My Mini-Adventure in Cairo

Cairo traffic

I was in Cairo, just months before Arab Spring arrived.  It was September 2010, and I was there to deliver an afternoon workshop.  I had never been to Africa, and this was my one chance so far.

The airport was spacious enough, but it reminded me of the one in Riyadh, relatively oldish and uncrowded.  I went outside for a taxi, and over the next hour I was stunned at how difficult it was to find one.  I walked back-and-forth the long arrival driveway, then went down cement staircases to a parking lot.  Which I had to do two or three times.  I asked a handful of people, but their English wasn't so good.  So whatever direction they gave me was a toss salad of vagary and confusion.

I don't even remember how I finally secured one.

The ride to the hotel was a mini-adventure, too.  It was about 45 minute away.  More so than I had seen in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, way too many pedestrians were crossing busy and fast avenues.  They looked rather nonchalant about it, too.  I spent most of the ride tense and nervous that the driver would hit one of them or that we'd witness such an accident with another driver.  How a people fail to, or refuse to, adapt to the pace and dangers of modern day life.

I was in Cairo just for a day trip.  The workshop went rather well, of course.  I'm good at what I do, and I prepare well for it.  Nearly all of the managers were from Egyptian companies, and I was pleased to make their acquaintance that afternoon.  They said that timeliness was a cultural issue in Egypt, and traffic was often a good excuse.  

Hmm, I thought, Cairo and Dubai must be kissing cousins.

Happy in the Hungarian Capital of Budapest

Pharrell Williams' Happy video clearly went viral, but just from casually scanning YouTube, I think the infectiously happy music has spawned a viral number of covers, too. It's online inspiration at its best. Here is just a sampling of those covers that I like, and what I like has to do with good dancing, quality filming, and deft editing.

Budapest is the capital of Hungary, and is not only the largest in the country but also one of the largest in the European Union.  It stakes its place firmly among the most beautiful, most appealing cities to live across the globe, according to prominent magazines like Forbes and Condé Nast Traveler.  This happy video is not a travel guide, at least not in the conventional sense.  But it's a wonderful portrait of Budapest people, culture and locales - via sights and sounds, not words or images, and more experiential (senses) than intellectual (information).  From dancing on a bicycle and wheelchair; to dancing along avenues, streets and bridges; people weather the cold, overcast and rainy with an indomitable spirit.  Mousy ears help to make things fun, too.

Happy in the French City of Angers

Pharrell Williams' Happy video clearly went viral, but just from casually scanning YouTube, I think the infectiously happy music has spawned a viral number of covers, too. It's online inspiration at its best. Here is just a sampling of those covers that I like, and what I like has to do with good dancing, quality filming, and deft editing.

Angers is a city in the historic Anjou Province, in Western France. Here, for me, it's less the panorama of the locale, and more the indoors that make up these happy folks' lives: from a radio station, music and dance halls, and museums; to gymnasiums and ice rinks; to escalators and trains. I don't know if the Tour de France has ever passed through Angers, but again I love the portrait that this `Happy video paints.

Happy in the Czech City of Brno

Pharrell Williams' Happy video clearly went viral, but just from casually scanning YouTube, I think the infectiously happy music has spawned a viral number of covers, too. It's online inspiration at its best. Here is just a sampling of those covers that I like, and what I like has to do with good dancing, quality filming, and deft editing.

Brno is the second largest city in the Czech Republic, in the historical South Moravian Region. It is the seat of judicial authority, as the Constitutional, Supreme, and Supreme Administrative Courts are situated there. I love the footbridges, forming natural lines to film, and simple uncrowded plazas, fit for lower angle shots. I also love the range of dance, from ballet, to hip-hop and break dancing. How about the dude with flaming hair, mustache and beard, and how about the pretty girl in a white dress (rf. thumbnail)?

Happy in Campi Bisenzio in Italy

Pharrell Williams' Happy video clearly went viral, but just from casually scanning YouTube, I think the infectiously happy music has spawned a viral number of covers, too. It's online inspiration at its best. Here is just a sampling of those covers that I like, and what I like has to do with good dancing, quality filming, and deft editing.

Campi Bisenzio is a municipality in the Florence Province, of the Tuscany Region, in central Italy. It boasts the first internal combustion engine. The filmmaker must've used a drone to capture a birds eye view of happy Italians and with both a rising and a swooping camera. But what I like most is the synchronous lip-syncing of many dancers. Of course, too, the viral algorithm is to install sexy ladies in bikinis as thumbnails.

Happy in the Slovak City of Trenčín

Pharrell Williams' Happy video clearly went viral, but just from casually scanning YouTube, I think the infectiously happy music has spawned a viral number of covers, too. It's online inspiration at its best. Here is just a sampling of those covers that I like, and what I like has to do with good dancing, quality filming, and deft editing.

From the Eastern High Tartras, to Western Slovakia, we arrive near the Czech border: Trenčín. I love these videos, because we get a portrait of a city and its people: From cobblestone sidewalks and avenues, to grassy foothills and wooded clusters, Trenčín impresses me, as a non-European, as quintessentially European. Quite a lot of history, quite a lot of spirit.

Happy in the High Tatras of Slovakia

Pharrell Williams' Happy video clearly went viral, but just from casually scanning YouTube, I think the infectiously happy music has spawned a viral number of covers, too. It's online inspiration at its best. Here is just a sampling of those covers that I like, and what I like has to do with good dancing, quality filming, and deft editing.

The Tatry Mountain Resort, in the High Tatras of Slovakia, is popular in both winter and summer. It is a mountain range that also borders southern Poland, and these happy Slovaks are in Vysoká of the Eastern Tatras. Michaela Galová, the smoldering lady in a bikini with an infectious smile and a body to die-for, steals this music video. She also leads a group dance, and closes the festivity by blowing us a kiss.

It laid claim to its name

Well before it was launched, we all knew it as the Burj Dubai.  It was August 31st 2007, long before it launched as Burj Khalifa on January 4th 2010.  It was an iconic building in a city-state in the Middle East, that was known for one-upping its own iconic buildings.  This was, however, to be a Tower of Babel of sorts.  It spoke to the city-state's conceited, ultimately flawed ambitions.  Its economic house of cards easily collapsed, when the global recession hit in October 2008, exposing its aggressive, foolhardy play in a financial shell game.  For instance, word was, it took buyer investments in one project to launch another project, which brought into more investments for yet another project.  Until there wasn't sufficient funds to finish the Burj Dubai, and the city-state's big-monied big brother had to step in and outright laid claim to its name.  

Whatever end they had in mind

For a while, we simply called it Spikey Building.  It stood in Silicon Oasis, an office and residential section in Dubai, and it was prominent along Emirates Road.  I'd pass it often, en route home to International City, from Mall of the Emirates or Jebel Ali.  Whenever something weird occurred in our lives, we'd say the aliens were the culprit.  They caused muted havoc, if not outright surrealism, from their HQ in Silicon Oasis.  I finally had an occasion to visit there, when a friend and I weighed a business idea.  He worked for a technology firm at HQ.  Unfortunately, like so many of my conversations with people in Dubai, it eventually went nowhere.  But I'm sure the aliens made fine progress toward whatever end they had in mind.

So day went and night came quickly

Day wound down quickly into night, it seemed.  A workout first in the cool gym, then a walk by the humid seafront.  The hotel was resplendent, and the green could have been what Gatsby saw across the waters.  Something that drew him for a long time, something that ultimately wasn't to be his.  What was to become of people's lives, when sleep meant  light and color, air and feel fell into an abyss of black.  So night came, and it spelled something other than life as it was.