Nice pics from Jordan

here are some pictures from jordan and specially from amman, i love them and i love my country :) ... i wish i am there to take a round by my car in some of those wonderful places ...

enjoy ...

Designing a world-class bus map for Amman

here is a new project will begin on jordan soon,i would like to share with you these info as long as we don't have clear bus/transportation map in amman.

This project aims at creating a world-class bus/transport map for the entire city of Amman. The map should show all bus lines, bus stops and stations. It should provide information about the frequency of the lines, bus fares and any other information important to the users of the transportation system. But the key point is a BILINGUAL MAP.

The ‘client’ for this project will not be any authority or company but the USERS.

It will be a voluntary projects for young designers/technologists. My company, SYNTAX will supervise and sponsor this project. We will also enlist expert opinions from Germany on this as we have contacts with people who worked on both the Berlin and Frankfurt public transport systems.

The final work will be made available in print and online as a Creative Commons (or similar license), acknowledging the names of participants.

The overall objective is to encourage the use and culture of public transportation and make the user experience more friendly and understandable. It is also a useful exercise for young designers in Jordan, as urban growth explodes in the coming years.

The team size will be kept as small as possible. Volunteers will be needed to gather information on the ground (routes, stops, line numbers etc), acquire existing information on schedules, documentation, diagrammatic designs, visual design and layout. Other volunteers can be involved in creating an electronic version for the web.

Reference :http://www.360east.com
Thanking our colleagues in this Jordanian Blog.

Mouner Nijmeh
Athens Information Technology

Jordan's best FM station

hey,i was looking for jordan's new news about FM radio stations,and i had found that a lot of radio stations were launched during my presence here in Greece(since last sep 2007) , and ofcourse ppl began to get confused,so please go to the following link to give ur opinion there on which one is the best one for you and u do listen for.

i am sorry my mates( Greek guys ) but this is intended for the Jordanian guys ...

http://www.360east.com/?p=671

Thanks
Mouner Nijmeh
EBusiness Course
MBIT -AIT

Hatta..a Jordanian heritage!

I have been asked by some Greek friends to get them a hatta from Jordan since they find it cool looking and as fashion wear! Here is a quick history lesson about the Jordanian hatta.

Arabs have been very famous for Kuffieh, or hatta as we say it in Jordan. The official Jordanian hatta color is Red, but there are few Jordanians who also wear White colored hatta. It was widely used in our ancestors time to protect villages and bedouins from the heat of the sun and dust of the desert. Now the hatta is a heritage of the Jordanian culture but there is still a few number of people in the capital who wear the it as formal or casual dressing. Hatta is still common for bedouins, villegaers outside of Amman and few military divisions.

Not only soccer, but Greeks also love basketball…Jordanians are getting there!

Sport bars are very common in Athens. You will see people watching Greek and European soccer league matches. Equally you will find other people watching national and European Basketball matches. Greek basketball is very famous now and the Greek national team is even stronger. This is because they Greek national basketball league is a professional league.

As per Wikipedia, the Greek Basketball team ranks 6^th on the world and 4^th on Europe. The Jordanian national team on the other hand is ranked 43^rd on the world and 9^th on Asia. Not bad, but still we have a long way ahead, and we need to build our local clubs. The Jordanian national team is turning into a professional league.

A great success for Jordanian Basketball is yesterday’s win for ZAIN (a local Jordanian basketball team). Zain won the 21st Arab Clubs Basketball Championship by beating Lebanese team Hikmeh. This is the first time a Jordanian team wins this championship. I think we are on the right track to build good teams for basketball. I hope we can do the same for other sports.

Field Guide to Jordan!

A very interesting and comprehensive guide about Jordan. 300+ pages of great images of nature and touristic places. I personally think it's a must buy for all Greeks and other tourists who wish to have a quick taste. Starting from May and onwards, it is the best time to visit Jordan. You're all welcome!!!

Guide cover

You can buy this guide from:
http://fieldguidetojordan.com/
Amazon

Easter at the village!

I am back from a long vacation I spent outside of Athens for Easter. So first of all “Christos Anesti, Alithos Anesti”. As the Greeks say “Christmas in Athens and Easter at the village!”, and Easter at the village I did.

For my trip, It was one of the greatest experiences in my life. Some Greek friends of mine took me to town called Karpenisi, capital of the prefecture of Evrytania. I have never seen so much green mountains filled with pine trees and other type of plants. They even have a university where they study plants and trees!!

Of course we visited most of the surrounding villages of Karpenisi. Tasting homemade food and Tsipouro (Raki like drink). The nature is sublime! Great walking paths and scenery. The area is a must see if you have a car. With a car you’ll be able to move around and see waterfalls, rivers and some animals while walking pine trees path. There is also the Karpenisi Ski center for winter!

Along with the Magiritsa, Kokoretsi and the tasty food of Easter we had, I also tried the Pithakia (pork or meet chops). Easily found in Athens, but tasting it in a small village tavern is different and cheaper. It is much tastier and homemade like!! A tasty mezze is Katiki (a cheese like yoghurt tasty thing). As you may have noticed, Easter is more of a food eating and relaxing treat, and here are some photos of the eye relaxing treats of Karpenisi and Evrytania.

http://abahou.googlepages.com/karp.jpg
http://abahou.googlepages.com/karp2.jpg
http://abahou.googlepages.com/karp3.jpg
http://abahou.googlepages.com/karp4.jpg
http://abahou.googlepages.com/karp5.jpg
http://abahou.googlepages.com/karp6.jpg

Jordanian photographers are culture ambassadors!

ShoSayer magazine in Jordan, is holding a Photography competition. I was very glad to know about this competition, first of all because it enriches the culture and arts segment in Jordan. Secondly, I was very impressed of the number of the young talented Jordanians who have passion for photography and the places they went to in order to get the perfect shot. Finally and most importantly, my cousin is one of these talented photographers. Here is her photo, it was taken in Japan!

And since this is a contest, I encourage you can vote for my cousin RAWAN QUBROSI on the magazine vote link http://shosayer.com/PhotoCompetition/Voting.cfm

Thanks!

The Greek and Jordanian anthems

I came across high quality anthems for Jordan (download mp3) and Greece (download mp3).

And also, here are the translated lyrics in English for both anthems:

Jordan
Long live the King! Long live the King!
His position is sublime,
His banners waving in glory supreme.


Greece
We knew thee of old,
Oh, divinely restored,
By the lights of thine eyes
And the light of thy Sword
From the graves of our slain
Shall thy valor prevail
As we greet thee again-
Hail, Liberty! Hail!
(repeat previous two lines three times)


Mp3s are courtesy of www.national-anthems.net
Lyrics are courtesy of http://www.lyricsondemand.com

Many Greek strikes…to 1 shy Jordanian strike!

I have witnessed many strikes since my first day in Greece. The Greeks are known for their intolerance to the low performance of the Greek government. Also the Greeks will go really mad when their demands are not fulfilled. In Jordan, it was never this way. People were always quite when it came to strikes and are accepting to most governments.

But, today I have received a Facebook invitation to join a group called “Strike in JORDAN”. The person who called for this strike is Anonymous. The creator of the group is asking the people of Jordan to stay at home on the 4^th of May until 11:00am (means skip 2-3 hours of work, I am curious to know the cost the government will bare for this strike). The group is in Arabic, so I translated the list of demands to English:

Demands:

1. Demand the government to put as much effort as possible to stop the increase in prices.
2. Fix prices for Gas and Electricity.
3. Stop selling the belongings (I think he meant “ real estate”) of the country.
4. Provide justice to private sector employees and oblige private sector companies to raise salaries.

How to STRIKE:

“It is requested from all of us not to go to work. Let us stay at home till 11:00am. We are not calling for public strikes in the streets, but we are calling for a simple, peaceful and modern form of strikes to express our misery and sadness that 4 million Jordanian people are living today as per the official statistics……….etc…”.

In disregard for strikes being bad or good, from my observation, I find Greeks to be “strikes oriented” in their culture and for Jordanians they are not.

What do you think?? Do you think that strikes have anything to do with people culture? Or is it more of a political issue?

Jordanian and Greek flags

Both countries have wonderfully colored flags. Furthermore, the meaning behind the flag colors is even more interesting. Of course for both flag people tend to interpret the colors and shapes and link them to different cultural and historic facts. I did some research about the two flags and following are the more common interpretations for the colors and shapes. So here it is:

Greek flag:
Top left cross on the flag represents the Greek Orthodox religion. The nine blue stripes symbolize the nine syllables of the motto of the Greek Independence fight "Freedom or Death". The white and blue in the flag is the symbol for the deep blue sea and clear white sky of Greece.

Jordanian flag:
The three major colored stripes in the flag represent the Abbasid dynasty (black color), Umayyad dynasty (White color) and Fatimid dynasty (Green color). The crimson red rectangle joining the stripes is the color of blood symbolizing the Great Arab Revolt against the Ottoman empire. Finally the seven point star symbolizes the seven hills Amman was built upon and also can symbolize the first seven verses of the Koran in the opening sura.

Easter food in Greece!

One thing that I have noticed this weekend is Greeks getting ready for Easter, which is 1 week from today! People here started buying Easter chocolates, candles, food preparation and of course buying clothes! It is a very joyful thing to watch and reminds of Easter back in Jordan and how I will celebrate it away from my family this year.

Every Greek is getting ready to eat “ARNI” next Sunday. Arni is simply a barbecued lamb that the Greek families enjoy on Easter day. In Jordan we also barbecue a lamb or sometimes we make the traditional MANSAF or any food with meat.

Tsoureki, is simply a sweet tasting bread with almonds on top. Made at home, and easily found in super markets. I bought a good quality one at Carrefour for around 4euro. Tasty!! We have this type of bread in Jordan but for us it is not linked with Easter.

Easter Eggs! Worldwide famous symbol for Easter! The strange thing I found out is that the traditional Greek Easter eggs are colored in RED, which is not common in Jordan.

Magiritsa, very common Easter soup that Greeks have on Easter eve! The soup is made out of the insides of the lamb including lamb liver, heart and intestines! I don't know if we have it in Jordan thought eating stuffed intestines is common for Jordanians.

Kokoretsi, simply intestines and lamb guts put on rod or stick and barbequed. I’ve been told that this is the best!!! Still have to try though. I never saw it in Jordan and I don’t know if people do it this way.

This is what I found out so far about the Greek Easter food and I can’t wait to taste it next week!

Tour in the North of Jordan (Episode 01)

Jordan has too many interesting places to visit starting from the capital Amman located in the center of Jordan where it’s the starting point of any visitor (Places in Amman will be covered in later posts). Tourists’ needs local guides once they are in Jordan in regard of transportations, from Amman they can take buses to go where ever they wish to go plus renting a car is the most convenient transportation medium.

Heading North from Amman to Jerash which is 30 miles drive between the Jordanian beautiful mountains, visitors can enjoy the 1 hour and half drive to reach the Ancient city of Jerash which is considered one of the most important and best preserved Roman cities in the Near East. It was a city of the Decapolis.

A tourist can make a quick tour in that beautiful city where he can go back to his hotel in Amman since there are no major hotels in that city but there are a lot of motels or apartments that can be rent from the generous Jerash habitants.
This was quick brief info about one of the Jordanian cities in the North, I will be covering another must visit cities North of Jordan in the coming posts.

Three different destinations in Greece….Thessaloniki, Ioannina and Nafplio

Recommended cities I have been to in Greece. Thessaloniki and Nafplio (Sear side) and Ioannina (no sea, but they have a great lake) were a memorable destinations that I will never forget. For me I will share with you some of the photos I took:

How I went there:

Nafplio: Go to OMONIA Metro station (GREEN LINE), once you get of the metro station ask where you can take the A51 busm bus ticket is 0.50cent. (Or go from Agiou Konstantinou street then find intersecting street Koumoundourou, you’ll find the bus station there). Stay in the bus until it reaches its final destination to Keffissias Terminal A for travel buses. Buy ticket from the Nafplio bus booth, ticket is around 12 euro one way.

Thessaloniki: Go to Larissa metro station (RED LINE), go out from the metro station and enter the suburban railway station. The one way ticket I paid for was 11 euro. Remember night fair is always cheaper.

Ioannina: Go to OMONIA Metro station (GREEN LINE), once you get of the metro station ask where you can take the A51 busm bus ticket is 0.50cent. (Or go from Agiou Konstantinou street then find intersecting street Koumoundourou, you’ll find the bus station there). Stay in the bus until it reaches its final destination to Keffissias Terminal A for travel buses. Buy ticket from the Ioannina bus booth, ticket is around 33 euro one way.

Hotels:

The three cities have all ranges of hotels from 1 to 5 stars. Recommended hotels are the ones with Double room prices ranging from 40 to 60 euro. You’ll get a decent room with shower and towels. Breakfast not included.

Tips:

• Always travel in groups.
• Try not to spend a lot money if you are a student. Souvlaki, Goddies and McDonalds are your food choices.
  
• Enjoy it to the max, you’ll be there probably once in your life (Although I’ve been to Nafplio twice now…a recommended romantic city! :D)

My Photos:
Nafplio
Click to enlarge	Click to enlarge	Click to enlarge

Thessaloniki
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Ioannina
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Dead Sea

Shores of the Dead Sea are the lowest point on the surface of the Earth on dry land. The Dead Sea is 330 m deep, the deepest in the world. It is also the world's second saltiest body of water.
it is a salty lake between Jordan and Palestine...

Dead Sea salt is considered as a treatment for skin disorder,deep inside u can find Mud which as well very useful for your skin beauty;you can see in the pic guys are taking a MUD BATH which u can keep for 15-30 mins to get the benefit of mud in ur skin.

Dead sea is very attractive place for tourists from around the world,we have there 4 luxury hotel chains Marriott ,kempinski,Moven-pick and Dead Sea Spa,all of them are a kind of resorts on the Dead sea shores,you can enjoy buoyancy.these hotels are always crowded so it is better to reserve before going there to get a better room. reaching dead sea is not difficult from the capital amman,it is about 30mins from the 7th circle.
taxi ,buses ,rent cars are also available to go there.


any of you have more questions abt the benefits of Dead Sea products for our skin please do ask or send us your comment and i am glad to answer and provide more helpful info.


Mouner Nijmeh

MBIT'08

Ebusiness course

Queen Rania’s YouTube Response On Arab Women

Here is her Majesty's Queen Rania speech about women,please watch and leave your comment.

Mouner Nijmeh

MBIT '08
ebusiness course

Spring in Jordan

Hello again,now it is spring time in Jordan,it is one of the best time i do prefer to enjoy there,especially during these holy days before Easter,and when we enjoy the Palm day going to church and having these wonderful round holding the Palm with our beloved kids praying and walking in crowds,i love this when spring flowers are surrounding us with a blow of light wind hit my head (the bald one :P) ...

some of the places you can for in our beloved Jordan is to visit Madaba,with the black iris of jordan is here and there,Jordan valley ( Ghor) which is one of the most beautiful place to go for now near the dead-sea the lowest point in the entire world.

and ofcourse i will not forget to tell abt wadi el seer and its adorable places to sit and watch birds while enjoying some barbecue.

Mouner Nijmeh
MBIT '08

e-business course

Greek Islands

Greece is one of the countries that has over 1300 islands,yes more than 1k,when i first knew this i can't believe it until i was surfed the net and made sure of this,and here are some useful info abt them.
227 are inhabited ( just 169 as quoted by the Greek Ministry of Press in a 1999 survey quoted in 'About Greece'). Only 78 islands have more than 100 inhabitants.

The cyclades :comprise around 220 islands,including the famous two islands Mykonos and santorini.

Crete:the biggest Greek island with 8,336 km² (3,219 square miles) and the fifth largest one in the Mediterranean .

saronic islands: includes 33 islands,Ageina is the closet one to Athens at 30km distance,with a population 7,410 census in 2004,and it is in the prefecture of Piraeus.

Thank You

Mouner Nijmeh
MBIT '08

E-Business course

Finally E-Business homework #2 is done !

Here are the findings I found about Wikipedia as part of E-Business assignment “List the technology components mapped to the business need”.

Click here for to view my finidings in pdf format.

Guardian.co.uk homework findings

I am posting my second homework findings about The Guardian online service & newspaper.
It consists of the useful technological components that the guardian.co.uk includes and their business needs and imporatnce.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/

i hope that you will find my findings useful as the technological components are as well.
Download findings

Please be patient and tell me what do you think by answering the following :

Couchsurfing....homework 2 findings

As part of the eBusiness course, following are my findings and deliverable for the second homework.

Please take a moment to asses findings



and participate in the following poll

Ouzaki night with mezza!!

I had one of the greatest nights the other day. I went to a Taverna with a Greek friend. I was confused of what to order since I don't know if it is going to taste good or not. Anyway to make a long story short she ordered for us and I was glad she did!!! So in my turn, I recommend that you order the same if you're planning to go to a Taverna. Here you go:

Click image to enlarge

Of course all of the above mezza is to be eaten slowly with Ouzaki (the cute name for Ouzo a Greek traditional drink, we have the same actually in Jordan, but not as sweet as Ouzo and we call it ARAK).

Again nothing beats an Ouzaki night!! Enjoy! :)

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

Wedding Rings!!!

Recently I have noticed something weird here in Greece where old men/women put their “Wedding Rings” in their right hand and young people wear it in their left hand, for me it was like all elderly people are engaged and all the young are married!!! Because in Jordan from where I came from, you will have it in your right hand when you get engaged, then after you move on & get married you move it to your left hand. I asked Greek people why you do it this way, they simply answered you are the one who do it the opposite way… Hahaha a very funny answer!!!

Since I didn’t get a proper answer I consulted my ally in the internet world, I simply started googling “The History of Engagement Ring”. I have found many web sites with too many stories, at the end it’s all about cultures where some place their engagement ring in the right hand another in the left and some never use it at all. But the most interesting thing I found, is that most stories have agreed on wearing engagement/wedding ring in the fourth finger of the left hand because it is said that ancient civilizations Egyptians/Romans/Greeks believed that from that finger is the beginning of a vein that directly goes up to the heart, so the Romans called it vena amoris ("vein of love")... interesting isn’t it.

The question now why the hell I was looking to their fingers & why do we have to show people that we are committed ;)

Sportsmanship, is it Alive!!!

This week end was a nice sporting one for me, I started my day by practicing few indoor exercises I found on the internet, later I went with some of the guys to play basketball in a park here in Peania next to the dorms, it was amazing we really had fun it was a mix of boys & girls playing while having fun but when the score was 8 scores to 7 and the game was about to end (who scores 10 first is the winner!!) tension started to rise, friends started to argue was it a foul or not, silly issues came up!!! Is it in the human structure the need to win!!!

I have been asking myself questions on my way back to the dorms do this “sportsmanship” still exists? Or it’s just a word used only by coaches & referees? Even on the professional levels you can see supporters arguing & almost fighting for a game played by others! They can almost loose a friend for a game played by different clubs only to show loyalty.

Back home football is the most popular sport in Jordan where Al Faysali F.C. with Al Wehdat F.C. are competing to lead the list, both club supporters are willing to spend tremendous time & efforts supporting their team building new friendship with people who supports the same team & probably letting a friend down just because his team won the game over his! Moreover when I came here to Greece I was amazed how Greeks are more into football than Jordanians, the head of IT support in AIT having in his office a picture of his lovely 1 year old daughter wearing Olympiakos red shirt - by the way she looked really nice GOD Bless her, in the metro you can see an Old guy and his son wearing Panathinaikos green sports wear!!! I had a discussion with my fellows Greeks & they couldn’t describe how bad it might go between the supporters of those two clubs.

I do have questions that I couldn’t answer myself because am really biased to the team I support so i am going to ask these questions loudly here in this Blog: Having aside the financial returns… why athletes enroll in clubs? Why clubs participates in tournaments? & the weirdest thing for me WHY supporters take it personally when you mention their team’s achievement “the loosing part ;)” ?!?!

Wikipedia as an E-Culture

As we have been asked to build this Blog in the E-Culture area for the E-Business course to be represented as a final project, am posting my first assignment where i have decided to write about a non-profit organization wikipedia.org.
Please feel free to download my report and send me your feedback.

CouchSurfing.com..for all..even for Jordanians and Greeks!!

As a part of a homework for our E-Business course, we were asked to study an e-business website that falls under the theme of our main project blog. I chose www.couchsurfing.com. You can download the full report from here.

Although it is a non-profit website, I think it is directly linked to the theme we are promoting. Interestingly I also found many people from Jordan and Greece on that website including myself.

From my findings, I came up with the following questions. I hope to know what you think:

Guardian.co.uk

guardian home

hello,as a part of our first homework to e-business course i have done an analysis of The Guardian newspaper,it is pretty interesting ; so please give yourself time to download and read the full report . have a look and answer the **Discussion** questions found below .

thankfully
mouner

Discussion :


* Do you think shopping category which is included in the guradian is useful more than or equal to other emarketplaces? which are only e-marketplaces not as public portal as well ?

*which one of the following blogs you found most effective:

1- Sports fan.

2- Business people

3- Stock exchange investors.

4- Environmental people who are concerned

5- Job seekers.

*have you ever heard about the guardian newspaper before? if yes please specify the way you had.

*do you rely on news you read from the Guardian? To which extent you depend on others point of view and experiences you read in the travel log blog?

Mouner Nijmeh

MBIT -2008

E-Business course - Miss Xenia Ziouvelou

My favorite greek singer!!

First weeks we arrived to Greece were the best. New country, new culture, everything..it was great. One of the places we went to was exactly on the sea shore in an area near Glyfada. It was Galeya Club if my spelling is correct.

We had a great time there. They plaid a variety of English and Greek songs that night. I particularly liked one of the songs. It had the following lyrics:"Dexero putha moun acora..fa ka ftasi..." bla bla bla. Something like that. I woke up the next day with a hanger over and with the song stuck in my head (people where singing it along like crazy). So I searched Youtube for greek songs hoping to find it...AND I DID :)

It was for Thanos Petrelis - An den eixa kai esena (Θάνος Πετρέλης - Αν δεν είχα καί εσένανε)! Great song..great singing and perfect voice! Afterwards I discovered the huge number of great voices that are found in Greece with international and local hits!

Unfortunately, in Jordan we don't have many beautiful voices, very few actually and they can't find sponsors to help them build their career.

One of the best voices I heard in Jordan, and in comparison to Thanos, is Diana Karazon. She won Superstar Idol TV program, like Thanos did in Fame Story.

Diana afterwards made a great album which I bought (Please note that when I buy an album this means it is an awesome one, because most of the time I only download pirated songs :P ).

But afterwards she was away from the spotlight, I don't know, and she did not release any albums.

Overall, I think Jordanian music artists should find proper funding and most importantly the encouragement from family and friends!

Does religion affect culture??

For religious countries, In my opinion, religion directly influences the country ‘s culture, people culture, somehow their style of living, where they go, what they were…etc.

I came across some interesting reports published by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor of the US Department of State. I was interested in the International Religious Freedom part.

I encourage you to read both reports of Jordan and Greece or the one of your country of origin.

The interesting thing I found is the following:

In Jordan you can build as many churches and mosques ANYWHERE you want (by the way…Jewish temples are not allowed), BUT you’re not allowed to convert from Islam to other religions.

In Greece you’re not allowed to build a worship mosque ANYWHERE you want (by the way…I was told that Jewish temples are allowed to be built anywhere), BUT you’re free to change to any religion you want.

I wonder if both countries will change their views about these topics in the near future?? I also wonder how someday our people and governments will look back at these issues??

From my observation, I think religious culture is changing very fast and people are accepting each other, whether they like it or not. At least this is what I think.

What about you? What do you think? Feel free to leave your comments.

Valentine's Day in Jordan.....

Happy Valentine's Day!! Yesterday was a great day in Jordan....specially for the flower shops!
As per local news agencies, roses wear being sold at 15JOD (Around 15Euro) a piece!!

Here in Greece, a friend of mine told me that he paid 3Euro per rose. Although I don't know if this is the highest price or not...but it seems that in Jordan people pay more for love! :D

But what can I say...at the end, love is priceless!!!

Taboon vs Pita bread .

Taboon bread Arabic: خبز طابون is a type of flatbread common in Jordanian villages. It is baked in an outdoor oven made of mud-brick and clay heated with wood and manure. The fuel is ignited under a metal plate, on which are placed smooth river bed rocks which when heated cook the whole-wheat bread.

Pita (also called and more commonly known as pitta or pita bread and pronounced "pitta" in Greek) is an often round, brown, wheat flatbread made with yeast.

Similar to other double-layered flat or pocket breads, pita is traditional in many Middle Eastern and Mediterranean cuisines. It is prevalent from North Africa through the Levant and the Arabian Peninsula to India and Afghanistan, coinciding with the spread of the Hellenistic world. The original pita is cooked flat without any rising. This type, known as the Greek pita, is the most well known and universal type.

Pita and Taboon both types of bread are used a lot in jordanian and greek meals, for us as jordanian we liked Pita specially with souvlaki .

in our next post we will talk about the diff btw Souvlaki and Shwarma , catch u then

Mouner

AIT-MBIT 2008

kanafeh :Jordanian sweets YUMMY

Kanafeh(Arabic) , kadaifi (Greek κα(ν)ταΐφι), is a very fine vermicelli-like pastry used to make sweet pastries and desserts. It is sometimes known as shredded phyllo.
Another name for kanafeh is knafeh Nabulsiyye.

Kanafeh is made by drizzling a row of thin streams of flour-and-water batter onto a turning hot plate, so they dry into long threads resembling shredded wheat. The threads are then collected into skeins.^[2]

Another variant has a cheese filling and called knāfeh, kunāfah, or kunfeh (Arabic; كنافة, (Turkish;Künefe).

Knafeh dough comes in three types:

• khishneh (Arabic خشنة) "rough", consisting of kadaif pastry, which looks like long thin noodle threads.
• na'ama (Arabic ناعمة) "fine", consisting of small pieces of semolina clustered together.
• mhayara (ِِArabic محيرة): which is a mixture of both khishneh and naa'ama.

The pastry is heated with some butter, margarine or palm oil for a while and then spread with soft cheese (see Nabulsi cheese) and more pastry; or the khishneh kunafah is rolled around the cheese. A thick syrup, consisting of sugar, water and a couple of drops of lemon juice, is poured on the pastry during the final minutes of cooking.

Mansaf : national dish of Jordan

hello ,today we will talk about the most popular dish in jordan which is

Mansaf (Arabic,منسف ) is a national dish of Jordan, made of lamb cooked in a yogurt sauce and served with rice. The lamb is cooked in a broth made with a dried yogurt-like product called jameed, and served on a large platter with a layer of flatbread (markook) topped with rice and then meat, garnished with almonds and pine nuts, and the sauce poured over all.

Mansaf is served on special occasions such as weddings and births, or to honor a guest. It is traditionally eaten collectively from a large platter in the Bedouin style, using the right hand instead of utensils.

good bye 4 now , c u soon .

A little bit about the two countries!

I thought that a brief comparison between the two countries will help build a picture of the cultures in Jordan and Greece. CIA finds it useful, they even put together a website called CIA World Factbook. The website contains information about countries in the world. I took the liberty off choosing some categories about Jordan and Greece. I hope this will give an insight and build a picture of the two countries and current status of Jordanian and Greek people:

	Jordan	Greece
Geography
Area	total: 92,300 sq km (World Rank: No.119)	total: 131,940 sq km (World Rank: No.104)
Coastline (Sea)	26 km	13,676 km
People
Population	6,053,193 (July 2007 est.)	10,706,290 (July 2007 est.)
Population growth rate	2.412% (2007 est.)	0.163% (2007 est.)
Religion	Sunni Muslim 92%, Christian 6% (Majority Greek Orthodox), other 2% (several small Shi'a Muslim and Druze populations) (2001 est.)	Greek Orthodox 98%, Muslim 1.3%, other 0.7%
Languages	Arabic (official), English widely understood among upper and middle classes	Greek 99% (official), other 1% (includes English and French)
Government
Government type	constitutional monarchy	parliamentary republic
Independence	Independence Day, 25 May (1946)	1829 (from the Ottoman Empire)
Economy
GDP - per capita (PPP)	$4,700 (2007 est.)	$30,500 (2007 est.)
Unemployment rate	13.5% official rate; unofficial rate is approximately 30% (2007 est.)	8.4% (2007 est.)
Debt – external	$7.483 billion (31 December 2007 est.)	$371.5 billion (30 June 2007)
Currency	Jordanian Dinar (JOD = 0.709USD)	Euro (EUR)
Military
Manpower fit for military service	males age 17-49: 1,348,076 females age 17-49: 1,158,011 (2005 est.)	males age 18-49: 2,018,557 females age 18-49: 2,000,650 (2005 est.)
Military expenditures - percent of GDP	8.6% (2006)	4.3% (2005 est.)

First post

Hello all!

We are 3 Jordanian Masters students (Ayman, Ma'en, Mouner) currently studying in Greece.
This blog is part of a project for our E-business course.

In our posts we will discuss cultural issues in both countries Jordan and Greece. Your comments are also highly appreciated but will be moderated!! ;)

bye for now!
3 Jordanians in Greece!