Her Majesty Queen Rania on youtube

“In a world where it’s so easy to connect one to another, we still remain very much disconnected” by this statement Her Majesty Queen Rania of Jordan has started her welcome video on her Majesty’s youtube page.

Queen Rania has played a significant role in reaching out to the global community to foster values of tolerance and acceptance, and increase cross-cultural dialogue.

By VLogging which is one of eCulture tools Her Majesty is trying to deliver her message to the open world, her majesty is open to receive constructive comments on her page which I am sure that she will personally respond for the viewers issues. Her Majesty stated some missconsumptions where she believes that we can all join forces together to bring them down!

With gratitude as recipients of Her Majesty’s scholarship to pursue our Masters degree in Athens Information Technology (AIT), the least thing that we can do is to help in expanding our Queen’s message through our humble Blog.

Please drop a visit to her Majesty page as well as to Queen Rania’s web site.

The Evalenzs in Greece and the Royal guard in Jordan

If you go downtown Athens, Syntagma precisely, and go up the stairs of the metro, you will see strange dressed soldiers walking in an even stranger way in a small square on the other side of the street. I had to video tape them on my camera:

They are called Evzones and they are the Presidential guard. The video I took is at the tomb of the unknown soldier. They can be found in other place. Read more here.

I can assume that I can make a comparison of the Evzones to our Jordan Royal Guard that guard the inside of the royal court. Here are some pictures of them. Unfortunately I was not able to find more information about them on the internet. The distinguishing thing about them is the way they dress and that they are Circassians. Jordanian Circassians form 1% of the Jordanian community population.

Taverna

Have you ever passed by a big restaurant in athens and your friends told you that you have to try Taverna?
most of the times while we are in the suburbans of athina i watch this rest called Taverna "ταβέρνα" ,with a lot of cars parking outside it with the vallet guys going here and there...

yesterday after we finished our lectures @AIT me with a couple of friends went there and had our dinner,i can say it was delicious table,with various kinds of dishs;ranging from traditional Greek salade to sweet dishs such as baklava (hope i am writing it the right way),anyways i will list some dishs that i enjoyed other than salade or desserts:

-Mousskaa which is a baked dish of variety of vegetables topped with cheesy sauce.

-mix grilled dish of gyros
and ofcourse i will not forget the sweet wine mavrodafini which i also drank in patra at the carnival,it is a kind of sweet red wine,extremely sweet.

you know it is not about the dishs or meals you order at a taverna rest ,but it is the whole enivronment you are experiencing there, taverna has become an integral part of Greek culture and has become familiar to people from other countries who visit Greece,it is an important part any tourist to try it .

the one we tried is located downtown athens i plaka near monistarki metro station,but a good one (as other guys told me) is the one next to AIT premises .


Enjoy your next meal at ταβέρνα :)

Mouner Nijmeh

MBIT-'08

E-business course

Patras Carnival

Next week I will be in patras to participate in the Patrino karnavali which is largest if its kind in greece and europe.The carnival ends before the Clean Monday (the first day of Eastern Orthodox Christian lent )which actually occurs the beginning of the 7th week before Easter Sunday.

The apogee of this event is at sat’s night where we can see parade of floats of people,celebrating and drinking traditional Greek wine ,one of my friends told me that wine bottles will be sold in the streets for about 5 Euros.

The carnival starts in 17 Jan of each year in patra and also ends up there, lots of childrens games ,treasure hunts games.

As most of my colleagues started buying costumes and masks to wear them during the carnival, last week i was experiencing this feel in down town Athens where I wore Mexican hat while going to spend a wonderful night with most of guys wearing somehow cool stuff.

This carnival as I see it is reflecting pure Greek Christianity before the beginning of the big fast (lent),so it is a part of culture since 98% of Greece are Orthodox .

Special carnival songs will be played for this nice event,for me I can’t wait until I go there and attend this which we can’t find in our Arabic countries.

I will keep you updated with my unique experience as soon as i get back if i will do........ JK

Mouner Nijmeh
MBIT '08

Frappé

Hello , today I will tell you about greece national coffee drink,it is called Frappé , it is a foam covered iced coffee made from instant dried coffee,our greek colleagues told us that it is poular only in summer because it is cold,but for me I am drinking it all your long because it keeps me awake for hours J.

As I found it is orginally from Thessaloniki 2nd largest greek city ,and a story of Nestle represenatative was looking for hot water during his break to make his usual coffee,but he could not find so he shake it with cold water instead;and by improving the experiment Frappé was established as popular Greek beverage.

In jordan , you can’t find Frappe I think in any of our coffee shops but since we get back to our home country, I am sure we will introduce it to be served there.

Whenever you try to make your own cup of Frappé you need :

1)instant coffee.

2)cold water

3)ice cubes

4)milk

And ofcourse the machine for mixing and making the foam of Frappe.

Thanks

Mouner Nijmeh

MBIT ‘08