:00

I just came back from The Netherlands, Europe's sunless country. It wasn't my first time there, I visited the country about 6 times in the past couple of years, it's great. I love Amsterdam with it's great shops, boutiques, cafés and restaurants, atmosphere and its coffeeshops.

The way I see Amsterdam is a bit like a small-sized London, a city that offers everything - except sun (sunny summers though).

Walking around this circular shaped city, you will fall in love with its canals, its cafés along the narrow streets and its "collapsing" houses, like the one below. It's totally normal over there - the inside floors are leveled up though.

The use of the car is absolutely useless as trams, metro and buses perfectly connect the city, not forgetting the most popular transportation: the bike.

Not just a cliché, bikes are everywhere and bikers don't like it when dumb tourists confuse the bike lane for the pavement...ah yes, I forgot, the Dutch aren't necessarily the friendliest people in Europe.

Along with London and Barcelona, Amsterdam is among my favourite cities in Europe. It's alive, cultural, hip and tolerant. You can do and be whoever you want and no one will judge you.

After Amsterdam, I went to The Hague to visit some friends of mine who moved there - against their will. I say that because the city is rather boring. It doesn't have much to offer, it's too much of a family place and even though it's full of expats, it still is an uneventful city. Most inhabitants there are government workers and UN lawyers from the international court - so not the most exciting people (except for my friends), which explains why the city is a rather conventional place.

One thing I liked about it is its seaside. Unlike Amsterdam, The Hague (or Den Haag) has sea access and quite a pleasant harbor. Of course it isn't the Caribbean but its swimmable in summer and pleasant to walk around in autumn to get some fresh air from the sea.

It has an enormous beach which is cut in half when it's the high tide. Around it is full of casinos, bars, cafés and restaurants which gave me the impression that summer must be quite happening over there.

I went on a Sunday afternoon to walk around with my friends - because the city center isn't all that original - and we ran into as many dogs as kids: HELL. As I said, it's a very family oriented place and you could definitely see that at the beach.

The Hague isn't a horrible place, it just isn't an exciting city - at least for tourists. If you go to Amsterdam and don't have time to visit other cities, don't worry as there's nothing much happening outside the capital. I've also been to Rotterdam which is an architectural paradise for modern design - it is full of skyscrapers and creative architecture - but I felt that the city itself wasn't all that happening: it's more of a big business hub for the country than anything else.

The country is small and highly populated, it actually is one of the most densely populated countries in the world along with Bangladesh and other developing countries. It has Europe's biggest and most efficient port in Rotterdam, good cheese and pancakes (but that's pretty much it for Dutch gastronomy) and beautiful tulips - a gift from nature to add some colours in people's lives. Actually the first financial crash came from the trade of these flowers in Holland - called the Tulip Mania - where the price of a tulip bulb reach extraordinary high levels before collapsing. The Dutch introduced the concept of speculation and economic bubbles to the world. Americans now master that art though.

A blast from the past

2010-10-28T11:17:00.003+02:00

The 80's are making their comeback rather fiercely in our modern societies. We seem to be lacking the imagination of creating a new 21st century style so we go back in time.

Or maybe it is because we think that the 80's were indeed quite cool and we can "revisit" them with a modern 21st century twist to make them even cooler.

The website Look At This Fucking Hipster, aka "latfh" shows pictures of "hipsters", people with a rather interesting fashion sense highly inspired by the 80's - Like this guy:

I took this photo myself when I was in Peru visiting the Machu Picchu. The guy's from Australia and he was the official AHASA (Australian Hipsters' Ambassador in South America). A French friend of mine calls them "les Bobos" which means Bourgeois Bohème - in other words "rich white kids who pretend to be hippies". I told him that at least they elevated the style to a whole new level making it cool and especially clean. Anyway, frenchies just like to complain all the time, they'll start a protest about it soon.

Below is a video making fun of hipsters around the world calling them Dickheads - the clip is full of images that you can find on latfh.com.

Hipsters are also invadind Switzerland. And because it's a rich place, they don't do it lightly. Yesterday, as I was walking around in Geneva, I saw this car. I mean it screams 80's all over the place, right?

The 80's are officially back. Go get yourself a pair empty frames, tight jeans, a colorful sweater and a ridiculous haircut (or a hat). Now, that's an order.

Watch you cash

2010-10-25T22:44:00.003+02:00

I know the video below is a Green Peace video - an organisation I despise - but they sometimes do good things. Rarely, but still.

I won't argue about Nuclear or Green Peace or BNP. My point of view on the world today is as follows:

Private capital can do wonders. Today, we use it to finance wars, conflicts, weapons, deforestation, non-environmentally friendly projects and activities. Imagine if this money was used differently, say: investing in microfinance banks, financing social entrepreneurs, funding environmentally sound projects and R&D - the world would be a better place. And it's not impossible because we're talking about Socially Responsible Investments (SRI), hence there is an actual return for the investor - it's not like it's charity or something. Of course it yields less than a regular investment, but at least you know you're doing a good thing.

The world of SRI is rapidly growing, be part of it. Even companies totally unrelated to social responsibility are now included in SRI funds because: they recycle, they install energy saving bulbs in their offices, they only use recycled paper, they invest in water in developing nations (Nestlé), the food in their restaurants is only fair trade and organic, etc. These moves may be lame, but it's a start. These big corporations are noticing that the trend is now "green" and they're switching to it to get YOUR attention.

Ask your banker to tell you more about it. If banks see that their clients are expressing a strong interest in this topic than they'll shift all their attention to it. Banks are like whores, they go where the money is, it's not their intention to finance nuclear facilities, but it is where profits are.

Private capital = your money can help finance:

- microfinance banks who reach the poorest and most excluded populations in the world. They get to start up a new business and create a stable economic environment for society. In the 90s, about 80% of Peru's population was excluded from the traditional financial system, not contributing to any local economic activity (or maybe just illicit businesses). Today, thanks to microfinance most of the population has access to financial services and small businesses contribute to 47% of the country's GDP.

- environment tech start-ups: with private capital flowing in, they can increase their allocation for R&D and discover new ways to limit our negative externalities in our over-consuming lives. New ways to manage water or waste. Less polluting building and manufacturing techniques, etc.

- social entrepreneurs: many of them live in developing countries and know exactly what their population needs. Their creativity has led to: 1$ glasses, 100$ computers, websites for low income-job search, alternative fuels made out of trash, etc. These guys have the ideas but they lack the funds.

- etc.

It doesn't mean that all or most of your portfolio should be invested in SRI, but at least some of it, just for the good of your conscience.

The gaym is on haters

2010-10-25T09:47:00.003+02:00

I just love how everything becomes so commercial and melodramatic in the States.

Israel should cease to exist for everybody's sake

2010-10-22T12:15:00.005+02:00

I was thinking.

Why is the Middle East such a famous war zone. All we seem to do is fight all the time.

One thing is for sure, in this part of the world we are hot blooded people and often overreact with violence to meaningless events.

Nevertheless, there is an undeniable pattern in all/most of our conflicts: Israel. Here is a list of the conflicts in the Middle East after World War II / after the creation of Israel. In red, the conflicts involving Israel, in white the ones that don't:

Also:

- Jordan-Syria tension in the 60's

- Black September in Jordan - caused by Palestinians, hence we can't exclude Israel's responsibility in this conflict

- North Yemen civil war

- Lebanese civil war - as of today there still isn't one exact version of this war, but Palestinians were a key factor in this deadly and destructive conflict, hence we can't exclude Israel's responsibility

- Libya-Egypt conflict - following Egyptian's first negotiation with Israel

- Gulf War

- Iraq-Iran war

- Iraq conflict

- Nahr el Bared conflict (Lebanon) - due to Palestinian presence in Lebanon, hence we can't exclude Israel's responsibility in this conflict

Overall, on the 25 conflicts that shook the Middle East since 1945, 20 are directly or indirectly linked to Israel - that's 80% of all the region's wars.

Now, correct me if I'm wrong, we could either:

1) re-educate Arabs to be less hot-blooded and have them pick up flowers instead of weapons every time Israel does something to annoy them

2) kick Israel out and all the region's problems will be resolved. The Palestinians can have their (much improved) land back. The Hezbollah won't have any reason to exist. Jordan can get back to actual Jordanians. Iran won't have an enemy anymore. And so on.

Not that I like Palestinians or that I hate Israelis, i just think we should be more pragmatic about this endless conflict.

I opt for option number 2.

Back to the future

2010-10-20T00:27:00.001+02:00

Typical Autumn - Updated

2010-10-17T11:47:00.002+02:00

I forgot about this picture which I insist on publishing.

As I was taking this photo, these two children jumped into my shot and I inevitably took them. Their mom was upset and shouted at me for taking a photo of her kids. I politely told her that I couldn't care less about her kids and that THEY jumped in my shot.

She still wasn't satisfied and kept looking at me as if I was a rapist or a pervert running after her incredibly stupid, useless and uninteresting pieces of flesh.

So here you bitch, I am publishing the picture of your kids on the internet. Whoever wants to kidnap, kill or abuse them, knows where they are at 16h on Wednesdays.

Water management, desalination & private investors

2010-10-15T00:22:00.000+02:00

Millions of people in Africa don't have water to drink every day

The Maldives may soon disappear under water

Desertification of Africa and China is underway

Pakistan suffered its most intense flooding

People die everyday because of the lack of water or its bad quality

About 66% of the Earth's surface is covered with water

This is all rather odd, isn't it? Some parts of the world are dried up whereas others are threatened by floods. We are surrounded by water, in fact here in Switzerland there is so much water that I don't feel bad taking long showers. As my friends puts it "if we don't use it here, it's all going to France".

There are the ideological solutions such as "use less water, shorter showers, don't flush the toilet, no bottled water, etc." but how is me leaving my excrements un-flushed here in Geneva going to provide water to Mali? It's not. Each and every country has to manage its water independently. For that reason, I will only talk on two ideas today: water management and desalination.

Water management: people sometimes don't realise the importance of the rain drop. While westerners complain about the rainy days because their new shoes are going to get ruined on their way to work, some cultures in less developed countries celebrate the rainy days because it implies that they will be able to water their crops and not starve during the rest of the year. In this case, managing the rainfall sounds like a good idea in case of a drought next year. Every country should build a dam - if it makes sense - and industrialised countries along with the World Bank and other organisations should help fund this type of projects more actively. I am thinking about Lebanon, where winter is (or at least use to be) very rainy - a precious advantage compared to the neighboring countries - and yet there only is one dam in the whole country (am I right?) and the rest of the water just flows all the way down to the Mediterranean sea. Good water management across the globe will enable countries to control their river flows, lakes, ice melts and rainfalls in a way that could be rather self-sufficient or if it's not it's at least a start. Financing may be the hardest part, but there's always a solution to that. Wether it comes from the government or a big International organisation or even private investors; if there's a positive outcome then money flows.

Desalination: 66% of the Earth's surface is covered in water, salty water yes, but that's still water. That's why desalination would work perfectly - the water wouldn't be of Evian quality, but it certainly is pure enough to be used in our showers, cooking, agriculture, industries, factories, etc. Israel currently has 3 operating desalination plants and is building two more - it's the country's answer to water shortage, a good one actually (as opposed to their answer for land shortage). Many countries are now considering desalination plants as a very pragmatic solution to our current water problems, Cyprus, the UK, Australia, the UAE and even Aruba has a desalination plant! Sure, it does use a lot of energy making it very expensive to run, but technology is advancing and prices will go down. Private investors who wish to make a buck should start investing in this type of companies (by debt or equity) because 1) it's going to be profitable and 2) it provides these companies with the necessary funds to use in R&D in order to find newer and more efficient ways to use the oceans' water. This would be a Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) that wealthy private clients could go for.

Private initiative can do wonders. If we manage to have private investors on board, you can be sure we'll have results: more efficient technologies, better water management companies, better water quality available on the market (delivering it to poor countries should be an International Organisation's job though).

Private money is now flowing in poverty reduction schemes thanks to microfinance. It also is taking care of our rubbish thanks to the private waste management companies such as Areva. Many green-tech companies have managed to come up with wonderful ideas thanks to private capital flowing in from investors. And it's working. Why not start including water in this successful sphere? Surely it has already started as many SRI funds offer "water" as an investment theme - but that's certainly not enough.

It's all up to us. The water is here on Earth and it's not going anywhere: let's just use our brains and we'll find a way to have it.

Overall, my point is that countries can either start managing their water efficiently and/or use desalination plants. And for the countries who have no rainfalls and no access to the ocean: relocate. I hear Australia has a lot of unused seaside land.

Typical autumn

2010-10-13T18:24:00.000+02:00

I took a walk in the nearby park today in order to celebrate the official arrival of autumn. I use to consider this season particularly depressing as it takes summer away and throws winter in our faces. But, as I was wandering around the Parc des Bastion today, I fell in love with autumn.

Students smoking something totally legal in the park

The shades of dead leaves on the ground are stunning making a perfectly harmonious transition from summer to winter. The temperature is good enough to allow a pleasant walk outdoors and enjoy these colourful images.

Crowded open-air bars close their doors in what could be seen as a sad event, though the autumny set makes it look natural and acceptable.

Chestnuts fall off the trees and fill the ground with little balls that passersby to kick as they walk.

The dead leaves just make you want to throw yourself in them.

My enchanting moment in the park has been interrupted by a friendly - yet unfriendly-looking - Jehovah's Witness who was trying to warn me that the Kingdom of God will be waiting for me in the afterlife. I know I could have totally ignored her, but I was curious as to what she had to say - and I had time.

I gave her my views about God and religions and she ended up giving me this brochure about atheism and why it's bad. As I got home, I opened the book and discovered that the little four-eyed walking bible had quietly sneaked a copy of the November issue of the Jehovah's booklet "WathchTower, announcing Jehovah's Kingdom" entitled "five secrets of contentment".

Do they really think this strategy works on non-poor, non-hopeless, non-desperate people?

Another useless record

2010-10-12T17:31:00.000+02:00

We did it again.

This time Lebanon has made the biggest flag in the world - a total of 65'650 m2 of material to celebrate the army's 65th birthday. The area of the cedar at the centre of the flag measures 10,452 square metres (a reference to Lebanon's total area - 10'452 Km2).

I was actually going to dedicate this post to making fun of the Lebanese Air Force and say that they only have 1 plane and 2 helicopters. But turns out that according to the Wikipedia page of the L.A.F, we have about 8 planes and 62 helicopters. That's not great, but that's more than enough to make my joke pointless.

This flag was a private initiative from a certain Ashraf Makerem who probably wanted to have his name in the Guinness Book as well as making a good impression in front of the Lebanese Army because, no doubt, he needs something in return.

Lebanese people have had the most absurd ideas of record breaking achievements lately, how about we break the record for something more useful like: the biggest dam in the Middle East to control our water flow, the largest Cedar tree plantation in the world (because we have a Cedar tree on our flag, but we probably have like a 100 of them nationwide), a somehow unique seaside train from tripoli to Sidon, the biggest clean-up movement to clean our coast (it's disgusting, that's why people go to the pool) and last but not least: 24-hour electricity - this way we can go on the Guinness Book and have a useful outcome of it (well the last recommendation would be an achievement for the Lebanese version of the Guinness Book only).

But I'm guessing the next Guinness move for Lebanon: biggest shawarma ever, biggest night club, the longest power cut in the world and of course the heaviest traffic jam in the history of the world (say 3 hours to drive about 20 Km).

Billionaire at 23 and now a movie about him?

2010-10-12T15:59:00.000+02:00

Well, I got my own blog - beat that!

Fishing for dummies

2010-10-10T18:34:00.000+02:00

Watch until the end

Sweet and particularly Sour

2010-10-08T02:18:00.000+02:00

It has been brought to my attention by a dear friend of mine that the Modern Dictator blog is blocked in China.

I found this extremely preposterous and can't help but feel totally sad about all these chinese people being deprived of the great content of this blog.

I'm not sure what I did to upset Beijing (or maybe all blogspots are blocked in China - but I like to think it's only me) but whatever it is I don't apologize - because when you're censored, it means that you're doing something right. So technically I am happy that somebody is censoring me (considering that Blogspot prohibits me to put ads on my blog due to its unfit content).

So Fuck China.

Free Tibet.

Free Taiwan (actually, did you know that Paraguay is one of the few countries in the world recognising Taiwan as an independent state, which means that Beijing and Asuncion don't have the best diplomatic relations).

Stop pretending to be communists.

I prefer Hollywood to Hong Kong cinema.

But I admire your one-child policy. The result of it is actually estimated at about 400'000 less Chinese people. It's not that bad considering that overpopulation is a serious problem today.

I have to admit that I love Chinese food. But fuck you still, you don't block me!

Smart ass!

2010-10-05T10:30:00.002+02:00

Düsseldorf, Germany

2010-10-02T19:41:00.000+02:00

You know you failed your Piano career when you end up playing at an airport:

It's actually quite pleasant to have a piano bar in an airport

"I'm so tiered of fighting, I'm going to relax and pose instead. Do I look hot? Move more to the right?"

An old man actually stopped me when I was taking this picture and asked me "Do you know who this man is?" I said no, and he replied "So why are you taking his picture?" Then he left mumbling stuff in German probably saying "dumb ass tourists taking any picture without knowing the history"

It's officially autumn in Germany, good thing we still have some sun in Switzerland

Addicted to God

2010-10-01T21:34:00.000+02:00

I just finished reading a book called God Is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens. The book is pretty much written along the same lines of Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion - I haven't read the latter, but both have the same purpose: proving that God doesn't exist.

Religion has always been a bit tricky; you can't prove that it exists but you can't prove that it doesn't exist either. Basically, faith is the only proof - but not enough for many of us.

I will not try to prove to you the absurdity behind the idea of God nor how ridiculous all religions are, because deep down, all of you already know that - you just don't want to admit it.

Surely there is a difference between challenging the existence of God and questioning religion - for that reason I will enjoy destroying religions in this post, God may rest in peace this weekend.

Karl Marx described it best when he said "religion is the opium of the masses".

L. Ron Hubbard, founder of the Church of Scientology, says it even better: "(...)if you want to get rich, you start a religion".

Basically, religions provide the drug you need (the drug being hope, paradise, answering the questions about life and death, and so on) and make a lot of money in the process.

So yes: religions are drug dealers, and you are addicted.

Addiction is when you do something despite you being aware of its negative aspects - you just can't control it. Let's take the Catholic Church for example and I will prove your addiction to it, that you love your drug unconditionally - just off the top of my head:

- Priests use to sell tickets to paradise in the 16th century - liars
- The Church hates science because it proves that God didn't create the world - bias
- The Church always managed to silence people who defied its opinion - censorship
- The Church approved the Fascist and Nazi regimes - racist
- Isn't it odd that all far-right parties are very Christians? - still racist
- Priests molest children (and the only punishment they get is being relocated in another place) - perverts
- The Pope goes to Africa and says "don't use the condoms" - he should be jailed for that
- They are against homosexuality (because gays can't have kids, hence can't expand Catholicism) even though convents are the biggest gay cruising areas - sneaky little cock suckers
- The Church is unbelievably / incredibly rich - though they still ask for your money - greedy
- etc.

Bluntly said, the Vatican has been ruining the world since its inception and you still believe in its tales: that's addiction.

Compare it to cigarettes; Marlboro tells you "Smoking Kills" and you still smoke: that's addiction too.

The drug market for the Church is shrinking nowadays, the Vatican is struggling in Europe because people are more educated, open-minded and certainly richer so they need less drug, they need less hope.

Nevertheless, hope is still needed in poor countries where people live in dangerous regions not knowing if they'll have food on their table everyday - these people have nothing else but religion.

Here is the proof:

Click to enlarge

So if the Church thinks like a company - which I think it does - they should start investing more time in rich countries trying to conquer back the sinners. Oh oh...the last visit of the pope was in the UK: good job Benedict!

Trust me when I say that the world would be better off without any religion. No wars, no terrorism, no hate, less discrimination, less complicated lives. Let's stop taking the religion drug. I know another drug that would make people happy and which will provide absolute peace: marijuana.

Yes, I suggest we substitute religion with pot and let people be free to do anything they want in their lives without having it dictated to them by 50 year-old virgins. Set your own values in life, don't expect a book that has been written 2000 years ago to do so.

If you're addicted to religion. Go to rehab.

I found Michael Jackson's mentor

2010-09-22T22:28:00.001+02:00

Jasy Jatere is considered to be the lord of the siesta and the yerba mate. According to one widespread version of the myth, Jasy Jatere leaves the forest and wanders the villages looking for children who are not napping during their siesta. Although he is generally invisible, it is said that he shows himself to the children he finds not napping, and that any who look upon his staff fall into a trance. He may even lure them into the forest with a distinct whistle.

Jasy Jatere is considered a friend of such disobedient children, taking them into hidden places in the forest to play and feeding them wild honey and fruit. At the end of the siesta, when all are weary from the play, Jasy Jatere gives them a magical kiss which transports them back to their beds with no memory of the experience.

Please join this religion now. For more information please contact children that have been molested by Michael Jackson.

Good to know, thanks

2010-09-15T12:38:00.002+02:00

International Day of "Let's walk to school"

2010-09-09T23:20:00.001+02:00

And this is when 14 kids got raped and murdered and another 7 went missing.

We've all been there...

2010-09-08T15:24:00.002+02:00

Sentence of the day

2010-09-04T13:21:00.002+02:00

Sneaky bastards

2010-09-02T18:48:00.000+02:00

Street Parade, Zurich - August 2010. Welcome to Switzerland

Zoophilic bastards

2010-09-01T12:15:00.003+02:00

Meat restaurant's WC. Just in case you thought you were in the ladies room. Welcome to Switzerland

World map: 2010

2010-08-31T11:06:00.002+02:00

Click to enlarge

I have an idea

2010-08-30T11:15:00.000+02:00

Cheap bastards

2010-08-27T16:38:00.004+02:00

Proposal: 5fr (5$)

Every little girl's wet dream. Welcome to Switzerland

Sadistic bastards

2010-08-26T13:54:00.001+02:00

(Free Parking: Too late, it's behind you!!!)

And you think they'd put a sign before the Parking entrance? Welcome to Switzerland

A new blog on the block

2010-08-24T17:25:00.001+02:00

An insightful, funny and sarcastic point of view on the latest news in Lebanon.

To go to the blog click HERE

or here , here, here , but also here, here and here.

But not here, here or here.

And certainly not HERE

Interesting facts about the fast food industry

2010-08-17T12:06:00.001+02:00

Via: Medical Coding

It sounds familiar...

2010-08-12T23:39:00.001+02:00

I think we are witnessing a rather similar but less obvious situation in Lebanon

At around 1'000'000 US$ a flat in Beirut, I wonder who can afford that! Either corrupt politicians/businessmen or Arabs.

A Lebanese wedding...

2010-08-02T14:15:00.000+02:00

Hollywood is dead

2010-07-30T13:29:00.001+02:00

BEY - IST

2010-07-29T00:04:00.004+02:00

Traveling continues, I went to Turkey last week - not very original, but it still is a very nice place especially because I had a guest star me: Shezshe, and her camera of course

Now that Lebanese people don't need Visas to go to Turkey, all flights are full both on MEA and on Turkish airlines which have about 3 flights a day each linking Beirut and the former Constantinople.

The flight was chaotic as usual, but one the things that struck me most on this MEA flight- apart from the ridiculous behaviours and comments of some people on the plane (i.e: confusing the gate number or the flight time with their seat number on the boarding pass - YES, I WANT TO TRASH THESE PEOPLE) - was this:

In case tourists hadn't noticed our love for esthetics, the wet wipes on the plane are sponsored by a beauty salon.

It was my 3rd time to Istanbul, but my first time in summer. It's an enormous city - about 15 million people, spread over two continents. I think it has a very similar vibe to Beirut, but without the plastic, posh and superficial attitude that we so dearly cherish. People are simple, friendly and proud of their heritage, which is a big one: the Ottoman Empire.

The city is very old in which thousands of beautiful mosques have been built throughout the centuries, and the most important one of course is the Sultanhamet - The Blue Mosque (Sultan Ahmed mosque).

Islam is very present in Istanbul and yet you'll find girls in skirts having a beer in the old town. The country seems to be growing perfectly fine with Islam and secularism hand by hand making it much more tolerant than Lebanon which has about 17 religious sects that all hate each other (though Turkey has some problems with the dumbass extremists wanting a more islamic state today).

Thanks to its great history, Istanbul is loaded with tourist attractions: palaces, mosques and the very famous Grand Bazar. Unfortunately, this kind of city is not immune to mass tourism - which I hate and despise - especially whith cruise boats unleashing thousands of uncultured tourists with very limited time who want to see the main attractions of the city, eat something typical and buy 10 souvenirs in less than 3 hours. The result is sad, and sometimes very sad

And with mass tourism, countries have to express themselves in English, which I think Google Translate does a great job at helping the non-native speakers - but these things still happen and I am not sure what they meant:

And if they realise how horrible it must be to be stuck with a hard-on for 36 hours!

The food in Turkey is pretty similar to ours, it actually is the origin of Lebanese food - but ours is much better. After a few days in town it started to get really hot, so we rushed to Bodrum...

...a pleasant summer destination south of Istanbul, in order to jump in the Marmara sea for some freshness. This little city is located on a peninsula, it has lovely and CLEAN beaches, white houses (Greek style) and a great vibe

Pictures taken by Shezshe (but with my camera)

All the houses are white making the city less hot in the summer - and here is what they do to the couloured ones

Racists.

Overall Turkey is what Lebanon should be in a few years. Secular, more developed with its population respecting the laws - in a Mediterranean way, a mandatory tourist destination equipped with trains, trams, buses and a metro network (maybe one by one for Lebanon) and mostly not being ashamed of our Middle Eastern heritage by always trying to look and act like Westerners.

Turkey's cool, I like it.

This is to all of you people: get a real life

2010-07-21T11:50:00.000+02:00

Lebanese highway

2010-07-20T14:52:00.000+02:00

For those of you who live in Lebanon or have been to the country, you must find this beautiful drawing particularly accurate.

My new Paintbrush buddies!

2010-07-16T16:39:00.000+02:00

Many people have talent, I don't. So I decided to use my non-talent and turn it into art. Instead of writing down long sentences, I will now draw some of my thoughts on Paintbrush.

Careful Maya Zankoul - you now have competition!

If you read the news, you'll learn that Hezbollah is planning and looking forward to another war with Israel as it accumulates destructive weapons from Iran.

If you go on the streets of Beirut, it's as if nothing's happening and people are not even worried.

BP & The Chocolate Factory

2010-07-14T15:15:00.004+02:00

Chocolate dipped fish, available at any BP branch in the Gulf of Mexico!

And coming soon to any BP oil rig near you!

The Royal Chocolate dipped Pelican, its Majesty the Queen's favourite

And The Unidentified Animal Chocolate Fondue - Sponsored by Lindt & Sprüngli of Switzerland

Escale à...

2010-07-11T01:06:00.004+02:00

I always fly through Frankfurt, but never had the chance to go into the city - mainly because the incompetent "information" guys told me that it takes about an hour to get there by train and that it is better for me to wait 4 hours at the airport.

But this time was different. I had just lived 6 months in South America and no one can mess with me anymore! So I got out of the airport and despite the risk of missing my flight, I went to the train station to catch the train to Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof. I checked the timetable and I was right, the train ride lasts less than 15 minutes - I was being lied to this whole time by these assholes who want me to stay in and spend all my money. Not this time.

I struggled to get a ticket: everything is written in German, the machines are extremely complicated to use, I queued for the wrong machine first, then queued for the second one and realised it doesn't take cards, queued at the ATM and withdrew 20 Euros, queued at the machine again and realised that it doesn't take 20 Euro bills, walked around and asked for change, got it, queued again and finally got my ticket. No one was going to fuck up my trip to Frankfurt Stadt!

After 15 minutes on the train I got the city, it was sunny and beautiful. I loved the central area as it is a sublime mix of both old and new buildings sharing the grounds in perfect harmony. You have some old parts of town...

...right next to the new parts of town

But it's not all about segregation, most of downtown Frankfurt is a mix of both architectures side by side truly reflecting the 21st century. Don't think it's that easy: in London, you'll have to go to Canary Warf to see the skyscrapers, in Paris to La Défense, in Geneva...well, you can't.

I always wondered why we don't have cities that mix both modern and ancient architecture. There clearly is a lack of skyscrapers in central European cities and I find that rather sad. Don't get me wrong, downtowns are lovely but all date from a zillion years ago - it seems that we stopped building in the city centers of European cities leaving the style only to our ancestors. Are we ashamed of our new architectural style? Do we think it's going to ruin the old one? I like both, and would like to see a bit of everything while I'm walking in European city centers.

That's why Frankfurt pleased me with its beautiful mix of both architectures.

Sure Frankfurt is not the nicest place in the world, and having spent 2 hours there doesn't really help my judgement, but I think that more European cities have to follow Frankfurt's example and build some of our current achievements in their city centers so that our great-grand-children would have something to remember us by (except global warming, wars, hate, racism, poverty, pollution, etc.)

Then I got back to the airport to catch my flight to Beirut. I was very excited to go back, but the hardest part was yet to come: getting on the plane from Frankfurt.

I don't know why, the lowest of the lowest possible class of the Lebanese society flies from Frankfurt - they're loud, rude, stinky and carrying about 30 babies each. They all live in Germany and yet they respect no rules. The queue to get into the plane is a sad mix of what you'd get at the post office and at the McDonald's in Lebanon. Once they're in the plane, they DON'T sit at their assigned seats, nor do they wait for everyone to be seated to ask for an exchange. They sit wherever they want, and if you dare to ask them to move because they're on your spot, then they'd get mad - "why are you so civilised?" - and tell you to go to where they're originally seated. So you go there, but somebody else is sitting there because he also exchanged with somebody. And so on...

Passengers spend about 25 minutes trying to negotiate their seats, while the desperate German flight attendants try to impose the German organisational rules and rigor. It's a mess, people shout, babies cry and the few Europeans on the flight try to find an empty seat...it's horrible and I'm not happy.

But then, after 4 hours of unpleasant flight, we fly over Beirut. Everybody shuts up, looks out the window and smile. Even I manage to lift a smile at the beautiful view, though I had planned several bloody scenarios to kill my fellow loud and uncivilised passengers.

I am back to Lebanon, and ready to start complaining again.

Yalla bye!

2010-06-24T23:15:00.000+02:00

My adventure is about to end. I am leaving South America tomorrow after 6 months spent here and heading back to the northern hemisphere.

I have achieved a lot and I am sure that if Peru could speak, it would thank me for all my work. I have helped poor people enter the vicious and endless circle of debt leading to suicide, hence reducing poverty significantly and...no, wait...that doesn't sound right. I'm not sure what I did here, but I got my picture taken with poor kids just like Hollywood stars and these boys will remember me forever (not the same way boys remember Michael Jackson though).

What will I miss and what will I not miss from Peru?

I will miss:

- Food (Ceviche, Lomo saltado, the enormous corn, Tacu Tacu, Sushi)
- Inca Kola
- Pisco Sour / Maracuya Sour
- The Andezon
- The people
- Central Lima
- The small, dodgy and probably dirty chinese restaurant in China Town
- 24 hour supermarkets
- Cheap and good value for everything
- The night life
- The ocean
- Llamas and Alpacas
- Loki Hostel in Mancora
- Being the best looking guy around
- Being the center of attention
- Being taller than the country's average
- Being offered brides by salespeople, taxi drivers, etc.

I will not miss:

- Innefficiency
- Unreliability
- Unpunctuality
- Incompetence
- Working in this environment
- Traffic
- Noise
- Bad drivers
- Street vendors
- Any type of salesperson
- Talking about Peruvian food ALL the time
- The excessive pride of the Peruvians
- Feeling relatively unsafe
- Hearing about murders EVERY SINGLE day on the news
- Untrustworthy people
- People trying to rip me off constantly
- Poor people
- Being confused for an Israeli
- And ABOVE ALL: Lima's horrible, unbearable, grey, unpleasant and humid winter

I don't know why, but I feel that I will come back here soon.

It has been awesome here, now it's "back to reality" time.

Good bye Peru, It has been great meeting you.

Turns out laziness isn't always good

2010-06-19T20:24:00.002+02:00

I have been to Cusco and to the Machu Picchu a second time with my friends. We hiked our way to the train station during 3 days, it was tough but amazingly beautiful.

During both my Inca trips, I have heard about Cuenca - the second Inca capital located in southern Ecuador - and it is said to be a wonderful city in the Andes rivaling with Cusco's splendor. I went to the Wikipedia page to read about it but there were way too many words on that page, so I took the easy way out and went to Google Image, wrote "Cuenca" and saw this:

It seemed to be a lovely little town that the Incas chose for their second capital, so I figured it would be filled with ruins, museums or at least architecture from this great civilization.

Since my friend and I were going up north to Tumbes in order to get to the Peruvian sandy beaches, we decided to pass by Cuenca which is only 5 hours away from there - 5 hours in bus is really nothing in Latin American standards - so we decided to take the next ride up.

As we got there very early in the morning to the largest sweets market ever, it didn't really appear as a small town but rather a big mountain city. We walked around the lovely old town asking about this cliff with the village on top of it, but no one would understand us. I looked up in the dictionary to make sure the words I was using were correct, and they were. People sent us to several different places in town including to miradors (view points), but we still didn't find what we came for.

Though the city was nice with many European influences, like in Quito, we found no Inca influence at all. Not even a museum, an IncaBar, an Inca Kola...nothing. It was as if the Incas never existed there.

I went online to print out the beautiful photo of Cuenca and show it around to people so we could be sent there. Before doing so, I went to the Wikipedia page to read about the city. Here's the story:

Originally it was inhabited by the Cañari - a local tribe - until the Incas invaded and built their own city on top of theirs. So the people of Cuenca actually hate the Incas, which explains the lack of culture about them. Then the Spanish Conquistadores came and invaded the city a second time. The general in charge of the operation, Hurtado de Mendoza, decided to rename the city after his home town in Spain because they were similar: Cuenca.

So I went to Google Image again and wrote "Cuenca Spain", fearing the results. It took about 0.6 seconds to load a bunch of pictures of a little town on top of a cliff - and this is when I realised that we were in the wrong city, in the wrong country and on the wrong continent. We travelled 10 hours for absolutely nothing. Yes, the beautiful Cuenca is actually in Spain, the Ecuadorian one is just another pretty little city!

This is the first time in my life that laziness - not reading the Wikipedia page - doesn't pay off for me, it usually does. Actually we should've gotten a clue when we saw that even the Tourist Office wasn't using the "village on a cliff" picture on their flyers.

We left the city the next morning and made our way to the beach in Mancora. We did nothing. Absolutely nothing. There were beautiful sunsets and colours, that's all I remember.

And then, laziness totally paid off!

I finally did it

2010-05-31T03:27:00.001+02:00

I went back to the Andezon. Being the official ambassador of this region I have to visit it regularly and see how things are going there.

I went back to the same town, Tarapoto, but this time with a friend in order to visit the places I hadn't seen last time - La Laguna Azul (the blue lagoon). It sounds magical, and it is.

The lagoon is in some sort of a remote place 2 hours away from Tarapoto. The road to access it is very basic: no tarmac, no signalization, no lights, no traffic - just a pure jungle road like the ones you see in the movies. No bridges either because it's too pricy, so people use this very innovative platform to transport cars, bikes, pick-ups and trucks across the river.

It doesn't look very safe, and it's not - the locals proudly show you the previous boat that sank along with cars, bikes and people. There are two boats, one that works with a rope system (similar to the one that sank)

and another motorized one

After a very perilous path, we finally go to the Laguna Azul in the village of Sauce (pronounced Sawssé), booked our bungalow and relaxed on these hammocks. It felt like a little piece of paradise in the middle of the Andezon.

The lagoon is rather big and thanks to child labour, we managed to have a cheap tour around it

Thank you children for making cheap tourism possible

As the weather in the Andezon is rather unpredictable, it started to rain in the middle of our tour ruining our plan to relax on the grass on one of the deserted beaches. Nevertheless, it gave it this little Vietnamese touch as all the locals took their little motorised Asian-style boats to rush home

The village manages to give you the impression of really being disconnected from the world. No internet, very weak cellphone coverage, no roads - only mud paths with moto-taxis struggling on it - and very little light. It felt incredibly soothing compared to loud Lima.

The green surface represents the rich natural planktons that fish eat

The next morning was wonderful, not only because I woke up to the pleasant sound of the tropical birds, sat on a hammock and contemplated the lake - but because I FINALLY GOT MY PICTURE WITH POOR KIDS!

In your face Ewan McGregor

They look happy, but don't be fooled reader - they are poor. Look at the lack of fashion taste, and at the muddy road in the back; this is not Monaco at all. I have to thank the Andezon for making my dream come true. Once again Andezon, you are perfect!

After a wild night out in Tarapoto, which has an amazing nightlife, we took the plane back to Lima. Since another friend was coming a bit later from Europe, we decided to stay near the airport and discover a place called La Punta to later go back to the airport and pick up our friend.

It's a long tip of land extending into the pacific located in the district of Callao. Everybody told me it was dangerous, the Rough Guide describes it as a "no-go area" and nothing else is mentioned about it in the book.

Ignoring these warnings, we took a taxi and got there after passing through some very ugly districts. Once again, I have no idea where people get their informations from as it was not dangerous at all. There were families walking around the seaside, sitting in front of the ocean and enjoying the scarce sun of Lima's winter.

The place has an incredible mix of French-style houses along the coast

What seems to be California-style neighborhoods

And also cuban-style parts with lovely multi-coloured houses

The people were extremely friendly, surprised to see two foreigners walking around their neighborhood, considering the reputation of La Punta. We ate in the best restaurant of Lima owned by two adorable mother and daughter

Notice the totally fake Abercrombie & Fitch t-shirt

Nevertheless, I have a hard time accepting that these kinds of signs are totally casual for Peruvians. We're all used to seeing "beware of the dog" or "no swimming", but this is rather unusual

Run Forest, run!

Overall, the Lonely Planet and Rough Guide kind of books are very useful, but do not limit yourself to them because you could miss on some great places. The Andezon is only hardly talked about in my guide and the Laguna Azul is not even mentioned.

Though it's not that bad as it makes these places less touristy and even more special, particularly if you're hoping to feel totally disconnected. Plus if the Laguna Azul was a tourist destination, the people there would be richer and I wouldn't have gotten my picture with these poor, yet happy kids. I know my role as an ambassador is to heal the Andezon, make it a better place, for them and for me and the entire human race - but I promise to start now, considering that I got my picture.

They are for REAL. Not a parody, for REAL

2010-05-22T09:51:00.000+02:00

Surprisingly, the thing that shocks me most is the fact that Sony actually produced this clip

Turns out there are other cool things besides The Modern Dictator on the internet

2010-05-19T06:37:00.000+02:00

Have you heard about Blackle? Of course not, I am the one telling you about it. It is the eco friendly search engine powered by Google. Quote:

Blackle saves energy because the screen is predominantly black. "Image displayed is primarily a function of the user's color settings and desktop graphics, as well as the color and size of open application windows; a given monitor requires more power to display a white (or light) screen than a black (or dark) screen.

I know what you're thinking, I had the same thought too "The Modern Dictator is being copied again". First Ewan McGregor steals my thunder and now some dudes create Blackle obviously after having visited my black-coloured blog.

Also, have you heard about The Annoying Orange? Of course not, I am the one telling you about it. It's about an orange that's annoying...well the title pretty much gives it away. Enjoy:

And in the same vibe of The Annoying Orange:

Check it out on Youtube, there are many others.

My new job: trend launcher

2010-05-14T22:23:00.000+02:00

I just realized that I launched a trend: helping the poor of Peru, or as I like to call them: the PoPs.

Stars from all over the world go to South East Asia and Africa to help the poor, leaving South America unattended by the medias.

Then I got here and provided poor Peruvians with the glamour they desperately needed. Though it seems that my performance made some jealous up North and one of my fellow celebrity-friends is now in Lima.

I'm confused between being proud of my new Trend-launcher job and being jealous.

Look who is trying to imitate me:

Such a bad picrute by the way. Ewan, you want the kids to look at the camera, not you!

I know these kids, get your hands off them Ewan McGregor! They're mine, I'm helping them! I've been trying to get my pictures with these poor, sad and unhappy kids for almost 4 months now, and you stole my thunder in just a few minutes with your fake Hollywood looks and lame ass UNICEF T-shirt.

Fuck you Ewan.

Glamour, culture and politics

2010-05-10T04:03:00.002+02:00

Winter is coming to the southern hemisphere. The weather in Lima gets horrible; the sun disappears for weeks, the sky is gray, it gets cold and humidity reaches about 99% - at times we actually breathe water. But this is just in Lima; this country is weird climate-wise.

Being the glamorous guy that I am, I hate being unable to wear my sunglasses for more than a 6 days in a row, so I went south looking for a ray of sun to protect myself from. The destination was Paracas in the province (or region) of Ica south of Lima. It's on the seaside, it has a touristy island called the Islas Ballestas and a natural reserve - a good combination for a weekend.

My friend and I decided to be very hippie so we didn't book anything in advance and just hopped on the bus after work. As we got there at 1 in the morning, we knocked on several hostels' doors looking for an accommodation. One had a room available for us, unfortunately it wasn't the Hilton. It had questionable brown stains on the sheet

And a very innovative portable shower

I was however very excited about these little problems as I felt like a real backpacker - with way more style and elegance.

The next morning, we made our way to the Islas Ballestas. They consist of two small islands withholding an incredible amount of wildlife. It is actually called the "poor Galapagos" - I know, totally below my standards, but I was playing the backpacker for the weekend.

It was cloudy as we left early in the morning, which made the islands look rather mystical.

These islands are home to some hundreds varieties of birds and other marine wildlife. Birds are everywhere flying from rock to rock and singing without any synchronisation making it the world's loudest avian techno festival.

Try not to watch Alfred Hitchcock's Birds before going there, it could be scary

After having witnessed the largest bird orgy in the world along with some penguins, sea-lions, pelicans and oh, did I mention birds?

Well, after that we went back to shore, rented bikes and headed to the Paracas Natural Reserve. It is a very interesting yet unusual natural reserve because I didn't really understand what they were preserving.

It is a heavily guarded place, perfectly protecting its fauna and flora from any outside danger

Once inside, you can find a beautiful and unique forest with very rare types of trees

You can also take a tour on that superb state-of-the-art boat

And look at the incredibly diverse and well preserved wildlife

Splendid.

There is a heavy fishing industry inside the reserve, as the planktons are rich and very nutritive in this area making the fish taste particularly good. Though the people seemed to be overfishing and not taking care of the environment at all.

So I'm not sure who gave them the "national/natural reserve" status, but if they were trying to preserve something, they miserably failed.

After having taken the taxi back - because we were too tiered to bike, we sat at the beach and waited for the sun to set

Alcohol was presented to us

No, it wasn't a masked sex party

And we partied in an empty club, literally. At the heat of the night, we reached a number of about 14 people inside, 9 of which were tourists. We all got to know each other and among the tourists were a couple of Israelis.

After several Pisco Sours and Cuba Libres, we started making peace and having very deep political conversations about the Middle East "yeah man, fuck this war" "totally man, let's make peace, I don't understand why it is so hard" "I really wanna go to Beirut" "and I heard Tel Aviv is a great city", and so on (well they're all soldiers, I didn't wanna get my ass kicked).

Technically, I resolved all of our problems with Israel on that night. Actually, with the help of alcohol we not only resolved Lebanese-Israeli issues, but all the Arab-Israeli issues. Alcohol gives you negotiation talent.

For that reason I think that we should lock all the Middle East politicians in a room with a ready-to-sign peace treaty, a pen and an unlimited supply of alcohol. Trust me, this matter would be resolved in a few hours. And like after any party, they'll be hungover and saying "what the fuck did I just do?" - though their actions would be irreversible and we'll have peace.

The Gastronomic Victory

2010-05-06T20:26:00.001+02:00

This is my second attempt for a flag recommendation for Lebanon. I feel so ignored, and I hate that.

I'll try again. Since Lebanon seemed to be competing with Israel regarding our respective gastronomic skills, in particular the Hommos/Hummus, here is what we could totally do to win the war, make this flag official:

In your face Israel. We win.

It's actually a Brazilian website that decided to make the flags of some twelve gastronomically important countries - not you, Israel - or maybe it's just some flags that were easy to do because I don't think Australia has an actual cuisine. Some are pretty cool: France, Switzerland, Italy, Japan, etc. Check it out.

I had a blast in Beirut

2010-05-02T02:20:00.002+02:00

There are many similarities between Lebanon and Peru. People live almost the same the way in both countries, which is one of the main reasons I'm loving it here. Well except for the poor people - our poor people are far more glamorous.

I sometimes feel like a stranger in my own country, and I realize how stupid we can be, unfortunately.

Though we still beat them at superficiality, we actually beat the whole world at that.

1) Our beloved license plates:

2) Golden numbers (mind you, there also is silver and platinum numbers now):

I also noticed that we share a similar problem: danger.

In Peru, earthquakes could occur at anytime as the country is located in a very seismic zone. We've been actually having a few small ones lately (4.7'' richter's scale only) because apparently April was the month of the "temblores" as they call them. But Peruvians are prepared for that and you can see this sign everywhere:

In Lebanon, we also have an "unpredictable" recurrent problem: bombs and wars. But I don't think we are prepared for it. There are no warning signs! I never know if I am in a bomb-proof place or not. This is why I am about to change that.

The main location would be our rooftop bars in Beirut. In Peru for example, you will not encounter a rooftop bar because it is too dangerous in case of an earthquake. Whereas in Lebanon, after 2005, rooftop bars flourished all over the country, because they are safer in a case of a bomb blast.

For that reason, I think that all of our rooftop bars should be equipped with the following sign:

And in three languages of course, because we are so much cooler than other countries.

Attention Seeking 101 for Iceland

2010-04-21T06:19:00.001+02:00

Iceland,

It seems to me you are trying to get attention from the world, again. You're small, you're far away from everything, you have an unattractive name for tourists, you have long days in summer and almost no day in winter and no one ever talks about you - so I totally understand what you're doing. BUT YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG.

You get the attention, but just at the beginning - after a while nobody talks about you. So far, you have failed in both your attempts to be talked about. Let me explain.

First of all, Iceland, remember when you decided to default last year (or 2 years ago...I forgot, it was such a banal event) - you thought "yeah that's cool, people will help us so they'll have to talk about us" well it didn't work, did it?

People did talk about you when the story first made the headlines, thinking "Is that a place where houses are made out of Häagen-Dazs?" but then, the attention shifted away from you. Everybody started talking about how the foreign investors would lose all their money and how this will affect the financial funds and products around the world, and how this crisis is so big. Then the media said how small countries didn't make it through the crisis whereas everybody else did, etc. Lame. You appeared as one of those
small countries, Iceland. You totally overreacted and made a fool of yourself.

Since your "I'm going bankrupt" strategy didn't get you enough attention, you felt excluded again and you came back en force with a volcano that caused floods, glacier melting and panic in a 34-inhabitant village. Well it didn't work either! The volcano formed an enormous ash cloud that left Iceland through the UK and is now all over Europe causing massive problems in the aviation industry.

Is anyone talking about Iceland now? No. It's all about European airspace and planes and how much the industry is losing a day, etc. Iceland is briefly mentioned to say "the ashes of the Icelandic volcano" because NOBODY can pronounce the name of your stupid volcano! Once again, Iceland, you failed at keeping the attention on you. All you seem to do is fuck up the world with your stupid stuff and your mess is what's widely talked about, not you. I mean you're disrupting the aviation industry in Europe...couldn't you have chosen something smaller like "the wool industry on the Faroe Islands" something that wouldn't steal your thunder?

So as a Lebanese, I think I can wisely advise you on how to do that. See, us in Lebanon have a little war once every two years or so in order to keep the medias talking about us. It's a totally local issue or maybe involving our close neighbors, but not the whole world. We initiate our wars, so the medias can analyse why our religions and politics are so messed up - whereas you chose a volcano, how long do you think the medias can analyse and talk about nature?

We also made agreements with many countries so that they have their wars in Lebanon instead of in their own countries, so that gave us good extra media coverage and a lot of political analysis. We are among the best attention seekers of the world.

So you see Iceland, it's not that hard. You just have to chose a subject that involves Iceland, and Iceland only, make sure it's big - tips: war, conflict, religion, child abuse, death - and voilà!

So I'm sorry Iceland, but I'll have to give you a C- at this Attention Seeking exam. Study harder next time and make sure your mess doesn't get bigger than you.

Though now Lebanon is changing its strategy. Almost every important magazine in the world is talking about how cool Beirut is, even people here in South America tell me that they read an article about Beirut or saw a documentary about it on TV. It is indeed a better strategy than using wars, but don't get carried away Iceland, this strategy is taught much later in more advanced classes.

PS: You may have noticed that I put totally random pictures. Well that's because Iceland totally failed and doesn't deserve to have some of its pictures published on such a popular website (by popular I mean famous, not "for the people". It's weird how this word can mean such different things).

**Article about Ecuador's splendors below**

Ecuador: underrated

2010-04-19T06:05:00.000+02:00

Many of you probably have heard of Ecuador but don't know much about it. As embarrassing as it is to admit, I was in the same situation - but not anymore - because unlike you, I went there and I loved it. In-your-face, reader!

I only went to Quito, which is only a few kilometers below the equator, and it was a good surprise. The first thing that made me feel comfortable was the obvious lack of poverty. I don't know if it's inexistent or if they hide it well, but in any case it was pleasant to finally feel understood.

The streets are clean, the buildings are nice, the cars are new (I literally saw only two old cars) and it has many shops, boutiques, restaurants and bars - all this in a poorless environment.

Quito old town. Clean, lovely, lively.

A bit of history. Ecuador was also home to the Incas, the second most important city of the Empire is in the south of the country and is called Cuenca (supposed to be lovely). The Incas started going up north from Peru because they wanted to reach the equator. The reason was that once a year, at noon, the sun is in perfect alignment with the earth and for a couple of minutes every single shadow disappears.

In other words their God, the Sun is in perfect harmony with Mother Earth (Pachamama), and that was the best thing ever for these guys, it was what they were waiting for their whole life - kind of like the iPod for us.

I wanted to go to that equatorial line and cross to the northern hemisphere for a while - just to say that I've done two hemispheres in a day: because that is cool - but turns out there are three equatorial lines!

First, the French absolutely wanted to find the middle of the earth so they conducted massive research in the 18th century in order to determine where is that line. After four years of scientifically-loaded work they got it, made a monument, a museum and gave the country its name - in French: Equateur.

But they were wrong. Their line is about 300 meters away from the real middle of the Earth.

Secondly, way before the French and with no scientific instruments whatsoever, the local indigenous found their middle earth.

But they were wrong too. Though much closer to the actual equatorial line than the French, they probably were less than a 100 meters away from the real thing.

And finally, I got to the REAL middle point which has been measured by GPS so that we believe it.

This place may not have an impressive monument but it has a museum where they can do interesting experiments like this one:

They took a bucket filled with water and a hole in its bottom that you can close (kind of a portable sink). If you go to the northern hemisphere and open the hole, the water goes down forming a vortex (or water-twister) counter-clockwise / on the equatorial line, no vortex is formed, the water just goes down straight / and in the southern hemisphere, the vortex is clockwise. Very weird.

You can also do this when standing on the equatorial line:

It has something to do with forces, rotation of the earth and hemispheres but I was too proud of my achievement so I didn't really listen to the explanation.

Heading back to Quito, which means Middle - Earth (Qui - To) in some Amazonian language, you can find some amazing landscapes. The city is 2'800 meters above sea level (the second highest capital after La Paz) and is surrounded by snow-capped volcanoes from the Andes mountain range, lakes and vast green fields.

I know this volcano is not snow-capped but don't complain it's either that or no-volcano-at-all

As I said, the city didn't seem to be poor which makes it one of my favourite cities so far. Quito is divided between the Old city and the New city. The new city is beautiful, clean, safe and organised but nothing very special. The old town on the other hand is interesting and rather unusual.

It has a lot of French influence.

Very Notre Dame

It also has a lot of European/Spanish style to it. Not colonial Spanish, but Spanish Spanish.

It seems the Spaniards manage to create a mediterranean ambiance in most of their colonies in South America, and it is particularly noticeable in Quito. Even though it is at almost 3'000m high, you sometime get the feeling that the sea is just around the corner.

The city is charming, the food is good, the people are friendly, the landscape around it is fantastic, poverty feels far away and the local currency is the US dollar so no need to get lost in exchange rates (yep, the USD is not an alternative currency, it is the actual currency) - but it rains a lot. And when it does, you don't want to be anywhere under it.

People seemed to be surprised and unprepared when it rained, even though it rains EVERY SINGLE DAY AT THE SAME TIME during the rainy season. I think a little bit more investment in education should be considered, Mr. President.

Anyway, I have yet to visit the rest of the country but Quito certainly motivated me to get back to Ecuador and discover this unknown treasure, and you should too.

Machu fucking Picchu

2010-04-15T01:09:00.002+02:00

It is official, there are two wonders in this world - not seven.

The first one is, well, me:

It is still under discussion with the authorities, but my face may actually be the 3rd Wonder of the World - that explains why I can't show it yet

And the second one is Machu Picchu (this is the typical picture of Machu Picchu, but this one is mine - I took it):

mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine

It really is an impressive place. At first I thought that I was going to be disappointed by Machu Picchu as it seemed to be extremely overrated. Everybody was talking about how wonderful it was, the same way people usually talk about me.

But no, it was really as beautiful as people say. Maybe even more.

Here are a few images of the intelligent, beautiful, seismic-resistant architecture of the Incas:

The Incas loved terraces, they had three types of them: for agriculture, to avoid land slides and for decoration.

This is not Machu Picchu, it is a place called Moray. What you see is an experimental agricultural laboratory for the Incas. They created microclimates on each level of these terraces.

We still don't know what Machu Picchu exactly was. It may have been a school or a spiritual university. The Spanish had not reached it, which is why it is so well preserved - well 80% had to be restored because nature had taken over it - but it wasn't destroyed or built over.

By built over I refer to the Spanish conquistadores who built churches on top of the wonderful Inca temples. Almost nothing is left of these temples in Cusco, there are just churches now. Actually, the Spaniards use to put local symbols inside the churches to lure the local people into getting in and praying. Which is why you can see a sun, condors and pumas in the Andean churches.

Back to Machu Picchu. What is most stunning about it - on top of the amazing architecture - is its location. It is surrounded by green, tall and wonderful mountains. It literally is the nicest scenery I have seen so far.

So yes, I admit it; these guys were geniuses - and let's not forget that they were only around for a hundred years. The Incas do deserve all the attention they get. Chapeau bas.

I highly recommend visiting the place. You fly to Cusco, which was the actual Inca capital - it's a lovely city - and it's only a few hours from Machu Picchu. There is plenty to do in the city and around - plus there are many restaurants, bars and clubs of excellent quality.

The city really looks like an Italian village as all the roofs are all covered with these mediterranean-style tiles.

You cannot die before having gone to these places. So if you're planning on killing yourself, put that on hold, fly to Cusco and visit the region. That's an order.

Meet Goldie

2010-04-11T06:40:00.002+02:00

Goldie represents all the dumb-ass, uncultured, uninterested, stupid tourist who goes on "cultural" tours just to take pictures but doesn't care about its historical content.

Goldie has a low IQ and knows almost nothing about history, archeology, art or any culture whatsoever.

Goldie likes to show the pictures to her friends and family to show-off, but can't explain what's actually on the photo.

You may have encountered Goldie on your holiday. She usually distinguish herself from the mass by making significant efforts to take the picture of a wall.

Sometimes, she has to try twice.

And maybe a third time, but from the other side.

She heard this wall was important to the Incas - that's something she can tell her friends while showing them the pictures

Then, Goldie investigates the piece of art that the guide describes - without listening to him. Spotting the right angles requires a lot of mental effort - and let's not forget that Goldie has a low IQ, she can't do two things at once.

Once she finds it, she feels disconnected from the group and lets her imagination work with the camera.

She also holds the camera vertically - because that changes the dynamic of the picture.

Then, she focuses on the totally uninteresting paintings on the wall that the guide didn't even bother to explain - but Goldie loves culture and thinks it's important. So she starts clicking.

And she always has to have another shot with the camera held vertically - it REALLY changes everything.

And finally Goldie, away from the guide's explanation, takes the picture of a wall. An important Inca wall, yes, but just a wall if you don't really listen to its history.

And this is just a guess; but here's how I imagine the pictures of Goldie actually ended up looking.

I would not want to be invited to look at her photos. Really.

So for all you Goldies out there, please stop taking pictures of walls, rocks or even books without knowing their meanings.

This is another Goldie on the same tour

This new wave of dumb tourists is really annoying. I don't mind dumb tourists as long as they stick to shopping centers and restaurants - but I do think an IQ test should be performed on some people before they sign up to a culturally-loaded tour.

PS: there is another post that I wrote yesterday if you scroll down a bit. It's about my trip to La Paz and Lake Titicaca.

Something the Incas and I have in common

2010-04-09T03:02:00.005+02:00

Peru is the land of the Incas - everything here is about them: Inca Kola, Incafé, Incabar, Incalaundry, IncaPharma, post-Inca, pre-Inca and so on. So I thought I should further investigate this civilisation which seems to be prevailing the region.

Turns out the Inca empire lasted only from 1438 to 1533...barely a hundred years. The Incas are seen as a Great civilisation who built the Machu Picchu and who worshiped the Sun until the mean Spanish conquistadores destroyed them and interrupted them in their rise to the top. Well it's not as simple as that.

The Incas were actually the local version of the Spanish conquistadores; they were the bad guys of the Andes. They use to hike through the mountains and conquer every single civilisation on their way and Incafy them. These civilisations include the Aymara and the Tiwanaku - which are pre-Inca cultures that got converted to Incaism.

So I decided to go and discover some of these pre-Inca civilisations who also built great temples and had interesting cultures. First stop, La Paz - Bolivia - where an ancient Tiwanaku city use to be (2hrs away from the Bolivian capital). La Paz is the highest capital of the world at 3'700 meters above sea level - the airport is at 4'100 meters above sea level. Needless to say the air is not only thin, but almost anorexic in that city, making it hard to breath and to walk around its steep streets.

The city is in some sort of a canyon or valley where the rich live in the lower part (better climate) and the poor up in the mountains - I personally don't like poor people looking down on me, but that doesn't seem to be a problem in La Paz.

The city is lovely and is home to many beautiful colonial and European style buildings. It has almost no Western influence - except maybe the Burger King - and people still live in a very traditional way. I was there during the Easter weekend which also happened to be the mayor's elections day. The authorities had forbidden the sale of alcohol, to open shops and even to drive - La Paz was a very sober ghost town but I was high on altitude and enjoyed it anyway.

After having visited the city at a very slow pace and having encountered some unusual ingredients at the Witches' Market, I went along with my quest of discovering the non-Inca civilisations of the region.

These are llama fetuses displayed for sale at the Witches' Market - yum

The Tiwanaku had the same religion as the Incas - they worshiped the Sun and the Pachamama (mother nature in Quechua). They existed for much longer than the Incas (thousands of years) and seemed to be less aggressive as they were expanding peacefully in the region rather than conquering others.

La Paz being close to the Titicaca - and a rather boring place after two days - the lake was an obvious next step. The lake is at 3'800 meters above sea level and is the highest navigable lake in the world. It is 8'500 Km2 - almost as big as Lebanon (10'500 Km2) - and is shared by Bolivia (40%) and Peru (60%). It is also there that the Incas are said to have emerged - yes, everything still revolves around the Incas!

My first stop was Copacabana - no, not the Brazilian one, the Bolivian version. I like to think of it as the Incas' beach resort where they went to tan - or in other words: to have an intense and intimate relationship with their God: the Sun.

Copacabana is a quiet beach town - you can't really swim as the water is on average 9C in the lake - and hosts many tourists who go and explore some islands a few kilometers from the village. Lake Titicaca is big, very big and there are many traditional boats sailing between the islands with local people trading goods or visiting friends.

Unlike Brazil's Copacabana, the weather is not always hot and sunny and the women do have big breasts, but not the kind you'd like. The temperatures significantly drop at night whereas the days could be rather warm.

Titicaca is so gay!

The following day, I went to the Peruvian side and the capital is called Puno (it's a shit-hole).

I took a tour to the Uros Islands - the floating islands. They are about 50 floating islands hosting some 2'000 native people. They are quite spectacular but the excessively-touristy-planned-scenario makes everything so fake and unexciting.

Upon arrival, a bunch of traditionally dressed ladies welcome you to the island by talking in Aymara dialect - Camisa Raki (hello) - and we were supposed to say something like Milayké (i'm fine) - words that our guide had taught us on the boat on the way there. I had no problem with this performance, as I am an actor, but I overheard other tourists mixing up their words - losers!

Hot stuff!!

After stepping down from the boat and acting, we walked on the floor of this weird island, and the feeling was very pleasant - as if you are walking on a water mattress. The guide gathers us around the main "square" and explains how the islands were built - very interesting, but I will keep this information confidential. And then the guide puts an enormous pressure on us to buy souvenirs from these people. He said that tourism is what allowed the kids to go to school and it also provides the locals with other activities than fishing - in other words if we don't buy anything the children would be illiterate and the lake would be depleted from its fish.

I feel like I have dome so much by buying this expensive crap. It's the first time that consumption is actually good for something (or is it really?). But then of course, they make you pay for everything on the island, for example I had to pay this old lady after taking her picture. I don't know why I like taking pictures of old ladies, maybe it's because I know they're going to die soon and I'll be the last one to have taken their picture.

So after they dressed us up in their ridiculous outfits for the picture, spoke a very bad Spanish (which I suspect is acted, I'm sure it sells more if they pretend not to speak Spanish), emptied our wallets, they sang and danced for us! It really was the cherry on top and it was absolutely ridiculous. They sang in Aymara, English, Spanish....and French (sur le pont d'Avignon)!!!

We gladly left these well-trained, brainwashed people to reach the shores of lake Titicaca in Puno (which is still a shit-hole) - but it wasn't over - as we were departing, another cherry-on-the-top event occurred; they all said "Hasta la vista Baby" all together. God that was pathetic (but I laughed...I am only human) - oh well, at least it keeps them busy on these islands, because it can be extremely boring to live there!

In the afternoon, I followed my anti-Inca investigation and went to a pre-Inca cemetery 30 Km away from the city. It is located in a very beautiful place that kind of looks like Scotland.

This is not the Titicaca lake, it is another - rather big one - called lake Umayo and the town where the cemetery is, is called Sillustani. It is a very beautiful region with vast green fields and hills surrounded by the lake.

Of course, this pre-Inca cemetery had been taken over by the Incas once they conquered the region. So they decided to make the previous civilisations feel small and un-cool in their own territory. Let me explain, here is what a regular tomb from the Aymara looks like - between 1 and 3 meters high.

And then the Incas came and built these 12 meters high tombs - which are now the most visited in the site.

Bottom line, Incas are mad attention seekers who conquered everyone and put their label on everything they won.

There is one thing, however, that is an undeniable Inca treasure which is the actual reason behind all the attention they get: the Machu Picchu. I am going there in a few days - I will see if it deserves that much attention - just some observations as an attention seeker myself.

Est. 0

2010-04-03T03:19:00.000+02:00

We're getting close to Easter, another major Christian holiday. I like Easter because people don't make a big fuss about it. I know that because it's not mandatory for me to spend Easter with my family - unlike Christmas. Which is weird because Christmas represents the birth of Christ - it's not that God-like,we all have birthdays - but Easter represents the resurrection of the Christ, which is a totally awesome move from Jesus, no one can do that!

Anyway, since it's a day off I decided to go to the center again and visit the Museo de la Inquisicion (which I have been advised to visit in one of the comments). So I took the bus and headed downtown for a cultural journey.

Well, culture is relative - on my way I discovered that Peruvians are not really into the movie and music culture:

Yeah, Alec Baldwing!!!

I'm sure the real Beatles would be very proud of their successors

As I got to the center, I saw a horde of Catholics listening to the priest's sermon, praying and queuing to get into the church.

So I decided to get away from that religious crowd in order to start with my cultural journey and visit the museum. But as I was reacting counter-magnetically to this place, I ran into another crowd of joyful Catholics celebrating the return of the Christ.

And another one!

They were everywhere, walking hand by hand or in family, rushing to the church to hear the latest 2'000-year-old gossip about Mary and Joseph's immaculate conception.

This made me think how successful the Church is. It brings people to its temples around the world every year during the holidays. What is their secret? How can they be so successful?

I ask myself this because if one day I set up my own company, I want to use the same business model than these guys.

So let's break down it into pieces and analyse it. I will compare the Church to any other company.

1) It has a logo, like Coca-Cola for example:

2) It has shops all over the world:

3) It has employees all over the world:

4) It discriminates between its male and female employees:

I had to go through 7 pages of Google Image to find a decent picture of a nun!

5) It has a Head Office...well it's an actual country:

6) It has competitors:

7) A rich Chairman:

8) A product, well it's mostly trying to sell a message through its product:

And so on, I think you get the point.

The Church is rich, it invests its money in real estate and other sectors, it was actually once caught investing in a condom factory. The Church emits financial instruments in order to expand - all that, just like a regular company.

But there is one major difference. One thing that makes it unbeatable: spirituality, DUH! It touches people spiritually which keeps them coming from generation to generation. Finance-wise, this is a great advantage because it makes it recession proof. People go to Church in good times and bad times, whether there's a crisis or a storm. The company is a success, congrats guys!

Unfortunately, religions operate as any other business. They make money, they want to expand, they have dirty little secrets and they pretend to make you feel good.

I just got one advice to you Pope Benedict: spend less money on gold and list the Church on the stock market. Because with your diversified portfolio and your downside hedge, I would be the first one to buy the stock.

Gold much?