And then there was Lebanon

I've been curious to visit Lebanon for a long time, and I am so incredibly happy that we were able to go as part of this trip. It helped me understand my where my family's love of food and our loud talking (not to mention my dad's maniacal driving) originated. It also debunked more than a few myths and allowed me to see how things are here, rather than how they are portrayed in the US. We stayed in the very posh Saifi Village, near Downtown and Gemayze and Minot Streets (home to great restaurants and bars), Martyr's Square and the waterfront - we were lucky to be in such a nice place, and are grateful to Kristin and her friend E.B. for having us (not to mention, we got to hang out with an adorable, if very naughty, Bermese Mountain puppy, Smuggler).

From the beginning:

I got really, really sick. Balen had it bad in Central America, and I picked up something awful in Paris and it persisted for about 3 days into Lebanon - shooting pains and cramping every 30 seconds, for days. It was horrible.

One positive outcome of getting sick was that it led to my first encounter with the legendary Lebanese hospitality. On our way to the pharmacy, I found myself hunched over, leaning on a side of the building, breathing slowly and waiting for the pain to subside. Balen and I were both used to this routine. I looked up as my arms were grasped by 2 men frantically speaking Arabic who seemed to come out of nowhere and sat me down on a stool they had brought out of their store around the corner. They thrust a big bottle of water into my hands and insisted I drink it, thinking I had heat exhaustion. Whatever the misunderstanding about the cause of my problems, they were so kind, and I thanked them profusely every time I ran into them for the rest of the week. I tried to give them their water bottle back and they refused it.

After another day of agony (the medicine from the pharmacy didn't help), Balen and I made our longest trip so far in Lebanon - from the apartment to AUB Hospital, a wonderful place that ran very efficiently (the only hospital I'd visited outside the US had been in the Marshall Islands - an unbelievably frustrating experience every time) and where I finally got some medicine to make me feel better. It took 2 trips, blood tests, pee tests, and a parisite panel, but I am generally healthy (no bugs!) and they gave me medicine to make the cramping stop, which meant I was now able to walk around, and equally importantly... EAT!
Beirut is a city of contradictions - "the Paris of the Middle East" to some, a war-zone, a city full of mosques and churches where women walk around in designer dresses and stilettos. I loved seeing some of the many sides of Beirut and Lebanon, including:

Amazing food. We ate extremely well in Beirut, thanks to many great recommendations from Kristin, our wonderful host (my friend and past boss from the Marshall Islands, who is now teaching in Beirut). One of our favorite places was a great little place called Le Chef, a Beirut institution frequented by travelers and locals alike. It looks like a cafeteria, the patron/waiter yells at you "Welcome!" before you walk in, and keeps about 10 teenage boys running food around constantly, yelling your order into the kitchen as soon as you ask him for anything. The food comes out incredibly fast, and it's amazing. As you leave, and before you say thank you, he says, "Welcome, welcome," or, "WELCOME to Lebanon!"

The Corniche - similar to the Embarcadero in SF, though more fun, it's a place to walk along the water and be seen. We started at Las Raoushes (also known as Pigeon Rocks, strangely, as there are no pigeons) and made our way toward downtown as the sun set. There were families out smoking hookah, young men ogling women, peddlers selling bread in the shape of purses, a McDonalds, a ferris-wheel, and 4-star hotels.

Hariri Mosque (officially Mohammad Al-Amin Mosque) - right around the corner from where we stayed with Kristin, the Hariri Mosque has been likened to the Blue Mosque in Istanbul (which we were to see shortly!) because of its incredible vibrant color (Balen thought it looked more like the Excalibur Hotel in Las Vegas, and liked it immediately for that reason). It was built by the family of Rafic Hariri, Lebanon's past Prime Minister, who was assasinated in 2005. I'm not sure that I agree with the Blue Mosque comparison, but it's certainly an interesting place. We also visited the memorial next door, and I don't think I've ever seen so many flowers. When Balen and I visited, I was asked to cover completely (apparently my modest dress and hair covering was not enough) buttoning a thick black dress all the way from neck to floor, and covering my hair with their black scarf. Photos to follow. There is also a very old and beautiful Armenian Orthodox church right across the street from the Mosque - very typical of Beirut.

There are no addresses in Beirut, or if there are, people don't use them. Street names are also futile, as they have Arabic, French, and English names, and often more than one of each. Getting around, however, was surprisingly easy when we asked nicely and used landmarks. People were generally great English speakers, and if they weren't, they were always kind enough to pull someone on the street aside to translate. We learned the Arabic words for many foods, hello, yes, no, and most importantly, thank you (shukren!). We had more than a few funny looks when people would try to speak to us in Arabic and receive our blank stares. Especially so when they knew my last name (like, in the hospital).



It was eye-opening to encounter the many obvious marks and scars of war. Walking around the city, you run into many examples of this - military men on every corner, security guards everywhere, the remains of burned buildings and bullet holes. Much of the evidence is right in the middle of town, near the Green Line that divided the city during the civil war, among the fancy hotels and financial centers, where people drive sleek foreign cars and wear shiny shoes and suits. The Holiday Inn is a perfect example - it was just being finished when the 2006 war broke out, and became a sniper hang out. This is what remains. It is weird to see such recent evidence of conflict in juxtaposition with normal daily life in such a vibrant and diverse place - high heels and headscarves, fancy cars and decrepit buildings, French, Arabic, English, and more languages, mosques and churches on the same block... But despite the development (there is a ton of construction, cranes and scaffolding everywhere) and the feeling of security, the reminders are everywhere.

As in Central America, we took buses to get around in Lebanon, and unsurprisingly, these were times of strife (in finding where to actually catch said buses) and of great cultural immersion. People drive like absolute maniacs in Beirut, including bus drivers. At one point, ours drove through a parking lot to get in front of the car in front of us. The other guy then pulled the same move in the next parking lot. I noticed that our bus driver was laughing through the experience. The bus also, frighteningly, picked people up and dropped them off on the side of the freeway. People seemed to think it was nothing out of the ordinary.

As nerds, Balen and I had a lot of fun exploring the ruins in Lebanon - in the National Museum in Beirut and in Byblos (Jbail in Arabic). The museum gave a great history of the country, from the Stone Age to the Phoenicians to the Romans. Byblos is a town with ruins where you can see remains from the Stone Age, the Phoenicians, the Romans, the Crusades, and the Ottomans, all in one place. It has two claims to fame, first as the birthplace of the modern alphabet and second that it is the oldest continually-inhabited city in the world. The newer part of town also has a great souq, or market. There, we found a (weird, but cool) shop/museum displaying and selling fossils of marine life from a hundred million years ago that had been found in limestone cliffs 1000 meters above sea level, left over from when this part of the world was underwater, dug up at a local archeological site. Balen bought a little fish :) We also visited the famous (or infamous, depending) beach club scene - very fancy. It was a lot for one day!
We took a day-tour from Beirut to Baalbek, the Cedars, and the Qadisha Valley. It was a great trip and a good way to see a lot of the country in a relatively short time. As with other tours we've taken, we met some interesting characters - my favorite being a pushy photographer from New York who grilled Balen about how to get her photos to come up in google searches, then went on a diatribe about copyright issues in photography and the many people she's had to sue, only after telling us in a very humble voice, "My work is very well-known!"
Baalbek is a set of extremely well-preserved Roman ruins, set in Hezbollah territory (the Bekaa Valley) - lots of yellow and green flags flying alongside the Cedar national flag. We did not mention there (or anywhere in Lebanon) our future trip to Israel. On the way, we passed a Bedoin tent with a Mercedes parked out front.
We drove through the valley and up over some huge mountains to get to The Cedars, a sadly depleted ancient Cedar forest that the Phoenicians used to build their boats and empire (Cedars are a symbol of Lebanon). It's also a ski resort. I thought it was sad - it's literally a patch of less that 100 trees on an otherwise barren mountainside. On the other hand, the Lebanese take an incredible amount of pride in their cedars, and we were able to see the oldest one in the country. And the drive was incredible.
The Qadisha Valley one of the most beautiful and serene places I have ever seen. It's a steep valley with greenery everywhere, terraced in places for olive cultivation and other agriculture, with villages cut into the mountainsides. We visited a monastery containing the oldest printing press in the Middle East (from Germany). But mostly it was about the views.

We had a fantastic time visiting Lebanon. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to visit and to see for myself what it's like - one thing that I want to point out is how safe we felt. The Lebanese take great pride in hosting guests, and that goes for tourists, too. While we saw lots of guns, we also felt at ease walking the city. My one regret is not being able to locate my family on this trip. Supposedly, I have a great-uncle, somewhere. "Where is your family?" is the first question people asked when they learned my Lebanese heritage, and they couldn't believe it when I said that I don't know. Finding the Dahers and the Aloufs is now on my list for next time.

*Photos will follow - like an idiot I managed to delete them from my camera, though they are backed up, thank goodness! I have officially been demoted from photo-uploading responsibilities.