Happy Holidays – Bonnes Fêtes

I was having dinner with two very good friends of mine yesterday and we had a very interesting discussion about religions and since it was an important aspect of my trip (more about that another day hopefully), we ended up going over the pictures of some of the holy places I visited. In addition to being appropriate to the season, it brought back a lot of fond memories and I have to say I even got goose bumps and felt a bit melancholic.

Well. It brought me back here and I realize I have not posted for 3 months!!! Man, life goes fast. I have been busy getting back on track and got pulled deep into crunch mode at the new job I started Oct 1st. blah blah blah… .

Anyway, that little discussion of yesterday evening brought back a lot of fond memories. But while you could think I remembered more some of the places I visited, it is actually not the case. The strongest memories that came back to me are all related to people that were nice (crazy!?) enough to accept to hang out with me while I was traveling or even to worry for me or support me through this blog, emails or pure thoughts. This is what means the most to me.

Extending this to the full year, I want to thank you all, all my family and friends I knew before or I met in the last year. Thanks for welcoming me in your life, even if it is/was for only 5 minutes, 1 hour, a day, a week or forever. Thanks for being here. I appreciate every minute of your friendship. You are all great people.

Happy Holidays and Best Wishes for 2007.

Wish to hear from you or, even better, see you soon.

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New Pictures

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Yes, the day has come!

I uploaded a load of pictures covering all the time since I left Egypt almost 1 1/2 month ago!

So, go to the pictures page and enjoy these pictures of Jordan, Israel, Syria, Lebanon and Turkey. 

I will go back and edit some of the older posts asap to put these pictures in context.

In the mean time, I hope you like them.

 

Now even better with embedded pictures

So, I have been a bit silent lately on this site but things are moving ahead and I will hopefully start writing more often.

As a first step, I have been trying to get the site ready for my trip and the addition of a picture manager was very important. I want something that is nice and works with wordpress so that I can embed pictures in my posts. I had looked at gallery before but did not manage to get it working the way I wanted so I uninstalled it. But lately, I found out about a plugin to integrate gallery with wordpress so I decided to give it another try and I think I like it. Installation went smoothly following the instructions on the different websites. And I have been able to configure the gallery theme to my liking.

So, there is now a new Pictures page accessible from the menu at the top of the page.

And I can embed pictures in my posts like this one I took in Japan in October 2001:

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I like it. What do you guys think?

Site and vaccinations

Today, I played a bit more with some wordpress themes. I am still not sure which one to use. I will be experimenting a bit more before I settle for one…

One sure thing is that the gallery software I installed at first does not look like a fit and I will uninstall it.

On the trip preparation front, I called the travel clinic and set an appointment for next Tuesday. This is the same doctor I visited before my trip to Peru last year. I got most of the shots I was missing last time so it should not be too bad. At the same time, since I am not sure where I will go after Turkey, I might have to get some shots that I will finally not need and I do not know if I should get Malaria pills or not (in case I finally decide to go to China and/or India). We shall see what the doctor says. Thinking about it, I could still visit a doctor in Europe before leaving for Asia…