Sinful hand

People are boarding on flight 818 from Riyadh to Dubai. A saudi woman, exausted for the long week, lays her hand on the top of the seat in front of me. Curious, I start staring and her hand, so close to my eyes. The woman notices it, and wrapped her hands in her black dress, furiously highlighting her movements to show me her disappointment and shame. Or just to sweetly warn me not to look at her hand...

Shisha outside Riyadh

The highway heads East, outside of town. Buildings in Ryiadh suburbs are obscure, with few small embrasures on the wall. Private spaces adsorbe private family life.
Outside the city, shisha is allowed. Large tends are structured to host guests. Coal warms the space. Noise from TVs. Solitare man smoking in front of Egyptian dancers. Tens of TVs. Lights and colors, songs, speeches and chronicles. Experts handle hot coal, trimmimg it in small pieces and position them on the edges of aluminium support, far from the small holes from which I breath.

leaf

with a pale yellow lacost shirt and sage trousers my wife asked me to stay away as I look like an Autumn leaf.
Ouch !

friends

Friends, one of the most misused word-
Always smiles. Often sorrow, envy.
Friends are the one you like. Full stop.
The persons are right for you, the persons you want to meet no matter what.
The smiles you want to receive.
The hands you want to shake, because you need their warmth-
warm hands, shiny smiles.
friendship so difficoult to describe, so easy to immagine
so easy, so easy to betray, to trust, to enjoy, to smile at.
friedship in reality is so uneasy !
what is this about? common experience? common hugs?
unexpected hugs?
friendship is a pupil which doesn't lie or overpromise. Which warms the winter when it is needed, which gives energy at the last moment, when people think you are lost !

Power and good

People are paid by cash, almost everywhere. People work, people receive cash, as a reward of their power.
Power writers are rich, some good writers are poor.
Power journalists are extremely wealthy, some good journalists are unemployed.
Good managers are power managers, good bankers are supposed to be power bankers.
Power is good, or it is supposed to be so

Mahler 5

On Emirates music programm Pierre Boulez directed Mahler 5 symphony is delighting my ears. Two weeks after watching stunning Death in Venice, Luchino Visconti masterpiece, I hear the adagietto 10,000 meters above the gulf sea after a long working week.
Suddenly Venice streets, burning of cholera and of passion, seem so close. Sand of Lido in the palm of my hand.
Still searching for the meaning of beauty ...

last images flowing in the dark

Memories of ancestors grow olds and fade in youngster’s minds. Slowly young fellows start rusting. New generations start growing older and older.
Memories of ancestors buried deeper and deeper. Finally the last survivor witness of a man from another ages passes away.
Memories disrupted.
There is a line, 70 years after death, which marks the final end of remaining memories of a man. Like life, memories die every day, slowly, until they remain in a last survivor, hidden in a senior brain, almost unreachable.
And useless.

Unknown tears

How many emails you received have been written by someone with tears in his/her eyes?
How many time did you suspect crying behind a message?
Tears inside ascii letters are invisible but pure as angels' souls

Istanbul in TV colors

Life in the desert and in the land surrounded by extensive masses of dust and sand is opaque. Dubai dense humidity is also a factor. After living more than one month with a misty horizon, Istanbul landscape is even more impressing. Clear air, probably only relatively pure, lets my eyes see the old town with a forgotten clearity.

Back to Istanbul, Europe

Thursday, July the 3rd I am back to Europe after 44 days. On the West coast of Bosphorus lays the European side of Istanbul. I am back to the Turkish capital after 12 years.
Back in 1996 on a dirty white truck I crossed eastern Europe with other eight friends to cruise to Anatholia. 1996, Atlanta olympic games, Micheal Johnson flying for 200 meters in 19.32 secs. Through one of the first mobile I asked my mom the results of track and fields.
Vegetation and weather are familiar. Far from the extreme heat in Arabic peninsula, green hills with large trees. Perfumes of Mediterranean accompanies the sun through the long July day.
Istanbul, for centuries the bridge from the East to the West, welcomes me for this short adventure in Europe. Far memories of adolescence and friendship make warmer and sweeter the weekend.

White eyes in white buses

A float of white buses carry the army of construction workers aroud Dubai. From the suburbs to the developing areas, a continuous flow of blue dressed pakistani is the blood thet feed Dubai.
Tired faces directed home, white wounded eyes looking for few hours of rest.
24 hours a day, 7 days a week endless motion. Thousands miles from Lahore, Islamabad, Karachi and more small communities from Punjab to the north, thousands miles reflected in their opaque espression, in their dusty beards.
Colors and spices of Pakistan become empty sweat. Still their big white eyes look outside the dirty windows of the buses, over the horizon, without destination.

Sand

On a 767 from UAE to Saudi Arabia. Sea colors are pure and innocent but the coast shapes nervous and bizzare. Many dessalinator plants work furiously to provide urgent and impelling Saudi needs. Thirtsy and sandy land. Once the plane start flying over the desert, the earth becomes invisible. Pale yellow clouds, wind and sand. Nothing for thousands of kilometers, until Riyadh.
Wind in Saudi brings dust everywhere. Warm and sandy air through my nostrils on the way back to my hotel.

Kingdom Centre, Riyadh

It's a typical early June day in the Saudi Arabia capital. Dust and humidity, dense air covers the city. Kingdom Centre is a giant shadow very far away, but as the cab moves towards the skyscraper, it becomes cristalline and soft. Shopping malls colored neons start to shine as the sunset approaches. Kingdome Centre reveals its unusual geometries, tough angles and imaginative surfaces. Riyadh is imponent, friendly and calm. Its peaceful soul just asks to be discovered.

Hard Rock cafe, Dubai, Sunday night

Sunday working day very long. 830pm I need a legendary epic-burger. 100 meter from my office Hard Rock cafe, Dubai.
Two 10-meter-tall guitars stand in front of the main entrance.
Unlucky selection of videos during my quick meal, including Cinderella (oh !) and a special dancing event with all the HRC staff shaking their bodies randomly and hazily with the luxurious rithm of 'Cadillac-eye Joe', the techno legendary song by Rednex.
On my left a Kevin-Spacey-looking guy stares at me while I am divoring my burger.
Some turists are loosing their time here. For me it's enought to go back working

St. Moritz and Aspen reunited, Emirates Mall

Snow falls gently night time. Nearby St. Moritz cafe's fireplaces broadcast fire.
Yes, that's what they do, they simply broadcast fire.
Aspen cafe, close to Virgin Megastore, is much more quiet. And cozier.
Curry smell covers the restaurant area, Burger King is surrounded by felafel and kebabs.
Emirates mall teaches skying lessons. Sells original French baguettes, videogames.
A slightly more commercial version of Disneyland, where kids are safely shaken by a gigantic robot hand.
Never ending, always surprising, shiny, immaculate and fresh.
Sky-lift operate until 11pm. From the terrace of T.G.I.F. a phenomenal view of the slopes.
Outside, still 100 Farenheit, dust, and the first shadows of the night.

Nuran Greens residence, Dubai

The noise of air conditioning cannot be dumped by my soft pillows. Laying in my bed, thinking abount this Sunday. The tears in the airport. The cold in the airplane. The heat in the taxi line in Dubai.
Le lights of the new city. The malls, the hotels.
The stars.
The middle east, and the gulf area.
Too many emotions to sleep, I calmly eat a banana in front of the tv. Satellite brings me Rai1, and whispers from Italy.

Moving on: Barcelona, MBA graduation, Dubai

After last Friday MBA graduation cerimony, University's campus was very quiet. Gone are hundreds of couples of parents who came from every part of the world to live this emotion with their promising children. Gone are the heavy rains, the queues for the cabs. Gone are the parties.
Gome are my very last two years as a student.
Walking around the campus I felt absolutely quiet. Fruits and jems of the MBA are ready to be caught. No more a student, I automatically feel distant from the working rooms, from the cafeteria, from all the facilities. I am a guest, walking around, during a holyday, in a desert University.
Desert in front of me. Arabic peninsula is waiting for me.
I will land in Dubai next Sunday, and will start working in ten days.
No more a student, I am ready to move on. Time will bring me some wiseness and some reflections on the MBA experience. For now, I am just thankfull.

MBA graduation eve

In computer lab, pretending it's just another day.
Some students checking email, knowing it's just the last day.
Some partents visiting campus, feeling it's really a special day.
Wind and heavy clouds won't make the Dean sleep tonight.
It must be a sunny day. Melanchony will come later, when I will close all my baggages. It will be just another maniac Monday !

From St. David to Rothko

Large field of light colors in the South West coast of Wales.
I flow through capillars from Newgale to Little Haven. Horses staring at the sea, enormous spaces, sand and wind.
Yellow are the flowers of Wales.
Dark purple the paints of Rothko in Tate Modern.
Shallow light, deep intimate. Four hundred miles between chromatic solitude, sweet and cold spaces.
Some colors are free, enigmatic. Others are stored, for the future.

Pembroke

Last grasp of Wales is the castle of Pembroke. Ruins of white sand rich of history. Quick clouds run over the fortress.
Ice creams are already for sale. It rains and my trip in Wales is over.
Main objectives of the trip:

emotions
images

Both linked to nature, soil and tradition. Driving, too much, from place to place, I found warm rooms and solitude, for this time, an unwanted emotion.
Sweet smerald green landscape, rusty walls. Warlocks and wizards are finally resting.