A Piece of ME

This post will be controversial but its merely my point of view. This is me putting pen to paper and documenting an experience and my take on some matters in life as advised by psychologists. Excuse my english skills but I promise it is much better than my older posts, progression!

Lately I have ventured on a soul cleansing, self finding and meditational trip from Bristol, Cornwall - the west coast of England, the Moroccan desert and hospitals, back to London with a virus then Morroco again and last but not least volunteering in a refugee camp in France!!! For the past 1.5 months I haven't set foot in one city for more than 2 weeks which has been an illuminating and purifying experience for sure.

The reason behind this trip is purely to meditate, reflect, think of the past and all its junk, reflect on the roller coster of relation ships and life. Here is only a glimpse of the points I uncovered. 

1- Know who you are!!

If you don't know who you are then who else will?  Everyone individually needs to know who they are, if they don't then they need to find out by either exploring, venturing, challenging themselves or simply by stepping out of their comfort zone and out of the traditional expectations.

You can't expect to go through life waiting for others to define you, why ? Because its not healthy and is simply wrong. This allows anyone to decide what you are worth, it gives them the opportunity to put you down by any means possible only to prove they are better! Sad isn't it!  The problem is that those people only do so because they are lost souls themselves and they do not realise it. They unfortunately don't see the damage they are causing to others. This then ends up being a vicious circle of lost souls stepping on top of each other just to climb the hill of life!

2- Confidence VS arrogance

If you are they type of person who is confident about themselves, their actions and life choices then good, don't stop, you are on the correct path my friend. This being said caution is required here, careful not to confuse your confidence with your ego and arrogance. Ego can be a very destructive and illusion creator tool, it feeds on our weaknesses and enhances our strengths ( the bad as well as the good) only to make us feel empowered. There is a fine line between the two and sadly you will only know when you really mess up your illusion fed life and get hit by the brutal reality.

How I think you can reach the balance : be confident about your life choices, the people you know, your relationships and most important yourself but always make sure you stop and re-evaluate everything and make the necessary changes. Do not fear change and do not worry of stepping back, it is only normal as we are purely human. Be an Optimist : 

3- It's OK to say NO.  

Yes it is, there is nothing wrong with not accepting to follow the herd because they sound wise, there is nothing wrong of disagreeing with others!

I have a theory, which can be wrong and might change with time but so far I agree with it : 

By the age of 10 you listen to your parents and teachers giving you the wisdom and  bestowing it on your young naive mind. By the age of 20 you listen to your friends, society, university professors and still your parents only because you are still insecure and scared of being wrong and mocked at. By the age of 30  - and probably until you are a parent yourself- : you now have reached a saturated emotional stage, a stage where you have heard a lot, absorbed a lot,  seen enough and been through some painful experiences. At this stage of life your personality and emotions should have reached it's maturity stage, it can now help you make reasonable choices and even better it can give you the confidence to live life without regrets! Amazing isn't it! .. At this point of your life you know when you need to say NO .. It will be better if you can do that sooner but you need to experience the ups and downs of life to properly say No with your head held high.. 

Truth to be told, this year framed theory applies to the majority of people I met so far, but I have met some exceptional cases of mature 20 years old hence it is not a rule.

One key point here : Everyone is entitled to their opinion, everyone is entitled to be different, its not a competition, same applies to you, respect that and don't judge it. 

4- Do you know what a healthy relationship means?  

It is important to identify what is healthy for you and what is not.

I truly believe that a healthy relationship would make you strive to be the best person you can be without any pressure or criticism. When in a good healthy partnership a person shouldn't feel forced to change who they are; a person should feel nourished, supported and accepted which includes the good and bad. If your partner makes you feel not worthy and is always trying to change you to suite them then this raises a red flag, this only means you will always be aiming to please them and not yourself thus not being true to yourself. If you loose yourself it is very hard to gain it back, and the damage caused might be irreversible.

In a healthy relationship you should not be ashamed of being yourself.

Alain De Botton from the New York Times puts it nicely : ' Compatibility is an achievement of love; it must not be its precondition '.

The Grand Finale :

To sum up : we are only part of the circle of life, we might think that the world revolves around us but it doesn't. Knowing who we are and what we are capable of only makes life run smoother. This helps us give to others whether its time, passion, care or just a smile.

Life is too short to live in regret, it is too short to live sadly and miserably. There is so much misery in this world that our positivity is desperately needed to help others who are less fortunate. As long as we can breathe, are healthy and loved then we are lucky for sure.

Love to ALL.

svizzera , italy , germania , spain

well well . i know its been .,,,,,,,,,,,,mmm along time i have to admit . but i can explain really . I apologize for this long post but its full of adventures I hope .

lets see in February i got my visa to go to switzerland ( svizzerra ) , i got it and that same night i booked my flight , next day packed and then off i go . :D amazing , traveling was never that simple for me .

Svizzera a Lugano . ( switzerland in Lugano )
lets begin with the culture shocks :

well switzerland has 3 official languages : italian , german and french . and has 3 parts accordingly ( the german , the french , and the italian part ) .
i was in the italian one , the county ( elmokata3a ) was called Ticino and its capital was Lugano (where i lived specifically ) .

first culture shock : Italian issue , so the second i arrive i had no way of communication whatsoever except my poor french which was soooooo rusty . so i arrive , should find the place am supposed to stay in and well i had my British phone working successfully so saved the taxi talked with the landloard on the phone and voila i arrive .

second culture shock , i couldn't shop for food coz i couldnt understand what is it ( was in italian,german ,french ) , and the food is very expensive there , more than UK aloottttt .

third : going the university : I HAD TO CLIMB A HILL EVERYDAY TO THE UNI . for someone who hates excersize (me ) that was an extreme , from driving a car for years and then i managed walking fine in Edinburgh , but i was shocked by the fact that now i had to climb a hill , soooooo exhausting , and ps : no elevator at school ( at least not for students ) so 3 more floors to climb .
i lost 4 KG in these 6 months . :)

i arrived to lecio "gallileio gallelei " my home at dinner time my sweet flatmates are there cooking , you can imagine dinner times with almost 10 ppl in the kitchen cooking :D:D wonderful and busy with lots of countries and dishes .

as spanish people i lived with : ester (and she was in the same school too SUPSI, i loved her , first day to school with her sitting in the bus and talking,lovelyyyyy , thank you sweetheart ) , natalia , sweet and it took us sometime to know each other communication problems heheh,marc ( who hated me when i called him marcos ) :) ,
as Portuguese : daniel ( can’t even explain what he meant to me ,my stay there and life ) , bruna ( beautiful, lovely party girl ) ,
germans there was robert ( funny , really nice guy , with alot of spirit , driving us crazy with the football matches he and marc watched ) ,venchenzo ( well i discovered he is a vegetarian after he left :D , mostly quiet and peaceful guy ),
an italian georgio ( was working and living is switzerland , he made me cook the worst koskos i ever imagined )
and finally 2 chinees :Wo and Jacky ( who had a problem with trusting ppl and finally she did and was so nice ) . fabrizio was my Swiss landlord , i have to say he was like my second father there taking care and watching over us even when we went skying and i was on the floor he was there to save me . hehehe .

and these were my "gallileio gallelei " family . :D i know i am spelling it wrong but bahhhh , i lost hope to say it correctly .

now work wise :

its a factual information that the swiss architectural life is not easy at all , its horrible , work work work like you have been born to work and nothing else . life doesnt not exist . from the first week till the week i left i have been working day and night , and all can testify for this fact .
my class mates there were jenni , an amazing funny finish girl and always optimistic ,love her spirit , conni ( german ) , well we started not so well but we ended up as really good friends , she loves cooking and i wish to visit her restaurant some day , there when i always believe never rush to judge ppl , lars the architect , well thanks to him i learned to make architectural models , we had our disagreements alot but finally i won 2 arguments with him yesssssssssss i did it :D , officially totally german argumental attitude hehehe . Finally sule and gokchen (turkish ) , really fun party lovers crazy yet cool , hehehe .

basically the days and nights at the uni were like this : working with jenni and conni enjoying the Swedish radio with songs we hear over and over again like : day and night , a memorable song .really wonderful company and it made the hard time pass smoothly and nicely . love you girls

.

Switzerland is an amazing country to enjoy , wonderful nature and beautiful weather , so fascinating lakes. but i cannot imagine myself living there honestly . bad paper work service , language issues ( ps : i learned a bit of italian :D) , not an easy life generally .

down the hill from my university there was an Egyptian shop ( aladino articolo ) , it was always closed but one day i passed and i saw ppl outside guess what !!!! talking arabic , no not just arabic , its Egyptian yeayyyyyy .
well mohsen pasha he offered me leb asmar :D and he was there with his brother and gabry pasha . see i have never met Egyptians outside of Egypt that funny ,caring,loving and welcoming , they were amazing . every time i went down from school and was feeling bad , i knew that this is the place that will make me cheerful and happy again , and of course gabry with his shay el3arosa ( an egyptian typical brand of tea he got from home ).
step by step i met the rest of the group , this is where gom3a ( mohamed ) he had his bar there and always cutting his fingers and we rushing him to hospitals :D:D , ra2oof , the technician guy and the DJ guy with long hair ( cant recall their names sorry ) .

mohsen, gabry and gom3a , they always cared about me as if i was a lost kid and always helped me no matter what . i guess they saw me as an Egyptian girl alone there , they felt responsible to keep an eye on me . if i seek advice , help , support , i knew that i had family to depend on .some took me around visiting places and experiencing different environment where we usually say (mamy da3yaly ) thank you mam . and thank you guys alot . i wish you were all here in Scotland instead . :(

lets see my day in switzerland usually : going to uni working all day , back home for a nap , dani waking me up to have dinner , we have dinner ( sometimes he cooked for me , thank you alot, mostly food with fish in it like bacalhau fish he had from portugal ) i guess mam sent him in her behalf to feed me fish . sometimes i cooked to him too egyptian food . then we go up my room for sweets and chocolate , then if i have work i continue to work all night , if i have some time we watch a movie.

weekends . lets say that dani and bruna always had a plan and a party to go to , of course pushing me to go too . when i had less work i go . crazy ppl love them .


skiing in switzerland :

the country of the Albs , how could i not go skiing . it was easy when we rented the cars and drove up the mountains but when it starts being on the snow with your ski shoes and slags ,,,,,,mama mia , its hard , its painful , took me 2-3 weeks for the bruises to heal BUT its terribly fun . :D

the problem is in standing up when you fall and also in stopping when you ski. well i could never stop so i crushed into ppl alot and into other stuff :D , you dont want to even imagine .
getting up : my first attempt to get up took me 15 mins to just get up from the floor , and when i did natalia came down the slope , we crashed and she ended up buried under me in the snow hahahaha.

natalia noooooooooo , nada noooooooooo , boooommmmmmmmm............................
we were the joke for every adult and child there , i assume we were being on video , i wonder if its not on youtupe yet.

traveling around switzerland :

well part of our study course is to travel to : geneva , basel , bern and zurich . here comes more architectural visits and more fun than barcelona really .

attending the basel fair in Basel ofcourse ( german part ) ,and clubbing in "bar rouge " on top of the tallest building in switzerland , ps : all the club had glass glazing all around it , i.e you see all the city from up there, also the toilets , you get in and you take off your clothes in front of all basel ( no wall just glass ) :D amazing ha .

seeing the lake of geneva ( in the french part ) with the fountain that resembles the one in Jeddah ( Saudi Arabia ) yet this one you can actually walk under and be splashed with its water .

Bern ( german part ) which is the official capital of switzerland also with its historical medieval buildings and cosy atmosphere makes it a really beautiful city , thats the only city i felt i can actually live in . oh and we visited Einstein house hoping to be geniuses as he was . :D

Zurich ( german part ) which basically is like a maze , you know you are always lost and its too much to handle because its considered a second capital so everything is there .but the best swiss chocolate is from there : a shop called Sprungli , i totally recommend to visit , wonderfully ymmy .

:D

more cities i had been to like Laussane ( in the french part ) when my brother came with becky ,iccza and george in easter holiday . and we also visited another city beside lassane and went on the funicular up the mountain .

visiting also bellinzona i guess thats the name of the city with mohsen and gom3a , nice view and great ice cream and coffe ..












Spain here i come .

after that i head to spain as a school trip , Barcelona . a wonderful city and astonishing architecture . specifically Gaudi with his mind blowing designs .
i am not sure what else to say about this trip , the only problem is that we had a very busy schedule with visits from sagra defamillia to alot more architectural buildings . walking from 8 am till 10 pm continually .
the food is really nice , different tapas and the sea food dish with rice .

Italy , yeayyyyy .

since i lived in the italian part of switzerland then this meant that it took us only one hour to be in milan . sometimes we went clubbing in milan and back , lugano wasnt the perfect place for a night life really .

one weekend me and dani (my dear friend and travel buddy :D ) rented a car and headed to bolognia for a day then to Florence (firenzia ) for another day , was really inspiring . especially Florence , its full of statues with stunning details you never see anymore ....was a unique weekend would never forget .

another weekend we head to Genova with the dani , bruna and the erasmus girls ( elisa and evelin, amazingly crazy and unforgettable girls ).
the best thing about Genova is that its on the Mediterranean sea , so i finally saw the see after along long time , this is the second i realized how much i do miss Alexandria with the smell of the beach and all the crazy times i had there .
standing there staring at the sea and imagining that your city and friends and everything you left behind is just in front of you, indescribable feeling .

heading to milan with my classmates ( as work ) for the "Milan fair" where all the designers come from around the world to exhibit their work and new talents try to exist . the amazing thing is that the whole city transfers into galleries and showrooms , normal furniture shops are showing off their work and every where you look there is art or furniture or visitors yet all of these.

an adventure in Milan:
i was planning to go to Romania and i headed to take the plane from italy , well problems happened and i didn't travel and had to go back to Lugano . another problem here is : by the time i arrived to Milan to take the train to Lugano it was 11 pm and there were no more trains .
so i am stuck in Milan 11pm , with no place to stay and cant go home , oh and in addition to all that 2 arabic guys flirt with me in the station , so i start replying in an angry voice in Egyptian , hahaha , scared the hell out of them .
at such a situation you just dont know what is going on wrong with the world or with you and your bad luck all has combined in this night = night mare . finally i figured there was a tourist help desk which was miraculously open , no idea why . i ask them for a hostel address to stay in and they call book me one give the address . hehehe . the adventure doesnt end here , see i have never been in milan alone before and i had no clue about any streets yet or where i was at all , i always depended on dani . so i go out of the train station and trying to figure out where is the bus station and which direction i should go asking ppl not so easy ( ITALIAN ONLY ) :( , luckily at the end i ask a women on the bus station , she understands and she also speaks english . gooodddddddddd... she calls the hostel and asks about its place takes me to the hostel and then leaves . again thank you mammy i knew you were there with me . :D .

as hostels you only rent a bed in a room , this means you share the room with other people you dont know , you just mind your own business and thats it . so here i wake up and one more shock waits for me : the Brazilian girl sharing the room with me ( i dont even know when did she come in, the night before) , she is in bed and mmmmmmmm well with a guy . i guess that's enough . :D .
well she ended up to be nice at the end and i had breakfast with her and she helped me find my bus back to the train station , and then she leaves with her guy for coffee hehehe . and i head back to lugano , sad and disappointing that i didn't go to see little sis but ended up with a new adventure .

everything happens for a reason . i end up in lugano with a guy proposing . :D . my shortest relation ever : lasted only 3 days .



Germany ............

well the only place i went to in germany was just across the boarders from Basel to the vitra museum where the first building of zaha hadid has been established , scary building .
well it was nice really with all its miniature furniture , and the building of a Japanese architect which had soft concrete , wonderfully smooth and soft ..
we ate cranberries ( toot ) from the trees directly ( it was part of the Japanees architect concept to have his building in nature with cranberries trees surrounding it ) .

finally we had only one problem , to go back to switzerland by the bus we need to pay , well in switzerland we used swiss Frank and we didnt notice that we r in germany and we need euros .... hehehe . also the other buss driver said its ok to pay in frank , clearly of course it wasn't ok , so well we were stuck , but thanks to connie and her skills she convinced the bus driver to take us back for free . :D

Finalmente :

here my journey finishes and the wisdom part should come : its always different when you travel as a tourist or as a study or work . you start noticing things you would have never seen as a tourist , you look at everything with a different perspective , more professional , even working with different nationalities you really know people better not just as enjoyable time but in hard times and stressful moments , you find some who come out of nowhere and show you that you can do it and you are not alone at all .

sharing is caring , loving people isn’t hard but departing them is devastating .

People are the ones who make a place , an event , a stay and life a good one or a dreadful one . if you have great people around you they lift you up and show you the wonders , if bad people they just drag you down to the dark hole where the light doesn’t exist .

I was really blessed but having amazing people around me in Switzerland and this is what made my experience a great one, one I know it will be hard to have again . you can’t choose the people you meet ,work or live with but you can choose if you enjoy their company or not.

You can have a blast time discovering or just indulge in your pain and sorrow . my Swiss experience was all about discovery , adventure , taking risks , finding problems and be happy to solve them on my own or with friends ,meeting different mentalities and looking deep into them .

thanks for your patience , if you did actually read it all , J

thanks for everyone I met there and I am hoping and planning to keep the friendships I gained and the people I loved there , if you love back as much , then you will have the same hope /plan for me .

The 4th "leapsa" ...

... comes from reka ( thank you =) ) , and it sounds like this :

1. Go to the 4th folder in your computer where you store your pictures.
2. Pick the 4th picture in that folder.
3. Explain the picture
4. Tag 4 people to do the same! they dont have to be in that picture .

ok i cant believe i am actually doing this .. sis i will kill u ..

well this was a challenge that happened here in between accommodation flats , and the point is to do as much of the challenges they gave us as we can . so its like one pic i swear but we scanned the 4 in one .. not my fault ..

the first one is to do YMCA on the north bridge ,,

second is to dance with the silver metal guy in princes street .

third is to lap dance to stranger ( girl in pink hair )and to poke a ginger ( the guy with red hair)

fourth is to take a picture in the bedroom of the balmoral hotel (one of the most respectable hotels in edinburgh ) we had to seduce a guy for this whoi snuck from behind his girl friend for the sake of this challenge ... hehehehe ..



And the leapsa goes to: dorin , dragosh,ariana ,maadawy

first work ,first snow .

now the concept of us back home is like the foreign countries are just covered with snow and is all white just like in the movies we see everyday , they have snow man and they play with snow balls every day , well i would like to change that .. no its is not like that at all .. it just snowed here in Edinburgh may be 3 or 4 times thats it .. it became a little white for only one time which is the only time i actually had to walk in the street for almost all the time it was snowing .. it was my first time to touch , see , walk and feel snow .. i could believe it .. all my black coat was covered with white things called snow flakes .. heheheh , it was wet .. yuckyyyy... begad i was pushing it away from me not to wet my clothes and it easily comes off my coat , but the problem that it sticks to the floor and u just have to walk so slowly in order not to slip and fall . and make sure not to step in watery snow .. ( i did that , my shoes was full of water ,,,yaaaaaaa) .
well this is the real day that i appreciated my amazing most wonderful ,adorable great ,precious ,diamond , my TOTA ,Kordelina my savior from all this marmata . fenek ya tota we feen ayamak . konty satrany wallahy . hehehehehe , now i sound like an old woman wining for her lost youth ..

as for work... see applying for work here is not as easy at it seems , tried looking for a nice decent part time job to go with my studies and not successful eventually i found this technician job which is men ela7'er keda 3amel with an art gallery . then i said well what the hell ,, technician better than nothing . then i went to start my work and i realized that i am a junior technician which is saby 3amel isa .. hehehe .. and my senior technician is a nice looking lady ( a female ) who graduated from Brighton university (this is a very good uni here ) and she did her masters degree in my university Edinburgh college of art in sculpture .. soooooooooooo shofto el rayesa beta3ty shaklaha eih ... my senior technician here we go , that day i worked all the work technicians do , simple like that i painted belforsha we elgardal , i hammered stuff belshakoosh we 3elbet elmasabeer , ooohhh and the best part .. sand blast ... which is belbalady keda elsanfara isa ..
see an Egyptian technician is well i am sad to say that he is not as fortunate as me or my senior nice lady , he is a different class and with different style of life and definitely u never see a female in this field of work ,education ........mmmmmmm well we say in Egypt which is the translation words "the market or field teaches u its technics" elsoo2 ye3alemak elsan3a . as for here people who work are well educated people not really that poor but they know the techinics and they can do the job so why not . they never look at it as the low class /high class level thing as most of us do.
we say ( or at least i used to say when i was back home ) we need a multi national organization job and a salary with this and so and so and the list goes on . well doesnt work like that everywhere .

on the other hand we have free education actually , if u compare it to here .. education in Egypt is free and here is soooooooo expensive ppl here borrow money and keep paying back for years and years after they graduate .
so let me say i have learned and i hope my experience will help others understand how life is different from each perspective , it doesnt matter who we are ,doesnt matter were we come from or whats our backgrounds, we might find ourselves doing things we never imagined we will do just because its a new world and a new life that we have to fit in .we have to open mined and flexible to grasp the change and accept it also live it happily .

sex and the city

i know this title might seem odd ,but today i have watched the movie "sex and the city" and somehow it touched me deeply, i am not sure whether the fact of the amazingly bonded 4 friends or that sometimes there is someone who can fight for ur love no matter what .
as for friends seeing what these 4 girls done to each other reminded me of how i had a great group back home , whenever we used to feel bad its ok to just jump in the street and go to each other or hang out escaping from whatever we feared or hated .i have passed some hard times in the past but i never felt they were that hard ,u know why because i had some one to take me under their arms and say "it will be OK ,i am here for u don't worry ,shit happens, we can fix this together" . being here in UK i had a harsh time one day ,was my first harsh one actually , when i wept myself till agony got into me i went to some one and talked to , that someone didn't even feel or see i was in agony , that made me value what i had before , people who if heard ur voice will know there is something wrong and will rush for your comfort.(luckily that i had comfort that day on the words of an unexpected person ,whom i thank greatly for that).

i remember how i used to travel from one city to another -with lame excuses for my mam- just to see " shelet el bakabortat " ,heheheehe ,the noisiest,funniest most annoying group ever , you can actually hear us all talking in the same second and we perfectly understand each other ,its miraculous i know but that's our miracle ,that's us .
whenever i am in town we were together making the best time out of it .whenever i needed help i went and found relief and happiness . they always knew how to get anything out of anyone .weekends and our fabulous Thursday when we always always had to go out in my TOTA (miss u too TOTA ) and we have to for sure have a blast time which will make u appreciate life and the beauty of it .
every day i also has this wonderful distant friend whom joined me lately in my group and she loved them all , my sweet sis ,let me say that u can find friendship really hard sometimes but not everything is as perfect as it always should be .
now we come to the someone who fights for u .here should come my story with the no fighting person ,some day i believed that love might exist though i had this concept of love being an illusion, seeing how BIG ( the guy in the movie ) fought for CARY in unconventional ways made me think if actually a fighting person exists in the real world ,where he can just say here i am and no matter happens i am a keeper.u never know .
here ends the story of today ..sorry it was long but i am excited about it i assume .
to all whom i ever loved and cared for i still do love and care and miss every moment ...

see u again in my new post .

my first blog post

hello hello .

now this feels a little weird since i never actually wrote any blogs before and i feel strange about that , but i am feeling that i want to say something and i guess here i can . i am not talking to myself anymore and even if i am then its ok . will be glad to .