Every time I travel, I find myself thinking of the many hazards that one faces when roaming the globe, starting from flying all the way to food poisoning, getting ripped off, accidents … etc.
One thing keeps popping in my mind though, and that is the hazards that we face by staying at hotels and eating out through the trips. It is true that we will be staying in 5 stars hotels most of the time, however; are all the workers in these hotels 5 star material or not??

The minute I walk in a hotel room, I check the cleanliness of the bed sheets, the bathroom and the glasses. Call me paranoid, but who knows how this room was cleaned after all?

Cleaning staff in hotels, workers and chefs in restaurants, they all have been portrayed and stereotyped in movies and stories as careless most of the time and that many of them (not all) are mad at something and they get it out on the customer when he/she cannot see them. So, if a customer asks to change the order after it was brought and verbally complains about anything, we find the waiter or the chef behind scenes doing something bad to the order before bringing it out, like spitting in the drink and stirring it so that nothing suspicious shows; just how many times did we see that in the movies? Could it be that this is only a fictional scene from the author’s mind or could it be a reflection of the truth??!!!

And what about workers in the kitchen not wearing gloves while preparing our food? How do we know where these hands were before starting our meals? I remember that in one of those restaurants where you can actually see the cooking taking place in front of you, we noticed that the guy was preparing our salad with his glove-less hands and we immediately asked that he wears glove and start a new salad dish; could we have been paranoid or was that the right thing to do???!!!

The studies and observations show that one cannot be too careful when staying and eating out because it is a human thing and a lot of people in this world are not accountable nor they are trustworthy of doing their job properly, which ends up in spreading disease and causing health problems to others. Some people are careless enough to pull jokes and pranks about this like when someone says he is allergic to peanuts and another pours some peanut butter in his food to see if he is telling the truth or not … imagine if he really does have allergy and he eats the contaminated food, he could die because of a sick joke … I think I have seen this on one of CSI’s episodes but it was fish allergy!!

What about housekeeping in hotels; I mean these workers come into your room when you are out of it and they clean it without being supervised, do they use gloves when cleaning the toilet? Do they change the gloves when cleaning glasses? Do they not wear gloves at all? Do they run through your stuff and snoop around in your luggage? Do they use your clothes, makeup, or perfume? How can we know that the “Maid in Manhattan” scene is not happening every day or every hour for that matter? Just because it was Jennifer Lopez actually stealing and trying the clothes, it does not make it OK … that was wrong and immoral regardless of how much I like JL!!!

As for me, I really keep my stuff in my bag and I keep it locked, so I try to take clothes that do not need ironing so that I can wear them comfortably … maybe I am being paranoid here but I cannot accept the idea of stranger hands running and searching through my clothes and stuff … I keep remembering that housekeeper in “The Last Holiday” when Queen Latifa asked her if she went through her stuff and she replied: I go through everybody’s stuff!!!

Just to give you another perspective about this issue, please watch the following movie and keep it in your mind when you are traveling …

Scary, ha??
I wish you safe and happy traveling folks!!!

You know that feeling when the end of the year approaches so fast that we cannot keep track of what we are doing Vs what needs to be done before the clock ticks ending the deadline? It seems that most of what we are doing these days is tied to a deadline or an expiry date and we find ourselves saying over and again: I need to do this and that before something happens; the keyword here being: BEFORE!!

Maybe that’s why we stopped enjoying life as we are supposed to, we no longer stop to smell the roses because we have to reach the destination or goal before time ticks ending our chance or before someone else reaches it and takes our catch … we have become so competitive that we do not care about how we do things as long as we win in the end … we no longer feel good because we finished a project or reached a goal … we feel good because we did that before someone else did or before the deadline …

We do not enjoy the ride, we do not pay attention to the good things around us because we are so focused on ending before it is too late as if we are being chased or pushed to do these things … we tend to forget that when we work, we do that for ourselves and no one else, we are the ones who benefit and learn … but shouldn’t we enjoy that as well??

Time flies and never stops for anything or anyone … it is the only thing that keeps moving despite all changes and factors … it affects things and people but does not get affected … it is the material of our lives yet we are willingly sacrificing it to do things that don’t really matter … we try to convince ourselves that we are doing what we have to do but how sincere and honest are we in confronting ourselves when it comes to how we invest in our time??

I know I have been truly busy lately and things were too cluttered in my mind and around me, but the reason that I cannot complain about it is that I am truly enjoying my crazy times … I am working with people that I admire and learn from and such professional atmosphere is a dream come true for someone like me … I have been working, traveling and spending more time with family and friends … I lost some friends and gained new ones … as we grow older, our choosing criteria become different and more specific … we become more clear on what works for us and what doesn’t and what crowd to hang out with and what crowd to stay away from … we become less tolerant when it comes to our beliefs because we already established a strong base on which we build further … it is not time to put foundations because this is done already and now it is time to build and grow …

2007 is ending … as I review it; I realize that I have achieved big milestones and a lot more smaller ones … so many events took place … I met a lot of new people and befriended them … some of them became best friends … some friends magically dropped out and are no longer a part of my life; by choice or not, it does not matter really as the result is the same … some friends were estranged and I do not see them as much as I would love to but the beauty of the friendship is that no matter how we stay away; when we do meet; it is like we were never apart!!

Crazy times are ruling our lives but the way to deal with it in my opinion, is to enjoy the ride while it lasts

Happy Eid to everyone …