I’m very happy and honored to announce that I’m a contributor at Gulf Air’s inflight magazine “Gulf Life”.
As an introduction I was featured at Gulf Life’s issue last December’s Q&A section.
Gulf Life is the inflight magazine of Gulf Air and has a potential monthly readership of 600,000 people. It contains a wide-ranging mix of features relating to Gulf Air destinations worldwide, with a particular emphasis on the Gulf region and Middle East.
It was a day in history. Thats how the pilot greeted us, passengers onboard Gulf Air’s first flight to Moscow.
October 28th 2014, was indeed a historical day for Gulf Air and to me personally.
I was invited to board the first flight to Moscow for a media familiarization trip sponsored by Gulf Air. It was such an honor to be among that trip. I was finally getting recognized as a travel photography blogger and social media influencer. Plus I get to travel to an exciting place like Moscow.
After attending the official inauguration ceremony it was boarding time.
5 hours later we were already in Moscow.
The number of media lineup and photographers was overwhelming. Many plane spotters seemed to be waiting for the arrival of the flight.
It was cold really cold ! But I loved it.
Continue reading Moscow through my iPhone
Mornings in Jenin by Susan Abulhawa
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
A wonderful novel I never felt it was fictional the story is a continuous misery and displacement of Palestinians. I was so touched by the story of Nakba and how life was before it. Maybe I won’t know how Palestinians felt when they lost their lands, houses, villages and were forced to stay in camps. But I could imagine how they felt and I imagined how happy the grandfather Yehya the Abulheja felt when he sneaked back to Ein Hod to pick the crops from his land which now was home to French artists.
Definitely the best novel about the Nakba.
This is a late post of a brunch visit to Chtaura restaurant in Moda Mall. Chtaura Lebanese cold store is very old and famous in Bahrain. I was very happy to see the opening of Chtaura café in Moda Mall. We visited Chtaura as a big group and we ordered many of their famous Lebanese dishes.
We ordered fatteh, labneh, manaeesh, eggs with bastirma, foul, grilled halloumi and some pastries.
Continue reading Chtaura شتوره
My friend Nazli sends us an annual questionnaire to recap the year’s key memories. I answered the same questions with some additions.
2014
Hello there!
I know I’ve been away from my blog for some time. If you are following me in Social Media you would understand how busy I was.
It has been an insane year so far, but I’m happy that I was extra productive. I was also lucky to receive a lot of media attention and meet wonderful people from all over the world.
Last October I was invited to be among Gulf Air’s first media trip to Moscow. The trip was on 28th October (a day after my birthday!). I was ecstatic to be among top editors from famous publications in Bahrain.
The 4 days we spent in Moscow were really magical. The best thing about travelling is making friends along the journey.
I will write a detailed post about Moscow. In the meantime here is Noor Toorani’s article in Gulf Daily News with my photos (yes I’m happy to see my photos in local newspapers!).
Cheers!
Rasha
I’m honored to be featured in November’s issue of Areej Magazine. Apologies if you can’t read Arabic :)
Another weekend and another brunch. This time we took a bit of a risk. We went to a place that we had no idea how the food will turn out. We found the account over instagram and we thought it looks interesting an underrated gem maybe.
I was the first to reach. I was worried that I’ll get lost (as usual) so I left home early and headed to Uptown Gourment. It is located just off exhibition road opposite to the famous Chetaura store.
Continue reading Uptown Gourmet (Brunch review)
For years I had Lensbaby sitting in my wish list. The reason it didn’t actually make it to the shopping cart because I was not sure if I needed it (Had other priorities!). I also had some concerns if it was practical and easy to handle. Though I’m a travel documentary photographer but I do take small photography “weekend” assignments from time to time to fund my trips. Lately I started doing more of family portraits and new born photography. One day during a baby photo-shoot I just couldn’t get the camera to focus on the close-up shot I had in mind. That moment I decided to actually buy the Lensbaby. Immediately I researched online prices then I started checking for offers at local stores. I found a good offer from Yaqoubi store in Seef Mall. The sales lady was good; she answered all of my questions. She also walked me through the whole process of installing the lens and playing with the different kit accessories. I wanted to buy the Lensbaby sweet 35 optic only but I ended up taking it with the whole accessories kit for a bargain!
Luckily I had some gorgeous roses to test the lens. I used VSCO presets for Lightroom to process the photos.
My new iPhone wallpaper
Continue reading Oh baby lets Lensbaby!
And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I listened to the audiobook (great decision) and I felt a bit disappointed and a lot confused. The book has way too many characters, listening to ALL of their stories was unnecessary. I liked how the narration is done by Khalid and 2 others (a woman and a man). I also liked the accent of the narrators (Afghani, French, etc) changed based on characters. I would have preferred if Khalid would have cut down some of the characters and focused on the main ones. I couldn’t connect with the characters because they were going and coming in chapters! The only parts that I really connected with were Pari and Abdulla’s childhood and Nila Wahdati’s days in Kabul.
