Bonjourno!

This is some footage of a one-day trip to Rome back in July 2011. Here I recorded our tour to The Coliseum.

Enjoy

Peace to you

Here’s another episode of my trips. This trip was in Budapest, the capital of Hungary. My Hungarian friends invited me and my friend Ibrahim to a horse race which was for free but was a great experience as it was my first time ever to watch a race live. How intense we become when we’re actually in the race field.

So as I stated in the video, out of mere coincidence—well I don’t believe in coincidence—there was a Kuwaiti rider! Unfortunately we couldn’t say hello to him. I’m sure we were the only Kuwaitis there!

The experience was very nice and the audience were all people from the countryside of Hungary, kind of traditional Hungarians.

I hope you enjoyed. Thanks for being here. Shine your lights!

Salam means peace in Arabic. ‘Salam Alaykum’ is the greeting of Muslims, meaning ‘Peace be upon you’. Salam Groups is a concept developed by Dr. Salah Alrashed to reinforce peaceful life philosophy around the world.

The concept has started back in 2009 on Dr. Salah Facebook page. As part of Salam International, a non-profit organization dedicated to spreading peace, love, and enlightenment, Dr. Salah suggested that every group of people within a certain city gathers once a week and just have a walk together wearing a blue scarf. The blue scarf represents peace and oneness.

In less than a year, Salam groups have been growing. As for now, there is a Salam group in more than 30 different cities around the world! Starting from Kuwait, Saudi Arabia (multiple cities), Palestine and Israel (multiple cities), Algeria (multiple cities), Qatar, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Egypt, Tunisia, Singapore, Paris, Morocco (multiple cities), Sudan, and others.

Friendship and Peace Park, Kuwait, with Dr. Salah Alrashed.

Al-Azhar Park, Cairo, with Dr. Ahmad Emara.

Eiffel Tower Park, Paris.

The very basic premise that Salam groups are working on is that small acts of peace & development make huge impacts on our planet. By gathering on a regular basis; having a peaceful walk; being surrounded by an enlightened environment that stimulates us to be genuine; focusing on the good things in life; only by doing that, we are changing the world! We are not following any kind of a religious sect or a political party, we are men and women of different ages, different nationalities, and different walks of life. One thing that brings us all together, that is, we seek peace, tolerance, and genuine living. We—unlike the majority—are not absent, we’re not taken over by thoughts, ideologies, others’ plans, others’ dramas; we are awake, we know what we’re here for, and we work on our missions peacefully.

We call for conscious living, green projects, and joy of life. One of the amazing projects that we—Salam Group Kuwait—have participated in and seen its blossom step by step is Kuwait Oasis. It is a non-profit project lead by an inspiring Kuwaiti person, Khaled Alkulaib, that aims for making Kuwait go green by simply calling people who go camping during the winter time to plant little trees and leave them grow.

I, as one participant of Salam Group Kuwait, would like to thank Dr. Salah for being such an inspiring mentor, for making us realize our choices in life, and for making us believe that we truly can change the world by changing our worlds within.

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Note: All pictures are taken from Salam Groups Facebook pages.

Hallo! That’s how they greet you in Austria.

It’s been SO LONG since I posted a video. Well here’s one from my last summer trip to Austria. We visited Vienna for 3 days.

I am not a fan of crowded cities (such as, Vienna, Paris, London, etc.), I’d rather go to quite villages and experience their culture. But anyways I like it and I like the weatherrr!

I went with my dear friend, Ibrahim Alqattan. He never showed here because he was the cameraman.

The building we were at was an aquarium in Vienna. It was about 9 floors and we were at the top of it. The view was amazing!

Salam.

I visited the beautiful little town of Saint-Émilion with two friends, Rania from Morocco and Noor from Lebanon. Rania is fluent in French, and that was very helpful.

This footage was a visit to a château inside a cave where they produce different kinds of wine. No I don’t drink, thanks for asking.

Hello there!

This is me again playing piano in a hotel in Kandy (Sri Lanka). Actually, although this was the crappiest hotel we stayed at (it was 2-star), we really enjoyed its atmosphere and simplicity. We had this band that I showed in the first video singing for us for about an hour. And, the buffet was cool and very simple. And most importantly, they allowed me to play their piano haha

So, I know, I’m not that good, but here I go. Enjoy.

Peace.

Bonjour!

So here’s another episode of my trips in France. We went to two French famous cities, Montpellier and Lyon. Both are nice! In this trip I went with my two dear friends Fatih from Turkey and Orsi from Hungary. It was a five-day trip.

I missed the train because of a strike that took place that day, public bus-drivers stopped working! This is very normal in France; every other day they have a strike, like sometimes teachers, other times bus-drivers, and so on. It’s called ‘grève’ in French.  I called a taxi, but it went awful as usual; I don’t speak French and they don’t speak English. It ended up that I walked for almost one hour to get to another bus stop to get to the train station.  I paid little extra and changed the time for my ticket and finally met my friends there!

Oh and that church in Lyon, I loved it I spent a peaceful time there. And if you wonder what those little buildings were @02:08, it was a small museum.

My friend’s name, Fatih, is an Arabic name. It means ‘the conquerer’. He sounds funny when he pronounces it in Arabic!

Cheers

Bonjour.

During my stay in France, my school had arranged a trip to DisneyLand Paris. We were about 80 students divided into two private buses. It was a two-day trip; first day was in DisneyLand and the second was free tour in Paris.

I love Disney; I love Disney characters; I love Disney songs; I love the values they promote, however I was disappointed by DisneyLand Paris. There weren’t much shows going on, plus the games were boring, and also the stores were not so fancy. But to be honest, the reason there were not much shows was the snow. It was end of December, The Christmas, and it was snowing and raining, so that’s why.

Anywho, I loved my visit there with friends and colleagues.

@00:55 Jenni and Orsi were teasing me by asking “you feel like home?” when we approached Aladdin’s place. Jenni even took a picture of me at that place. You think Kuwait is like this? Okay whatever :@

Au revoir

So, yeah, we visited several landmarks like la Tour Eiffel, the Champs-Élysées, couple of historical palaces, Notre Dame de Paris, and my favorite of all, Musée du Louvre.

The weather was cold back then! I don’t remember but was under 10 degrees.

Anyways here’s a picture of the two of us in l’entrée (French for ‘the entrance’) of the Louvre. For those who don’t know what it is, it’s the most beautiful and rich museum in the world although I’m not a fan of museums at all.

The museum is so huge that it has multiple floors and in each floor there’re halls for different historical eras. My favorite era was The Babylonian (Old Iraq. No; the very-old civilization of Iraq). It’s breathtaking, it even gives you a feeling of holiness when you witness these ancient original pieces. Can you believe these original pieces are more than 3,500 years old? Take for example these two horses with a man face here.

I also admired Old Europe section. See the next picture, it’s about prophet Joseph, the son of Jacob. It’s SO INTERESTING! Christian and Islamic traditional stories have a lot in common; they absolutely come from one source. I really enjoyed reading the description of this painting. It demonstrates the part of the story where Joseph’s 11 brothers come to Egypt begging him after he had become a minister.

I got to say, this museum needs a full-day visit; we stayed for around three hours and it wasn’t enough.

Here’s a picture of my brother feeding a pigeon.

And here, myself in Jardin des Tuileries, which is a beautiful famous park in Paris that has a fountain in the middle of it.

And.. La Tour Eiffel.. Boring LOL

Here’s me in front of Notre Dame de Paris, the amazing famous Parisian church. Oh I wished that I have met Quasimodo there! (come on Saad. He is not real ><) Well, according to the critics of Victor Hugo’s novel, the story is not true but it’s still arguable that there was a real hunchback who lived alone at the top of this church.

And the last picture is me sadly going back home to Bordeaux at night. I booked a first-class train ticket for my return, that’s why no one was sitting beside me

By the way, here’s my brother’s official Twitter account. He tweets about public policies and local Kuwaiti political issues.

I hope you enjoyed. Thanks for your visit

Salam!

Today is the 25th day of the holy month of Ramadhan. I wish you all—whether Muslims or non-Muslims—blissful times during what’s left, and hope your wishes come true. May you all be closer to God, to The Light and The Peace.

This is part two of my hilarious trip to Sri Lanka in 2009. I love my friends

In this video you’ll see random situations. I love this country it’s so peaceful and yet adventurous.

I didn’t include any background music on purpose; I wanted you to hear nature’s sound, birds and wind.. Oh.. Really beautiful.

Peace.