A Band...

Renting an apartment on the ground floor might not be as bad as living on the 8^th floor when you have a wooden frame windows like my apartment in Sweden, where wind is a religion, so I get to wake up every day annoyed by that noise coming from cracking windows, but as I always say “I wish if it’s the worst that can happen”,  and by saying this I realize that this thing is really not a problem, IN fact I started to enjoy it, I just need a couple of guitarists, a singer, and this noise and we can be a band!...

Today is “Midsommar” in Sweden, which means the Middle of Summer, it’s a festival where people celebrate for seeing the sun after a long time, so its summer officially! People gather themselves in parks and start to dance and sing in groups, and as my friend Mag said “It’s the only time you will see Swedes dancing and singing without being drunk!”, it’s true, and it looks fabioules, it reflects the ancient culture of Sweden, especially after the dance when friends and families gather for a dinner and eat Herring Fish and Potato, then they serve spirit drinks!

Unfortunately, I wasn’t a part of it this year, though I wanted to dance and jump, and let this Herring fish bones stuck in my throat and try to swallow it with a shot of Vodka! But you need to be a part of the family or a really close friend to join the house gathering, and I think it will take a lot of time to have such a relationship in Sweden, and here where I lit a cigarette, and thought for a while, in 9 months in Sweden, Couldn’t make such a close friend? How long will take if I want to? What is the time period of achieving friendship in Sweden Standards? Is it really that hard? Living alone is an option? Is it the lifestyle here, or I am being sensitive?

Apart from my working life, and being a single guy in a city full of blondes, having a good friend is the least what I can try to achieve, while failure means a depressing social life in a cold country, and to avoid failing by achieving the desired goal as  having friends who invite you to such an event you will need to work hard for it, first is to break the language barrier, you will have to speak Swedish same way they do, yes they can speak English fluently, but they would appreciate your good Swedish more, no matter how they tell you that they prefer to speak English, but that’s for a day or two, but won’t make you have a really good friendship.

The lifestyle is Sweden is really different from any other country in the world, I mean Swedes are really busy with their own life not concentrating on emotions, it might shock you seeing two old friends meet by coincidence in a shopping mall and just wave to each other’s humbling “Hi”, there is no hugging and kissing like Arabs, or no shoulder tapping like Italians, there is no “where the F#$% have you been” like in UK, if you are lucky and made him a favor earlier you would probably get “How is it going?”. I am aiming for more; I don’t consider that a friendship if there was no caring, or at least pretending it!

It will defiantly take a long time to have a really close friend that you can call “Buddy” or you can really believe that if you face a problem he will be there, even if he can’t help, but he will think it through with you, and suggest you what to do, a friend who will call you NOT only when he wants to party and has no company, a friend who his family will call you if they can’t reach him because they know that you can somehow, I mean a good friend, who invites you to celebrate with him the “Midsommar”!

I saw happy people singing and dancing today, and I realized how music can affect people, it can make them gothic, or it can make them believers, and it’s a way to change the people mentality, I always wanted to make a band, to sing for the life, for the friendship and love, for a major change, to point at the community faults, and sing it out loud, make people repeat it, and have it as a logo… maybe it’s the time to start a band! I play Guitar, and my cracking wooden windows are the Drummer, I just need a Singer…

Make Love NOT War...

One of my favorite activities in the morning is to drink coffee and watch the news, I really like to be updated on what’s going on in the world, and it really made me sad seeing how bad the situation in the middle east, but we all pray for a better democratic life, and then there was a political person who was saying that he created a group on Facebook about some revolution issue, and here it is, the Facebook witness! And as some of you know that all the arrangement in the Egyptian revolution was done on Facebook! Not even that, but also the updates and the elections!

Last weekend I was at a club with a couple of friends, I believe that I had a good time dancing with a beautiful blonde, and just when I was about to leave I asked her if I can meet her again, she smiled took my mobile phone and wrote something, I thought it’s her mobile phone number but it was her Facebook account, and she said “Add me”! Well, I did and I hope that this will go somewhere if I poke her two or three times!

While I was checking my friends status updates I got a popped up chat conversation from a girl who had a house party I was enjoying last weekend, and she was asking me about my friend if he is seeing someone or if he is in a relationship, it turned out that she is in love with him and she wanted to express her feelings to me on Facebook…Sweet… so I witnessed a very beautiful blonde crying on her lost love over a man who is my friend that doesn’t care for her, or probably just want to have fun at the moment…

It’s really becoming strange to me and not fitting inside my brain, I mean three different situations with one application that can solve them all without even going out of your door step! So it had me thinking, how can I fix that poor blonde with my friend through Facebook? will the next Egypt president have a Facebook and start to poke people? With the same tool, can you make peace, or war? If I have an unprotected Facebook sex with that dancing queen blonde, will my sun look like Mark Zuckerberg?

Let’s think positive, if such an application is available to everyone then I am sure that we can achieve a lot of useful things, like questioners for example, instead of standing in front of the malls and asking people about a certain topic, or polls about what people think, why don’t Facebook get registered with governments so it will be like an address? I think it will help in so many things and will take it from social website to a helpful website; at least it won’t be banned from offices!

Yes Technology meant to help people to live an easy life, and I don’t think it will get easier than dating online, you are just one click away to meet your dream princess, and it’s even easier to tell your children about it, so there is no more stories like “I was wounded in the civil war and your mother was the nurse”, it’s just “I poked her, and she poked back!”, Men won’t even be scared anymore of rejection or a water spilled on their face in a fancy restaurant, the maximum you will get is a block, which is nothing comparing to embarrassing moments I had before all these dating websites, at least now I don’t even have to worry about that blonde, because I can search for a lot of them, add them, and flirt with them, and definitely, first come first serve…

If Revaluations started with Facebook Pages, I think relationships is easier to start, and It’s cheaper because there is no dinner involved, and the only drink she gets is a digital Möet, but I am really hoping that this application will lead us somewhere we can achieve useful things, or to lead us to somewhere we can make love NOT war… and now you have to excuse me because someone has poked me and his finger is still stuck in my…..screen…

War...

Sleeping time for most of the people is the time where they go to bed and sleep, but if you have a brain that works in the night, then sleeping time is the torturing time, and that’s what happens to me every single day, I just try to sleep and simply my brain start to work and think about everything, and with everything I mean everything, even about my neighbor starving cat!. Insomnia, it’s the worst thing that can happen to you when you are tired or you have next day appointment.

After several tries I slept, and next day there was a surprise for me, the day I never wanted it to come, or I at least not at the age of 27… My first white hair! Just on the side, long, brave, raising, and daring me “Hey, you are not young anymore!” well, I have to admit that I got depressed for 30 seconds, then I was fine after I pulled it off and flush it in the toilet watching it begging me to take care of its future kids! And I decided to take that war against the white hair knowing that failure is not possible, winning is what I’m good at, and I won’t let a stupid white hair stopping me from leaving home with a 22 years old college girl to tell her about my Architectural achievements.

I reached to this point, where age passed fast without giving me the chance to notice, there was no further alarm, or warning, just a white popping hair at a sudden, and I can’t even remember when did I turn 27, I thought I will be stuck at the age of 25, actually I still believe that I’m 25 not caring what my passport says, or how many candles on my birthday cake, in fact I think it’s Karma, or sort of punishment, because I used to look for white hair in my father’s hair and say “daddy, you got one here, ohh and another one here!” what a mean kid I was…Forgive me dad!

I went to have a coffee in a fancy place where all teenagers go to drink coca cola, ordered my double espresso and sat on the corner reminiscing my teenage, and how I was so fresh and active in everything, without having a problem to sleep, or a lying mirror showing me a white hair, I really wished to go back to 18, but then I knew the secret of success is self-satisfaction, and there I went with my thoughts, how did it happen all at a sudden? How did I grow up this fast? Are white hair measure age? Or does your soul? Will a Wella solve that issue and make you young again?

Routine is something I never knew in my old life in Dubai, every day is a different day with different timings for everything, but since I’m here in Sweden, I noticed that I’m a routine person, I eat at the same time every day, and I shower every day at the same time, so I figured that is one reason that I can’t remember how did I spend a year in Sweden, typical days actions make it look very similar that almost it looks like one day, and if you also add the less actions according to Sweden lifestyle, then it’s solved, that was the two reasons that I can’t really figure out how did that last year pass so fast.

A normal joyful person who love this life with all its meanings definitely wants his life to pass very slowly and enjoy every second of it, though it will pass anyway, and everything have an expiry date, even humans, but how to convince yourself is the problem, and to solve that you need to not think about it by doing more interesting things in your life and break the routine if you have it in your life, at least like what Swedes do, they don’t walk the dog in the same time every day, they make it interesting by taking the dog to a different park to leak on a different tree every day, and I can imagine what a feeling it gives the dog!

I decided to color my hair when I get old, or maybe the next white hair that I see, but what counts is the soul, like my friend Roland, 63 and scores 22, he is a legend, and I believe that despite your hair color, you should have a young soul that smiles all the time and sings with the birds in the morning, you will have that when you have a self-satisfaction, you will always know that every age has it’s activity, and you will stop cutting off the white hair and flush it in the toilet… and you will go to sleep like a baby when you have suffered Insomnia…and that’s what I will do tonight…

Folks, I was Wrong, I'm telling you...

Every flag has a story that reflects the culture and the philosophy of its country, people wave it in football matches and many other events, the story of each flag tells you the whole history of the country in few colors mixed together, let’s take Sweden as an example, blue is the symbol of Loyalty and the yellow cross shape represents the generosity…

The color meanings are history, but what reminds me of the present in Swedish flag is people’s looks which I personally think that it represent their flag, or it reminds me of it, especially when I take a walk and look at the native Swedes, I see them in yellow and blue, and I think that if I take a picture of any one of them, print it on a fabric and put a stick to it and wave, I will be representing Sweden. They are all with blue eyes, and a yellow hair, just like their flag…

In such a cold country, when somebody calls you to go out and have fun, then do it because it doesn’t happen so often, and that’s what I did when Magnus called me, I just left all the work that I had to do, showered, wore the nice clothes and went to meet him, we had fun walking near the beach and later on, the beer made it more fun, actually it started when he said “Let’s go clubbing”…

The best part of clubbing in Sweden that you will definitely meet and socialize with a lot of people, specially blondes, and that’s exactly what I did, I socialized with Swedish flags, but it went somehow far that I met an interesting, NOT drunk girl that I really like the way she talks, winks and not dance because I didn’t see her dancing as we spend the whole night sitting on the stairs beside the bar where it’s just little quite to talk, and I can’t even forget how beautiful she was with all her natural pink lips, and soft skin, well, I admit, she mesmerized me, ohh yes she did!

The party is over, time to go home, and yes, she is joining me which could have made  my score higher in my playing book, but I chose not to add her to the list because I thought she is different, and such an interesting person, which she proved it. We reached home and all what we did was watching the TV, nothing more but some warm feelings giving it to each other, folks, I’m telling you that it was amazing, but the feeling didn’t answer my questions, Shall I go ahead, try to expand this feeling and change its location to the bedroom? Or shall I be patient and get her number before she leaves and tell her that I would love to meet her again? What if she refuses? What if she was like the rest of women who I had for a night? And why I’m good at telling my friends GEV and Sherif “bang her, just do it, do it for me” and I can’t do it for myself this time?

To answer all my questions I had to try kissing her from the cheek and go for more till she stops me and that was what she did after the cheeks level which gave me the feeling that I was mistaken to try, folks, again I was wrong, so I decided to make jokes about the situation to clear the miss understanding, and at that time I remember that she was laying on my chest, watching the TV and scratching my arms in a sexy way…Folks, I was confused, I’m telling you…

Around 7 am, it was the time she wanted to leave, so I walked her out and had a smoke with her till her bus came, and she left while I was looking at her sitting in the bus, what a romantic sight!, or that’s what I felt, and folks, I was wrong again, because that was the last time I saw her, she never returned any of my calls, or messages, and I can’t find any reason for that, I even wish to know what made her change her mind and break her promise of calling me after she woke up. Since then, I knew that my ability to resist such a blonde is semi-impossible, so I decided to keep a distance between me and this scary creature and announce my surrender, folks, I was wrong, and that was the story of the White Flag…True Story…

Meet Jemy...

A beautiful Saturday deserves a nice walk, and that’s exactly what I did after I finished drinking my coffee in the morning, and since it was sunny I decided also to go out only with a jumper refusing to wear my jacket knowing the fact that I might regret it, but I did it anyway to convince myself that feeling cold is a not that huge problem according to my other problems, at least it’s easier than asking my blonde neighbor out for a dinner.

On the way down in the elevator, it stopped to see a young 13 years old girl came in with a smile and the regular “Hej” and came all the way down with me to the ground level, once we opened the building main door she turned to me and asked me gently, “Can I have a cigarette?”, first how did she know that I smoke, and second she is hardly 13 which make her illegal to smoke, so definitely I refused to give her and told her an advice that probably she forgot it the moment she went on her way...Why would she listen, I am still not listening…

After I got my milk from the store waiting the line to pay for it, I witnessed a warm meeting between a woman and a man in their middle 30 who seemed to be out of touch for a long time, like they were a college couples or something, and they started to speak about what they are doing in their lives, and how they have been. Once they reached the exit she said to him “meet Jemy”, yes, jemy was that black scary dog who was barking outside the store, and I could see that jemy didn’t like the guy, so she started shouting at jemy asking him to sit down and to stop barking, but let’s say in a bad way.

The minute I came up with the elevator back to my apartment I knew that there is a connection between the girl who asked me for the cigarette, and Jemy the dog, with a second cup of coffee my mind started giving me some questions like, How many times the girl’s father shouted at her for smoking? Why didn’t I listen to my father when he also shouted? Can Jemy be more obedient than me and the 13 years old kid? Is adopting a pet considered to be the right way that makes human control others because they can’t control their kids? Is it like Sadism? Or a way of it? Ok, what happens if Jemy don’t obey his master, and what happens if the girl doesn’t listen to her parents?

Being raised in a middle eastern country where most of fathers prefer the old classical way of raising a teenager like kicking butts when necessary made me believe that it’s not the right way, but seeing your 13 years old kid smoking definitely make you get mad that you might do any stupid thing to stop it, at least if you really care, and having a dog won’t solve the issue of your kids not listening to you. I have a friend who is really bad to his dog, he puts for him the food and ask him not to eat until he says so while when he cooks for his kids they don’t listen to him and they just start eating while he is washing the left over dishes!, I can’t even believe it that when he is mad at his kids he says to them that he loves the dog more for being behaved more than them! And he is more discipline!

The one thing that was a mystery to me is why would a family get a dog when they have their own children, other than protection reason? Which a man himself can take care of that, to me it was un reasonable to see a woman French-kissing a Bulldog in the middle of the park and few minutes later she kisses the guy next to her on the bench while the kid is sleeping in the stroller, well, if there is that much of love in the parents hearts they should give it all to the kid not sharing it with a dog just because he shake his tail, obey them more, and easier to get rid of it when it pees on their luxury sofa. Definitely I am not saying to be rude with animals, but they shouldn’t be on the top of the list neither sharing the love parents.

The girl, and the dog has almost the same life style when it comes about being home, except that the girl has to wash dishes sometimes while the dog bark when the elevator beeps, and probably if they both lived in the same house, the dog might be more lovable to the parents just because it sits when asked to do… well, in my opinion splitting the love you have in your heart between a dog and your own kid is more rude than beating them to make them stop smoking…Eller hur?

Quitting Chess...

I usually keep myself busy with a lot of things like my Job, future planning, and social life, but when I am not busy, then its “Chess Time”, the one which comes along with Microsoft Windows that I really enjoy,  and I always try to break the highest record which is really hard that is making me tired of it and about to give up and let it go, because sometimes it doesn’t seem right, or it’s not making any sense to beat up a computer which is designed to be smarter than the human minds, sometimes I feel that the computer knows what is my next step according to the possibilities theory.

In chess as most of you know, there is two armies, black and white, and they are fighting all the time, a battle between life and death, and there where I paused the game and took a look at the screen when I was about to checkmate, and gave a thought about it, can I click on the queen and ask her to shake the king’s hand and say “Let’s Be Friends”? And why he didn’t turn the other cheek for me to slap as Jesus said? Or can she say “hey, I am throwing a party, you can bring all your knights so they can mingle with my Bishops!” What an amazing game it will be when the king says to the queen “I get the door, ladies first”.

I thought of quitting chess, because I realized that it teaches me how to fight and even have the tactics of letting the enemy down and checkmate him with no mercy, and attack him from different angles, and also it sounded racist! Why it’s black and white? Why they are not red and blue? Why always the white looks innocent in it? And the black is the devilish ones that you have to attack and get the evil out of the table, oh my God, that’s exactly United Stated of America in 1950’s or Denmark in 1990’s and Sweden in 2000’s, where the whites are the right ones, and anything else is evil and shall not be welcomed...

It’s a topic that every Swede avoid to discuss with anybody, even with himself, so he is not willing to know the truth neither he cares about it as long as he is living happy, but what if the white people are the devilish ones? According my friend Roland who is a native Swede that Swedes in Trelleborg were known for smuggling cigarettes and Alcohol in 1950’s, which means they were all white, or was it considered as a few good people doing favors to each other’s? It confuses me sometimes the way people are grouped in Sweden, and makes me feel like there are two groups, one is evil, and the other is the kind innocent one.

Having friends from all over the world make you learn cultures, and understand people thinking, which will lead you to improve your way of living according to other’s experiences, and thanks to my friend from Azerbaijan who taught me how to cook scrambled eggs using water instead of oil, actually it helped me the other day when I had no oil and I was so hungry, so there is nothing bad of being a friend with somebody who comes from another culture, actually it helps you in many ways.

I remember when I was living in Dubai between that huge number of mixed races and cultures, everybody like everybody, and everybody is invited to some friend home to taste his ethnic food, and a few imported drinks, that was fun, I wish if I can do that here, and if everybody here in Sweden try to get more involved with other cultures and see the beautiful things in it, and not to think that there is two group of people, and one of them is Evil that must be avoided, which will lead the other group to feel the same and then it’s going nowhere…

So, Here I am, Quitting chess, I don’t want to fight, I want to shake the Knight’s hand, hang out with the pawns, and have a night with the queen, hoping that one day I start the game to see all the elements are in gray…

Nice People...

A fine weather, and sunny day, everybody go out... some people prefer to reach their destination by walk instead of driving a car or taking the bus to enjoy the sun which was absent for the past few months, it's true, I usually do that when I see the sun, I get that feeling of a kid when he sees a chocolate cake with candles and parents singing "Happy Birthday". grown up in a city like Dubai where the winter is hotter than Sweden's summer made me realize that hell could be cold NOT hot!, who can survive Sweden's winter he can definitely enjoy hell!

I played "House and Trance" on my IPod while I took a walk going nowhere just aiming to enjoy the sunny day and to express my feeling to the sun, to say how much I missed you dear "sun", and it seemed to me that it's not only me who misses the sun but a lot of people do, actually everybody do but have a different feeling of expressing it, like that guy who is sitting on the bench topless and spreading his arms like if he needs to hug the sun...This is Love... or like that beautiful blonde with the bikini laying on the grass in the park and all her body parts are spread wishing if the sun is Vin Diesel...This is Romance...

The great fact about good weather psychology is that everybody turn to be nice, everybody stand in the crowded bus and let you sit down, and everybody smile at your face in the streets as if they know you and haven't seen you around for a very long time, you made them miss you, bad you! I honestly understand that there are nice people everywhere, but when all that happened to me in one day, taking in consideration the beautiful blonde who smiled innocently at my face, I realized that all happened because of the Sun! Because when they saw the sun, they decided to share the love with everybody.

Every time somebody show me his smile in a sunny day, I do smile back but I humble It’s the sun", it's like when you graduate you throw a party and suddenly you invite everyone, even your Ex who you hate the most. I am not complaining, but I just wondered, why when it's hot "especially in Sweden" people are Extra Nice? If we consider that hell is hot, so are there nice people in hell? Or was Buddha right when he said that Hell is the coldest place ever? Does it make the heaven hot? Where all the nice people are?

Sweden's winter is tough, and the summer is so nice, well, it seems like heaven and hell, but in a smaller scale, you get to see everything colorful in summer and dull in winter, even the people, they turn cold and no more smiles from the blondes, and it's dark all the time, and I also think that atheist believe in heaven and hell but in the smaller scale, so the guilty people should live in Siberia, and the good people should have a hut in Miami beach!

Having nice people around makes you feel happy and full of joy, at least it increases the chances of leaving home with a girl that is a way out of your league, and getting free shots from the bar tender "some times", it will also make you realize that in a fine weather, and a sunny day, everybody go out...and everybody is nice.