Mediterranee Beirut

... I am not even going to try to paint a nice picture of this city...it is more like Projects of the Middle East. Yep, time to abandon ship and move on. I found out this is just a place to party late into the night rather than anything else anyway.<br><br>At promptly 8am I checked out of the hotel. I needed a taxi to the bus station and the reception desk clerk told me it would be "ten minutes." Just like at the airport ten minutes came and went and I asked ...

... art galleries on the city's outskirts and shmyed at ABC, another luxury center in Beirut. Also hit the National Museum, which was superb, and hitched a motorcycle ride to a far-off gallery with a member of the "Secret Lebanese FBI". Ate dinner at Le Chef, a great local joint, and met a few university students at a coffee shop in the evening, although the conversation revolved around brands and American pop music, whereas I was trying to learn more about the ...

... to offer (I think this town had 20..and the population was about 30. hahaa ok maybe not quite, but it put Tawa's proportion of people to churches to shame!!) and went to a Hizbollah castle for a fundraiser dinner one night, supporting women's rights here in Lebanon (the food was AMazing, and yes that was completely intentional capitalisation)). We found a restaraunt on Gemayze called Le Chef, which aparently is the only restaraunt that remained open throughout the civil war ...

... well. At about 7 pm, we jumped into a small city bus on its way to the refugee camp. I really did not know what to expect. I had images of a massive open field with makeshift tents everywhere and Palestinian people struggling to get by with their daily lives. When we got to Shatillia, I quickly realized that my image of a refugee camp was totally wrong. It was actually a neighborhood - a very run down one. Old and poorly maintained buildings defined the area. I could probably ...

... was to shop for some "go&#305;ng out" clothes, P&#305;erre came w&#305;th. As we wandered around, the ent&#305;re c&#305;ty looked "closed". Maybe because &#305;t was a hol&#305;day, Saturday, but the days that followed looked qu&#305;te s&#305;m&#305;lar as well. The more we explored, the more obv&#305;ous &#305;t became that th&#305;s &#305;s a c&#305;ty for the r&#305;ch and famous of the Arab world. It &#305;s not a Western tour&#305;st dest&#305 ...

... is very much different than other middle eastern cities i have seen: Nice characteristic buildings, so many brand stores and Enlish/French in most of the places. It really is the Paris of the middle east. I am happy to be here, we'll have some coffee now with othe fellows then go to the opening ceremony at UNESCO Palace. Oh, also, we met Detta Regan, the creator of Follow the Women. She is humble dedicated and down to earth. I added one more inspiring person to my life...

... pariah state, our collective bellies were shamefully craving staple Western junk. We started out with Nando's then headed to Starbuck's for coffee and dessert - Western **** has never tasted so good! Bellies full, we took a taxi to the extensively redeveloped downtown area. Once there, it really became apparent for the first time that Beirut is still feeling the effects of last year's war between Israel and Hizbullah. Though the Israeli bombing campaign targeted Hizbullah ...

Met Maher for knefeh (the sesame roll stuffed with cheese and drizzled with rosewater syrup - yum) and made a shopping list. To the paint store for . . . paint. It took a while to figure out what we needed and what the best deal was. The guy gave us a good deal though because we were a youth center and he was a Christian businessman. Cool! We got a lot of paint for only $118. Ed and I started on the X-Box room - taped off the posters for borders, then painted black on 2 of the ...

... country a truly unique. His hospitality, his generosity, his ability to make us laugh and of course his willingness to answer even our most absurd questions made Naji the perfect host. As a result of its position in the heart of the Middle East, Lebanon is a country that has seen more than its fair share of recent regional turmoil and has no doubt limited the number of tourist visits to the country. The fact that the country was engaged in a bloody civil war until 1990 makes ...

... to have a good long stretch - it must have lasted fully ten seconds during which his hands were above his head. I just closed my eyes... So it was something of a relief to arrive in Tripoli unscathed. As I made my way to the citadel of Raymond de Saint Gilles I bumped into the guys I was smoking with the other day, who were surprised but amused to see me again - and of course offered me their nargileh again. This time I turned it down. The citadel has been in existence - though not ...