Eilat and Jaffa

For working a year on a project now long finished and judged very successful by my employer, I have been offered a 4 days trip to Eilat's "Club Med" for 2. L&L joined us on the trip so we enjoyed the blazing sun, the beach activities and hotel facilities together.
We had some fun snorkeling around the coral beach there, but it left me all sad to see that despite the conservation efforts by the National parks authority, the reef was not very populated anymore and not as nice as what we had experienced in Hawaii or Colombia. It was still nice but a bitter sunburn on my back reminded me that even with cream I'd better not play too much under the sun...

We spent some time at the local aquarium which was kind of showing what we should have been seeing under water by ourselves. It was a great occasion to try "underwater" photography and you can check some of the samples here.


The next weekend H&R had invited us to join them in Jaffa, so we had a very nice guided tour of the city with historical and socio-economical perspective. The afternoon was very nice and we enjoyed the trip a lot.

We finished in a local restaurant called Dr Shukshuka where we had a gargantuesque Tunisian style dinner (including shukshuka, couscous, etc...).
I need to put a recipe here as it seems I can't find any good one online, the short version is that it's eggs poached in tomato sauce with bell peppers onions and chilies.

Playing with explosives leads to ...

a cease fire !!! Yes I was not that far from reality last week ;). As you can read pretty much anywhere on the medias (like here) Israel and the Hamas signed a cease fire deal to start tomorrow morning, with gradual improvements which if everything happens well will end up ... well forget about that, we'll see tomorrow how it starts.
Anyways Israel is talking to Syria about peace and giving the Golan back, makes truce deals with Hamas in Gaza, and since today seems also to open the door to talks with Lebanon, all at once! Something's definitely happening, it seems that with the US presidential elections coming the stupid "we don't talk to the Axis of Evil" is finally gone and diplomacy is restarting.

Playing with explosives

Can be dangerous...

Ref: Le Monde, Photo : REUTERS/IBRAHEEM ABU MUSTAFA

As said in the article (but in french) a group of Hamas activists was playing in their basement with firecrackers they were planning to use to protest peacefully the Israeli aggression. Unfortunately they had smoked way too much and someone dropped a match on the magic box and blew the whole place up. They obviously first blamed Israel for the explosion, but then reverted to declare them as martyrs in an almost finished heroic operation. OK the article doesn't say that and I am being slightly sarcastic but the meaning is preserved.

At the same time the same Hamas is negotiating a truce with Israel, which is clearly not being enthusiastic about it but had postponed yesterday military operations to try to "give the truce a chance". With a little bit of chance if they keep postponing it, all Hamas military wing members will self detonate in an act of martyrdom with more results than the past 8 years of peace talks and military operations combined ?

All this to say that things aren't looking great with the neighbors and that escalation keeps going... Maybe one day someone will realize that having the biggest one is not that important.

Istanbul

Yeah, still on the move... Last weekend we hopped to Istanbul to visit Nico for the weekend. We had a fantastic weather and great company. We did the usual Istanbul tour of churches, mosqs, palaces, cisterns, bazaars, kebabs and pubs.

Karye Church

Hagia Sophia, Blue Mosq surrounded by Marmara sea and the Golden Horn

Topkapi Palace and the Basilica Cistern

Niko and Didem at one of the food'n drinks place we visited in the French street of Beyoglu

More pics here.