I leave Detroit at 10:28PM for a 7 hours and 37 minutes red eye flight to LHR.
Sunday, April 2, 2017:
I will arrive at 11:05 am in Heathrow airport in London on Sunday.
I booked the express train from LHR to Paddington Station for $15.50.
I also booked the return ticket on April 9.
I booked the first two nights in Hyde park area which is next to the Paddington Station so I can settle, rest, and then proceed with hostels for the rest of the trip.
Staying in this hotel:
Royal Eagle Hotel
There, I will be meeting my friend Walid Marmar, and spending the few upcoming days together.
Visiting on Sunday:
Diana Memorial
Kensington Gardens
Kensington Palace
Hyde Park – Sunset
Monday, April 3, 2017:
Staying in Royal Eagle Hotel
Visiting on Monday:
Serpentine Gallery
Design Museum
Holland Park
The rest of the trip is approximated in this map and it will be flexible to make decisions over there. I will be posting a daily blog while I am there summarizing my daily experiences.
Fashion Advice from a fashion expert friend in London to me:
1. Do not dress like American icons because they don’t know how to dress. They are rich and fashionless. Even our President’s fashion sucks.
2. Don’t wear running shoes, but wear comfortable shoes.
3. Don’t wear t-shirts with writing on them.
4. No slippers, sweat pants, hoodies, anything with a college emblem or name , no jerseys, no pajamas ever should leave the house.
5. If you pull a shirt or jacket more than 3 inches off your body, it is too big.
6. Jeans must be dark or white. No light blue jeans .
7. If you are over weight, lose weight. There is no fashion remedy to this.
8. Glasses, watches, scarves, and anything you put on, must match 100%. Check Pinterest if you are not sure.
9. No white socks
10. No Nike unless you are running in the gym.
My trip will be planned according to main attractions and organized by neighbourhoods. While I will have 3-5 specific places to see in a day, I will then leave an open free time to discover neighborhoods.
Fight for freedom is gradual and eternal. Today’s fight for freedom can be manifested in:
1. Ending Israeli occupation to Palestine
2. Closing Guantanamo
3. Ending gender pay gap and economic severe inequality
4. Giving Transgenders access to their self-identified-gender BR
5. Ending search of electronic devices at border entries
6. Limiting NSA invasion of privacy
7. Limiting detention time at border crossings to 1 hour maximum
8. Redefining border crossing among nations
9. Ending endoctrination of children into sects and religions
10. Eliminating nationalism from education and teaching world citizenship
11. Redefining the 2nd amendment as allowing people to have equivalent legal power as government instead of arms.
12. Sanctioning countries that violate human rights and people’s right for self-determination and rule.
The London trip I am planning to take on April 1, 2017 is my first official trip to Europe. I remember years ago I took a quiz about what is the city that is best for me, and the result was London. I don’t know much of this city, except from the game Monopoly, and the few movies shot there, but my love to it has been growing over the years for many reasons.
I am going to start this journal about my trip, from preparation till returning, and I hope you will enjoy it with me.
In preparation, I started reading the Biography of London, by Peter Ackroyd. I am also getting the map of london today from AAA to draw my general plan for visiting the city.
I also am going to watch a couple of movies shot in London, and a couple of documentaries to get me in the mode.
In London, I am meeting my dear friend, Walid Marmar, and a group of other friends and acquaintances.
I am excited about this trip that will be the first of many to Europe, and to a city from which everything I love in Art, music, literature, and theater have sprung.
Movies and documentaries I will watch shot in London:
In the second month of the year, and after the Annual Strategic Meeting at Fort Lauderdale that took place in the first week of February, implementing the W Plan for this month has a significant importance: it is testing the refined and edited plan to make sure it works, and stepping up the game plan based on the results.
So in January, I had 308 steps accomplished and an overall success rate of 55%. Last month of February, I had a 62% success rate and 367 steps accomplished.
Last month of February, I had a 62% success rate and 367 steps accomplished.
There were 12 important accomplishments in the month of February, including the establishment of 4 new businesses, establishment of a new meetup group and secured a great location for it, and some successes at the non-profit level.
The diet plan worked out fine and comfortable, although I followed the diet 76% of the time, and stuck to the menu 90% of the time, and exercised 85% of the time, I am 0.6 lbs away from the month’s goal. This I counted as a failure, and next month it will get more strict.
Four of my goals in business that require coding and deep thinking, were not touched during the month due to lack of that “deep work” time. Also, I had 53% success in doing my daily meditation, although much success in hiking through the woods.
For that, an important resolution had to be made to tackle these “failures”. The way is to create Deep Work time. Watch this video about Deep Work:
These resolutions were decided based on this:
2017.2.24.a Facebook is deleted as a phone application
2017.3.3.a Wake up at 6. Meditate to 6:15. Deep Work 6:15 to 8am.
2017.3.3.b To read and sleep, I have to be in bed by 10:30PM, otherwise a nap of 1 hour is needed in the afternoon of the next day.
2017.3.3.c Check mail once a week and scan once a month
We learnt Islam in schools from Kindergarten. We memorized the short Surahs (chapters of Quran) and recited them like Christmas carols. We heard short stories of the prophets and day dreamed about them. And we studied the Seerah (personal history) of the Prophet at a very young age and it was our bed times stories or in some cases, fantasies.
The story of Prophet Ibrahim destroying idols and leaving the ax on the biggest idol was depicted by illustrations such as this in children’s book.
One of these short stories is the story of prophet Ibrahim (Abraham) and how he destroyed the idols of his people during their festival, in which he pretended to be sick to be left behind. Another story was the Prophet (the prophet here forth will mean Prophet Mohamad) destroying the idols surrounding Kaaba after the “Opening of Mecca” (the word opening – fateh in Arabic – is used for Islamic major conquest).
You have to be a son of a United Arab Emirates native male to be considered an Emiraty or to have the UAE citizenship. An Emirati mother won’t do, nor is being born there. It is a tribal society with all the pride and prejudice that come with its definition. Only about 11% of the country’s population are Emiratis. The majority actually (0ver 50%) are a working class South Asian … that is Indian, Pakistani, Bangali, Afghani, and others. We as foreigner Arabs were called “expatriates”. Most Emaratis and expatriates had servants, and so did we. We had a servant whose name was Leila, from Sri Lanka. In my opinion, it was just a modern form of slavery. The abuse of human rights inscripted in the work contracts for those servants is shocking, although the economic value to them is great.
At any case, Leila was a hindu, and I walked to her room with my brother Moe when in Ajman when I was about 7 years old, and found her kneeling down to one of the african antique wood sculptures my mom bought for our living room. She was practicing her religion, but given my little child indoctrination about idol worshipping infidels, and the influence of all the “idol destroying” heroes of my childhood, add to that a lack of education about tolerance, I found it an opportunity to do what Prophet Ibrahim did, and me and my brother Moe attacked the idols and smashed them across the wall, destroying them, and shouting “ALLAHU AKBAAAR”.
Leila cried, probably not because of our blasphemous act, but maybe because she thought she will get in trouble. My parents had a confidential talk with her. But then, we had a good traditional warm from the oven slipper beating (Arabs don’t use grounding as punishment) by our Mom for destroying her living room ornaments.
In 1982-1983, a new branch of National Bank of Abu Dhabi was opening in a small village called Khorfakkan, and my father was promoted to be a branch president and requested to move to it. A very important chapter of my childhood started in this small city surrounded and pushed by mountains into the dark blue of the Gulf of Oman. I was moving to Grade 2, and my brother Moe was entering kindergarten. There were no private schools in Khorfakkan. The closest city with a private school (25 minutes drive) was Fujairah. The tales of two cities unknown to most humans at that time started for me and my brother Moe.
Wissam Charafeddine 