http://www.travelblog.org/Middle-East/Yemen/Sanaa/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from Middle East , Yemen , Sanaa en-us Sat, 05 Dec 09 17:47:51 +0000 Sat, 05 Dec 09 17:47:51 +0000 I will be travelling to Yemen located on the southwest corner of the Arabian Peninsula in the end of January for several months to further my Arabic and Middle Eastern Studies at an institute in Sanaa. Yemen is largely debated as the oldest civilization on earth and has attracted travelers merchants philosophers and kings since ancient times. Tradition says that Noah's son founded the city of http://www.travelblog.org/Middle-East/Yemen/Sanaa/blog-452777.html Tombe la nuit et Sana'a torne jaune. Je sorte pour un promenade vers 1 heure de matin. Je sorte avec mon apareille de photos pour faire un portrait d'une ville magnifique a la fois que je decubre l'intimite de la nuit a Sana'a. Par fois l'electricite s'arrete et reste que un silence d'ombres entre immbeubles anciennes. Je me promenade vers Baab el Yemen la porte principal de l'ancienne ville ou http://www.travelblog.org/Middle-East/Yemen/Sanaa/blog-421634.html Saba hal heir Alors les femmes les femmes...On fait les femmes sont que des voils noirs ou l'unique parte visible son les eux. Pour moi le monde femenine est interdite. Tout contact peut etre motif du conflict. Par contre mes amies europees m'ont raconte de la vie cache a les hommes. Dans les fetes femenines les voils noires dispare et seulmente reste que des habies diminutes et les transpar http://www.travelblog.org/Middle-East/Yemen/Sanaa/blog-420357.html La reine du sabba elle est nee au Yemen apres un voyage de visite au roi Salomon deviendra encinte et son fils serai le premier Yemenite. Cette premier Yemenite apres des anees sera le premier etiopian et le premier somalian. Une histoire des guerres deja bien connu et une colonialisme turque anglaise francaise et italianne sont la vie des fils de Sibis et Salomon. Ajourdrsquohui les fil http://www.travelblog.org/Middle-East/Yemen/Sanaa/blog-419775.html Buf desole pour les francophones et hispanophones mais j'ai pas des temps pour ecrire tout en francais alors je change a l'anglaise.Wow its amazing two days of classes and they already thought all the alphabeth undreds of new words and expressions all the vowels and now they want us to write all the new words in arabic for tomorrow. It is absolutely crazy and intense and arabic is such a b http://www.travelblog.org/Middle-East/Yemen/Sanaa/blog-418410.html Dormir dormir il faut dormir...Mais je suis deja habitue a dormir pas beaucoup depuis que j'habite a Paris. On fait dormir est mal depenser les temps...Aujourd'hui je suis alle a la part ancienne du Sana'a. En fait toute Sana'a est tres ancienne. Des gens qui mange qat des chats des immeubles extraordinaires des femmes habilles en noir des kalasnikovs...J'adore la ville et demain je comm http://www.travelblog.org/Middle-East/Yemen/Sanaa/blog-417523.html At this point in time I have been living in the Middle East for around a year and a half. After some consideration a good friend and I decided that it was time to see more of the traditional side of the region. Yes Dubai is in the Middle East but no it does not accurately reflect what the culture of the area is. As for Yemen there is nothing but traditional culture. First and foremost I http://www.travelblog.org/Middle-East/Yemen/Sanaa/blog-367356.html San'a Yemen.I arrived in the dark to the sight of the famous tower houses in the old walled city. It is the world's oldest city and considered by some to be the most beautiful. The oldest house was built 2000 years ago. The houses are like medieval sky scrapers. The walls are embossed with thick concrete in geometric patterns. The windows have an arch of coloured glass over them. Quite romantic an http://www.travelblog.org/Middle-East/Yemen/Sanaa/blog-354459.html A BOB OR TWO.Pleasant day snorkelling with the divers from Crowne Plaza. Two young German children who were absolutely delightful willing chatty and friendly. We went by Mirbat yet again then off road to beautiful Eagle Cove. There were stingrays turtles and the usual tropical fish. Relaxing sitting under the shelter the fishermen had built.I had arranged for Hafiz who I met last night to help http://www.travelblog.org/Middle-East/Yemen/Sanaa/blog-353665.html After narrowly escaping from the Palace Sayun Hotel we arrived in the capitol of the Hadrawmat province alMukallah. The only thing Eric and I had ever heard about Mukallah was that it smelled horrible because its main exports are fish and refrigeration is not very popular in Yemen. We stopped there just so that we could have a break between Sayun and Bir Ali so we weren't hoping for much http://www.travelblog.org/Middle-East/Yemen/Sanaa/blog-241757.html Back by popular demand and an end to laziness here is my first blog post of the new year. So so much has happened to me in the last 42 days that's what my blog counter tells me anyway. I'm going to try and back track a bit.So after I last posted we had a long long break from school and I decided to travel to East Yemen with some friends. The trip was absolutely amazing because I got to see http://www.travelblog.org/Middle-East/Yemen/Sanaa/blog-239773.html Ugh words are hard http://www.travelblog.org/Middle-East/Yemen/Sanaa/blog-228085.html AlHamduallah. See you later fat boy once I switch to a class devoid of retards and you move out I won't have to see you every fucking day. If I'm willing to invest some effort I might never have to see you again You can be right about everything all the time and I can have conversations instead of continuous debates with people.The only thing that makes me sad is that I won't be able to se http://www.travelblog.org/Middle-East/Yemen/Sanaa/blog-227778.html The trilateral root system and the ten verb patterns in Arabic are the coolest thing ever. It's like the language was explicitly designed to have defineate and consistent patterns for creating meaning. If you figure out the root of a word there's a simple system for transforming the root into any part of speech and you can create a very particular meaning with only one word whereas in English http://www.travelblog.org/Middle-East/Yemen/Sanaa/blog-227308.html Bombing of US Navy vessels kidnappings of foreign tourists tribal warfare including car bombings. This genre of headline had a lot of people asking why the hell are you going to Yemen I initially put these enquiries down to western ignorance to the everyday reality of this corner of the world. When residents of other Arab nations we have visited asked the same question I'll have to confess http://www.travelblog.org/Middle-East/Yemen/Sanaa/blog-226800.html The political situation in Yemen has been heating up over the past few weeks. There were sit ins and demonstrations in Aden recently because the citizens claim that South Yemen is being ignored by Sana'a and the North. Public school teachers in Sana'a have also been demonstrating because they say their are massive discrepancies in pay rate between teachers who do the same job and because they http://www.travelblog.org/Middle-East/Yemen/Sanaa/blog-226596.html The two most pressing issues in my life right nowWhat's my direction in lifeMan friend http://www.travelblog.org/Middle-East/Yemen/Sanaa/blog-225042.html There's an old joke among those who study Arabic as a second language. Every word in Arabic means what it refers to its opposite and camel. I didn't think it was that funny until tonight when I found out that at least the first part is true it remains to be seen about the camel part.I'm worried about how quickly time is passing I'll have been in Yemen 2 months by the end of the week and http://www.travelblog.org/Middle-East/Yemen/Sanaa/blog-224535.html Today Yemenis celebrate the departure of the British from Aden in 1962 with qat chewing chatting wiling away the afternoon and other activities that go on every other day of the year. This independence day one of three is mostly for South Yemen so there isn't anything particularily festive going on in the North today.I went to a Turkish bath for the first time yesterday. It looked kind of http://www.travelblog.org/Middle-East/Yemen/Sanaa/blog-224186.html I had plans to go out to eat but now I will continue.The title of my last post I was talking to my friend Cleo whose been in Yemen for over a year and she told me about what some of the Yemeni guards understand about sex. Apparently they think that on the night of your wedding you first take off your wifes niqab and hijab then start lightly stroking her hair. Then you sort of lightly tic http://www.travelblog.org/Middle-East/Yemen/Sanaa/blog-222149.html