One of the nice hotels were I stayed during my trips, not an international chain,
not a *****, but a small and cozy hotel with few rooms, clean & neat.

All rooms are fully equipped with:
– telephone line
– satellite & cable TV
– internet connection
– jacuzzi/shower/sauna
– air condition

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If you ever consider visiting Skopje, here is the address:
Hotel Aristocrat Palace
Elisie Popovski St. No.59, 1000 Skopje
Tel: +389-23-109511
Fax: +389-23-178209
Email: aristocrat@mail.net.mk

We came to Istanbul myself and our Commercial Director to pick up our visas from the Macedonian Embassy in order to go on from here to Skopje. On our way from beirut with Turkish Airlines, I was joking with Camil, telling him that lots of planes are being hijacked in Turkey, I hope our flight will be safe.

Yesterday we were chatting about this Turkish Low-Cost airliner called Pegasus and the destination it is offering for cheap prices.

And today, while watching CNN, i was so surprised for this “breaking news” where a Pegasus flight from Diyarbakir to Istanbul was hijacked and forced to land in Ankara.

Below are some tv screenshot from CNN after the hijack took place and Pegasus tv commercial few minutes after the hijack on turkish cnbc channel.

What a coincidence!!!

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During my strolling in the typical market of Eminonu Square, I crossed the below 2 small kiosks selling different products. When you get more close, you can discover the many brands available like Gillette, Duracell, BIC, Energizer, Schick, Panasonic and you will be surprised with the prices.

I guess parallel business has been around this market too …

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During my trips I visit lots of retail outlets where you always meet lots of push girls offering different products sampling and food products to taste, but I never met any tasting campaigns down the street in open space like at the entrance of this public market in Istanbul … but it looked very normal.

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Policemen in Turkey are happy today, because it is their annual “Police Day” and they were having a parade on Taksim Square in Istanbul, so few streets behind the square they were preparing to hit the parade, so i got these 2 pictures.

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fr_france_flag.jpgTo my knowledge, almost 80% of the kids starting school in Lebanon, go to French schools like myself and everyone i know around me and during these school years english courses are taken. On the other hand, when they reach university level, most of the Lebanese prefer to go to english universities because of their courses system, called the American system.

Yesterday something caught me regarding the difference of letters quantity between french and english words with same meaning, below are the famous three ones I got:

Maintenant (10 letters) = Now (3 letters)
Prochainement (13 letters) = Soon (4 letters)
Aujourd’hui (10 letters) = Today (5 letters)

And while writing this post, something also came up but vice-versa

Yesterday (9 letters) = Hier (4 letters)

Allez les Bleus & Vive la France !!!

Cairo has a metropolitan area population of officially about 16.1 million people and is the twelfth most populous metropolitan area in the world. It is also the most populous metropolitan area and the most populous city in Africa.

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