Plaza Beirut

... glimmering harbor. It has beautiful bronze, lithe bodies in skimpy swim-wear draped over white day beds or dipping into a myriad of newly remodeled swimming pools. The DJ plays Ibiza style tracks, whilst people chill in the water sipping exotic cocktails or champagne under Beirut's cloudless blue sky.

As we were lounging on our day beds and looking out along the rocks ebbing the Corniche, the scene was a stark contrast. The Muslim men are taking their sons swimming ...

... 10pm we left to go to our Hotel. The hotel name is Lancaster and quite honestly, isn't all that. The service stinks, our room didn't have all the amenities, and the wireless is non-existent. Oh, and the door won't close shut unless you slam it. Regardless, the city looks awesome and it's very beautiful, even though it was raining. I haven't taken any pics yet but plan to take a lot tomorrow so I will have stuff ...

... to be like the locals and just combine the passports. It didn't make sense for 4 people to wait in line. So the Russian guy and myself waited in line while the Brazilian and Scottish guy relaxed at the back of the room. This was a big mistake. When we got to the front of the line, we slapped 4 passports in front of him even though there were only 2 of us present. The border official said that foreigners had to be present at all times. They would ...

... next day we hung out at Najib's apartment complex for awhile. It's on the sea and has some nice pools and a great view. His family's apartment is in the north (north of Beirut, not northern Lebanon), which is a predominantly Christian area; whereas in the south it is predominantly Muslim. It takes forever to get there and back though because there is only one main road that is probably about 5 lanes. Traffic in and around Beirut has been extremely annoying. The ...

... In yet others it's Middle Eastern, but with a Lebanese/Mediterranean twist, and it's one of the prettiest countries I've ever visited. The other really striking thing after Jordan and Syria is just how relaxed the whole place feels. Aleppo is a very conservative city, and the burkha is a common sight - in Lebanon there are billboard advertisements for lingerie. After only a short time in the Middle East I found this quite shocking ...

... and Aanjar as well as being the homeland of Hezbollah (Party of God). Heavily cultivated over millennia (it was one of Rome's 'breadbaskets'), it has suffered from both deforestation and soil erosion and is now a relatively deprived area. Baalbek (nee Heliopolis) - 'Sun City' of the ancient world. Probably the most impressive Roman site in the Middle East. Its temples, built on an extravagant scale that outshone anything in Rome ...

Like Bangkok, Tel Aviv is a city that we kept coming back to. It is a modern city, not much antiquity. It borders the Mediterranean and it is charming. Jaffa is the old Arib city to the south with narrow streets filled with artist studios and restaurants and cats. It has a broken ...

... Up at 8, Dave picked us up at 9:30 (he'd had to be at school early) and we went to school to have coffee with the principal. It was a very, um, polite, small-talk sort of meeting. We talked about a picture hanging on his wall of where the school and church used to be downtown and now that area is all roadways and a big bridge. The main sanctuary is still there but that's it. I drank tea and listened and felt my ...

... American University of Beirut, swarmed with students basking in the early afternoon glow of an unseasonably warm winter day. The grounds are lovely - they overlook the Med and are covered in outcroppings of modern facilities and a riot of manicured greenery. The students here seem to have a charmed life - they attend a Stanford look alike on the banks of the Med! In addition, they have no lack of animal contact, as the campus is overpopulated with well-fed felines lounging ...

... in Byblos drinking beer overlooking the harbour after a scoot around Roman ruins. Sweet. Continued this theme the next day at Balbeck and again the following day at Saida and Sour in the south. All up, lots of Roman ruins and we kept to this European theme by eating Italian and French (well, there is a loose theme there) on all nights - basically, we craved anything that wasn't Middle Eastern. Lebanon is great, the sites are breath-taking, the weather ...