Travel

Fascinating Middle East Destinations For Those in Love

Are you looking to rejuvenate, enhance, or enjoy your love life? What expectations are you having for your upcoming holidays? Thinking about the Middle East will give you a refreshing shot at your relationship. Forget what you hear about this region – the wars and endless turmoil. Tucked within this largely Muslim region are gems of locations that will appeal to you. What’s more? They are all safe.  Oman Oman is an exquisite location to visit and enjoy with your beau. Though it is a des...
Tags: Travel, General, Middle East, Dubai, Jordan, Bahrain, Aqaba, Beirut Lebanon, Dubai Mall, Hajar, Jebel Akhdar, Dubai UAE, Oman Oman, Middle East Beirut, Sawadi Beach, Azizia Bird Kingdom

Top 5 Christmas Cookies!

With Santa making an appearance soon 'tis the season for some easy Christmas cookie baking! Here are 5 Christmas cookie recipes that you have to try. There are classic Linzer cookies with a twist, the easiest "refrigerator" peanut butter cookies, a chocolatey choc chip crinkle cookie and savoury cheese cookies. And to finish there's a recipe for an entire box of Christmas cookies in 8 varieties all using the 1 recipe!
Tags: Travel, Santa

Garden Misfits

What are two obsessed Sunday Morning Antique Fair shoppers supposed to do when they run out of room for any other thing? Every nook and cranny of the house is filled and all the spaces in the garden with more than 2 inches of soil are fully planted. Our obsessive “antique” shopping is funny because we never go shopping together for anything else. If the antiques would just stay in the antique shops we’d be fine. But no, we are lured out to the antique fairs rain or shine, cold or heat, lured t...
Tags: Travel, France, Bordeaux, Tom, Bourdeilles, Garden Misfits

This Week in Apps: Apple scolds adtech, Facebook hit with antitrust suits, Twitter buys Squad

Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the weekly TechCrunch series that recaps the latest in mobile OS news, mobile applications and the overall app economy. The app industry is as hot as ever, with  204 billion downloads and $120 billion in global consumer spend in 2019. Not including third-party Chinese app stores, iOS and Android users 130 billion apps in 2020. Consumer spend also hit a record $112 billion across iOS and Android alone. In 2019, people spent three hours and 40 minutes per day ...
Tags: Apple, Google, Amazon, Mobile, Facebook, Apps, Twitter, Spotify, London, Sweden, Instagram, Australia, California, France, Saudi Arabia, China

Nature’s Feast

                  [Author: French la Vie]
Tags: Travel, French la Vie

This year, for the first time, I won’t go home for Christmas. Will my family ties loosen for good?

Flying visits to Northern Ireland kept me connected. FaceTime, Zoom and my niece’s drawings arriving by post are no substituteI have never missed Christmas at home, though I have lived elsewhere for more than 20 years. This year, I will break that run. The festive travel window means that I could fly back to Northern Ireland from London. But my father is elderly and our neighbourhood on the border has been relatively untouched by Covid-19 until recently, so it doesn’t feel the safest plan. Inste...
Tags: Travel, Family, London, Life and style, UK News, Northern Ireland, Facetime, Coronavirus, COVID

More than half of Americans said they would consider living in a tiny home in a new survey as the lifestyle increases in popularity amid the pandemic

The Tiny Housing Co's one-bedroom Natura tiny home. The Tiny Housing Co Tiny homes have become popular during the coronavirus pandemic, and with this sudden surge comes new tiny home trends. IPX1031, a Fidelity National Financial subsidiary, surveyed 2,006 Americans to measure the public interest in tiny housing. Over half of the respondents reported that they would consider living in a tiny home, and of those who are not yet homeowners, 86% said they would consider purchasing a tiny h...
Tags: Travel, Google, News, California, Housing, Life, US, Trends, Airbnb, Wall Street Journal, Vrbo, Tiny Home, Natura, Rental Market, Tiny Living, Fidelity National Financial

Thousands of Israeli tourists flock to Dubai for Hanukkah. 'Emirati people are very hospitable to us,' says rabbi.

A man reads the news of the Abraham Accords in a copy of UAE-based The National newspaper, near the Burj Khalifa. GIUSEPPE CACACE/AFP via Getty Images In August, Israel and the United Arab Emirates signed a historic deal that normalized ties between the two nations. For the first time, there are direct flights between Dubai and Tel Aviv. Airlines have struggled to keep up with the demand for flights between the two cities. Businesses are being set up at a rapid pace in Dubai to cater to th...
Tags: Travel, Politics, London, Israel, International, Tel Aviv, Trends, Economy, Morocco, Tourism, Paris, United Arab Emirates, Dubai, Hanukkah, Benjamin Netanyahu, Uae

Same-old Saturday

The rain is discouraging me from taking my camera out on our walks, so I'm continuing with the twenty-year old slides from our Loire Valley trip in the fall of 2000. This is Amboise, again. If I remember correctly, I was up on the roof of the Tour des Minimes, one of two huge towers that enclose spiral ramps from the ground level up to the top of the bluff and the royal residence, when I took this shot looking over the center of town. The castle's flags fly high over the slate rooftops of cent...
Tags: Travel, WCS, Leonardo da Vinci, Loire Valley, Amboise, Vinci, Amboise Amboise

Thousands of Israeli tourists flock to Dubai for Hannukah. 'Emirati people are very hospitable to us,' says rabbi.

A man reads the news of the Abraham Accords in a copy of UAE-based The National newspaper, near the Burj Khalifa. GIUSEPPE CACACE/AFP via Getty Images In August, Israel and the United Arab Emirates signed a historic peace deal that normalized ties between the two nations. For the first time, there are direct flights between Dubai and Tel Aviv. Airlines have struggled to keep up with the demand for flights between the two cities. Businesses are being set up at a rapid pace in Dubai to cater...
Tags: Travel, Politics, London, Israel, International, Tel Aviv, Trends, Economy, Morocco, Tourism, Paris, United Arab Emirates, Dubai, Benjamin Netanyahu, Uae, Dubai Hotels

#UAE Looks to Domestic Tourism, Desert Winter to Boost Revenue - Bloomberg

UAE Looks to Domestic Tourism, Desert Winter to Boost Revenue - Bloomberg The United Arab Emirates started a campaign to encourage local tourism and promote its desert winters, as it looks to recover from the impact of the pandemic.“The Most Beautiful Winter in the World” program is part of an effort to double domestic tourism’s 41 billion dirhams ($11 billion) contribution to the economy, Vice President and Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum said in a tweet Saturday.The UAE, w...
Tags: Travel, China, United Arab Emirates, International Monetary Fund, Uae, Gulf, Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Rupert Neil Bumfrey, UAE Looks, Boost Revenue Bloomberg

Major ‘economic’ changes expected from #Kuwait's parliament | ZAWYA MENA Edition

Major ‘economic’ changes expected from Kuwait's parliament | ZAWYA MENA Edition Regarding the expectations from this Parliament concerning economic affairs, it seems that major changes are in order. A parliament of this kind will not accept crusty economic reforms, but will go deeper and demand a lot.This is because the parliamentary body includes those familiar with financial affairs and are fiercely fighting administrative corruption, reports Al-Nahar daily.The results of the parliamentary ele...
Tags: Travel, Parliament, Kuwait, Al Nahar, Rupert Neil Bumfrey

#UAE GDP expected back at pre-COVID levels by 2023 | ZAWYA MENA Edition

UAE GDP expected back at pre-COVID levels by 2023 | ZAWYA MENA Edition The UAE’s real gross domestic product is expected to recover to 2019 levels by 2023 as a sharp drop in tourism and real estate activities — two key mainstays of the non-oil sector — will drag down the economy in 2020, according to economists and analysts.The $414 billion UAE economy, dominated by Abu Dhabi (59 per cent of 2019 GDP) and Dubai (28 per cent), has been projected to contract 6.6 per cent in 2020 followed by a slig...
Tags: Travel, Washington, Opec, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Uae, Institute of International Finance, Rupert Neil Bumfrey, Trevor Cullinan, International Monetary Fund The

Gold hubs including #UAE pledge support for crackdown on illegal trade | Reuters

Gold hubs including UAE pledge support for crackdown on illegal trade | Reuters Eleven gold trading hubs including the United Arab Emirates have declared their support for an initiative by the world’s most influential bullion market authority to improve regulation on issues such as money laundering and unethical sourcing of gold.The London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) said on Friday authorities in the eleven hubs had responded positively to a letter it sent last month laying out regulatory ...
Tags: Travel, United Arab Emirates, Uae, Reuters, Reuters Eleven, Rupert Neil Bumfrey, LBMA, London Bullion Market Association LBMA