Days 18-26

Lebanon. The most unique and familiar place I have been. I felt both so at home and yet so ostracized. Where do I begin with my week in Lebanon?

We prepared to leave after class on Thursday afternoon of last week. We all decided upon a meeting spot from which to begin the journey. For the sake of ease while writing this blog summarizing so much activity, and so you do not get too lost, four of us went to Beirut together, Elspeth, Zach, Simon and I. My roommate Victoria often made an appearance since she would be spending the week with her family in Lebanon also. Being responsible travelers, we decided it would be wise to bring along some Lebanese currency (they use both the lire and the US dollar). Elspeth goes to exchange money as the rest of us reclaim our passports from the program head. Please keep in mind the conversion rate from JD to Dollars is .7 to 1.

Elspeth: “Oh my God, okay, so I went downstairs and I gave them 100 JD…I got back 140 US dollars, they totally screwed up, it’s .7 to 1, so I should have gotten like 70 dollars…!! “
Simon :“DANG! You made BANK!”
Me: “Are you serious?? You just made a killing!”

Elated regarding our friends newly found fortune, we decide to push the limits to see if he can give us the same deal. I must admit that guilt ensues slightly as Elspeth urges “Go to the guy in the middle! He’s the one that did it!” Regardless, making double on my money sounds nice, so I nervously go to the “guy in the middle” to see if he’ll make the same mistake twice…I hand him 100JD…AMAZING, he gives me 140 US dollars back! Serious moral dilemma but I am so high on adrenaline I forget anything but the fact that this man did it AGAIN! We tell the others…Victoria my roommate and Simon decide to try their luck as well.

Elspeth and I at this point run upstairs to wait for the others in the computer lab, trying to kill some time. We are rolling around in giddiness. She gets up when she sees her roommate to tell her about the amazing idiocracies of the money men downstairs

“..and he gave us 140US DOLLARS!!!” Blank stare.
“Yeah?”

Elspeth convincingly tells the story again and pauses. She comes over to me… we sit, we think, we use an online calculator… we burst out in laughter. 100JD=140USD. The others are elated that the man made the same mistake…and then they too are told the realities… we are idiots. What a fabulous foot upon which to start.

We hop in a cab to the airport where Simon decides to get himself detained for a few minutes when his ticket wouldn’t print, giving us a minor gulp in our throats. We take off and land 45 minutes later in Beirut with my roommate whose family graciously had their driver pick us up and bring us three platters of delicious foods. They driver took the four of us to our hostel. We drove up at dusk and the humidity was oppressive. We noticed the huge body of water behind which the sun was setting. We noticed the dilapidated housing and the clean highways, we saw the street signs in French and Arabic, we noticed that perhaps the drivers in Beirut were more tame than in Amman. We pull into an area that is known as Gemmayzeh, also the area where we will be staying. There is the most awesome mosque any of us have ever seen. This will be our reference point.

After searching the streets for a little while in search of our hostel, we suddenly pull into a back alley off a highway. There are electrical cords hanging down from the building that is chipping white paint with rickety stairs that were maybe once marble...not to mention that this is a shady dark back alley. One of us sees the sign “Talal New Hotel”. Gulp. The thought in my head? “Oh shit.”

Laughing at myself for believing that paying 7 dollars a night for a place to stay would be a good idea, we walk up the stairs to a kindly man that we decide to nickname Talal (secretly) offering us tea, coffee, (hookah?) and giving us the key to what would come to be known as “the bomb shelter” (disclaimer: there were no bombs, but had there been, we would have been okay).

We open our door and see three and a half beds pressed against eachother with pretty pink Princess sheets. We do notice the functioning AC that was certainly a blessing. We have no windows. We look at the bathroom we share as a floor and notice there is no separation between where you poop and where you bathe. The shower head pops out of the wall and you must squeegee the bathroom floor after you shower so that the unassuming bloke who finds it in himself to pee in the middle of the night does not bust open his skull on the same floor that you washed yourself. You bathe in the toilet. Since I am the shortest I offer to take the half a bed snuggled between the two boys. We pull out a bottle of Jameson and get to know eachother.

We meet up with my roommate who offers to take us to a trendy restaurant on the roof of an old building. It is too expensive so we down some appetizers and head to our local taste of Lebanon “Le Chef”.

Our host welcomes us…over and over...“WAYLCOME! WAYLCOME LAIBNON!” over and over to the point of uncontainable laughter for us. Some jokster customer had apparently realized the trend too and made a plaque on the well giving him the Trademark Department's award for the word "Welcome".

We have the “local dishes” every time which can be a crap shoot, but mostly, for the price, unbeatable. Beirut is not an inexpensive city we quickly find. We have not really explored the Gemmayzeh area yet, but we can tell. We also find that if Arabic fails, French will prevail. It was lovely to be able to pull out French every time we were confused, lost, or flirting for free drinks. Thank you parents, the skills that serve me well… Simon and I go back to the bombshelter to sleep while the others explore Gemmayzeh at which point we quickly find that under our flat is a booming nightclub. Oh joy. Night One in Beirut.

We awaken the next morning at around noon and wander over to a delicious and extraordinarily overpriced French breakfast where I order my first Chevre Chaud. AH. Life. French permeates the air, everywhere. If you wish to learn Arabic, and happen to speak French, I urge you to stay away from Lebanon. It is just too easy. We decide to spend this day wandering the city and seeing what we see. What we do see is rather difficult to describe. If I had one sentence with which to convey Beirut to you, it would be a fusion of New Orleansand Paris, with palm trees, by the Med, just recently blown up. Does that help? You forget you’re in the Middle East until you hear the call to prayer.

We walk the streets with mosques and churches across from eachother, statues with bullet holes, cobble stone streets lined with Parisian lamp posts, jasmine, palm trees and pine and gargantuan modern glass apartment buildings. We go down streets so exclusive and pristine that the “Hawks” (social police of sorts) and men in full military uniform with AK47s approach us and ask us to please put away our cameras and hurry along to the next neighborhood. We turn the corner to find crumbling housing projects with striped curtains on the outside, chipping paint and bullet holes tattooing the sides of the New Orleans style architecture. We see a park that has appeared to become a senior psychiatric unit, and turn down roads where the natural earth tones painted on the ornate upscale apartments with perfect brown shutters make us feel so insignificant we turn away.

The environmental differences also offer us a nice break from Amman. We orient ourselves with reference points such as the water, and the mountains, which is a nice break from “oh it’s by the other white house on the corner with a… I donno hospital”

After a day of exploring our surroundings and of figuring out what Beirut is by day, we return to the apartment to prepare for Beirut by night. The four of us get ready in our 10x10 bombshelter consumed by small beds and luggage, tripping over eachother and everything, giving up on the possibility of order. Changing in the bathroom is simply impossible since if the floor is not wet, and if it does not smell like warmed up feces, then the light is out. We quickly discovered that electricity is not what it is in Amman. Three hours a day (at least) the electricity goes off and you deal. If that happened when you were the in the shower, that just sucks for you.

Our second night, we had dinner at Le Chef where we were “welcome, welcomeeeed!” to Lebanon followed by a bit of bar hopping. On night two, we came upon what was to become our favorite hangout spot- Torino. Scantily clad compared to our customs in Amman, we sat down in the back of this tiny bar and ordered our first drinks. The waiter (surprisingly….) spoke French. I don’t really drink, and it took me the better part of an hour to get half way through a vodka cranberry. The waiter asked me what was going on and I told him there was not enough cranberry. He smirked and he mocked me and I responded shamelessly and he brought us innumerable free drinks, all the time mocking my inability to handle the taste of what may as well be toilet bowl cleaner. Jager shots are not something I am particularly proud of downing, but I was able to make my table happy by keeping the overall bill low…all that matters when you are twenty.

Eve turned out to be a great friend to us throughout our stay in Beirut; he took good care of us.

After Torino, we stumbled to the nightclub under our hostel and invaded a VIP section when Simon drunkenly made friends with whomever it was that had reserved the section and let us dance on their couches and drink their Almaza. The thing about Beirut which I never was able to resolve was my need for dancing. You drink, you socialize, you laugh, but you don’t dance. I would from time to time make my own dance floor, but I have vowed that first thing I do when I get back to New York is to head down to a club and let loose. Less drinking, more dancing = happy Alex. I can’t say I wasn’t happy of course, we had a blast. The night life in Beirut was a Godsend compared to Amman. But I am spoiled by bad music and great dance floors. Soon enough! The other thing about Beirut is that while the night life puts the rest of the Middle East to shame, it is very exclusive. You must know people that know people, or pretend to, certainly make reservations and you must always look your best. Stumbling into places is not exactly the way it is done; that sometimes got a bit old.

We returned again to our snuggly nook and spent a second smelly day without braving the squeegee shower. Victoria by this point was probably getting sick of smelling us and invited us to swim in her family’s pool up in the mountains of Beirut. We were overjoyed and were even picked up by their driver. Arriving at the home was both overwhelming and relieving for us. It was the most beautiful home we had seen with a view of the entirety of Beirut (and the whole airport). They graciously offered us an enormous spread for lunch and (we can take a hint) showers. We were certainly spoiled, but also most grateful. We spent the afternoon lounging before heading out for a night of barhopping. We keep it classy.

In the morning, we uncovered an amazing little breakfast place “Dani Bakery” where a man we decided to (between us) call Dani and his (potential?) family made us amazing breakfast sandwiches on a sort of salted pita with cheese and an egg and tomatoes. It was phenomenal. Our second morning at Dani’s we are sitting around waiting for our brickoven toasted yummies when a young girl with a sharp black bob hair cut, dark eye makeup and stern tattoos lights up a cigarette and sits down next to us. “You guys look like such tourists” were the first words out of her mouth. Unsure whether to laugh our scowl, we uncomfortably sit and let Simon take over the conversation. “You’re all so blonde and whatever”….ok? ….“Where are you guys from?” – New York, she acts surprised. We ask her what she is doing in Beirut, she doesn’t seem to know. She’s American, “but Palestinian”… What are we doing in Beirut “are you doing like, tourist things?”… confusion ensues, (obviously we are doing tourist things, remember, we are tourists). We tell her we are students at the University of Jordan “Oh my god, have you ever, like, BEEN to Jordan?” (no dumbass, we just happen to STUDY THERE).. “why yes, we have, why?”… she continues “OH MY GOD, I DESPISE Jordan, it’s just so flat, and dull and (here’s the kicker) silly”… I felt a heat boil up in me I had never felt before. How dare someone talk about Jordan that way! We grab our sandwiches just in time to get the hell out of there. I was furious and we were laughing so hard at the fact someone just called a country “silly”. We run to meet Victoria; I realize that I am getting defensive about Jordan.

Victoria’s family had arranged for a car to take us around other parts of Beirut to see the ruins, the teleferique, and the famous stalactites at the Grotto etc. for the following day. It was certainly an experience to see these parts of Lebanon. We had beautiful views, absolutely stunning ruins and more importantly, turtle sex. When we arrived at the Jeita Grotto for the stalactites, we came across a small zoo of sorts with animals such as guinea pigs, chickens, ducks and porcupines on display. It was a rather strange spread of animal cages but the one we were most taken by were the small turtles. We were intrigued when we noticed the little turtles fervently head butting the large one and we wondered out loud what she had done to make them so angry. Shortly thereafter, we realized they the little turtles were not so much angry as horny. The little turtle subsequently mounted the larger one “turtle style” while we perversely watched it strain its neck and stick out its tongue in ecstasy. I don’t know about you, but I wasn’t aware that turtles even had tongues. Watching a turtle’s neck vein reach near explosion point, and sticking a little red tongue out of the side of its mouth is an image I will be using whenever I have a bad day. I apologize if that is perverted, but it is possibly the funniest thing I have ever seen. Oh gosh… compose yourself, Alex. Okay.

After turtle sex and pretty rocks, our driver took us to Byblos to see the ruins and more importantly have lunch. Our restaurant was perfectly situated on the water overlooking the mountains and the beautiful Byblos ruins. We were very excited when we saw the view and we saw that the prices were reasonable for once. We sat down and waited. And waited. And waited.

After a good amount of time being passive, those of us with shorter fuses (who knew that would ever be me) rose to ask for menus. After we ordered, we waited. And waited. And waited. On the first day of orientation to this program, our director said a slogan which we commonly use (mostly in mockery). She said “YOU ARE HERE! Not there, you are really, truly, here!” ‘Here’ is the Middle East, ‘there’ is the U.S. and we are to remember that when we are waiting 30 minutes for a café latte at Starbucks. After that joke got old, we complained and received our food (which probably had spit on it due to the bitching). I was so excited about ordering seafood since in Amman it’s 17 dollars a shrimp.

When I received my Crevettes Provencale, the table looked at me and the 6 mini-shrimp half the size of my pinky and burst out laughing. It became less funny for everyone when they received crab cakes the size of an eyeball and when we subsequently waited another half hour for a fish surprise platter that ended up looking like little fish penises which tasted a bit like lamb. We are here! Not there.

We drove back to the refuge Victoria’s family provided for us, ordered Pizza Hut, and watched the Chappelle Show, damnit.

We spent the night at her house, which was an amazing break from the bomb shelter and took showers for a good solid half hour (shh). In the morning we were made lunch spreads and offered a ride back to the hostel. Today we were upgrading rooms since another bunch of backpackers had booked our cozy compound for the rest of the week. We were now paying 10 dollars a night AND had out own bathroom (WHAT!). It was amazing. We even had a window! I slept on the floor with my princess sheets, no one else got the princess sheets this time (I think they were a little upset about that).

We spent the following days exploring Beirut some more on the Hamra side by the Corniche and the American University. I know that means a lot to you, but I figured I throw it out there. We walked along the pathway by the water which looked so much like Nice it was eerie. We went up to a region in Lebanon called Bekaa Valley which is home to the Baalbek ruins and vineyards. The ruins were some of the most stunning I had seen (Parthenon included) and we hired a tour guide who reminded me of a detective from a Jules Verne book. Other than the beautiful ruins, one of the most exciting parts about going to Bekaa Valley (at least for Elspeth and myself, the boys were less than thrilled) was that we were in the Hezbollah administrative headquarters (I got the t-shirt). We subsequently ate our first shawarma which is like an Arabic hoagie and headed down to Ksara to do a little wine tasting. We took a tour of a stunning vineyard and were taken upstairs to taste five or six glasses of dry and fruity deliciousness.

That night, we drove home, and gussied up to brave Sky Bar. There is a club in Beirut that is world famous for being one of the longest and most prestigious bars in the world. Of course we had to check it out. But since we are nobodies, we went at 9:30pm to get in without a reservation. If you remember being young, 9:30pm is a joke anywhere you go. So we waited around 9:30 on a Tuesday in the most upscale bar in the region and were kicked off every table we squatted because they were all “reserved”. The bartenders were not flirty, and the music was eh… When we tired of this scene, Victoria called her cousin who left her group of friends, picked us up in her car and drove us to somewhere fun. And it certainly was fun. We went to Myu on Gemmayzeh where we lived. We were certainly in the middle of the life of the city. Why we ever left Gemmayzeh was a mystery to us all.

We spent our last two days exploring and lounging in luxury at the hostel and at our friend’s pool and we even joined a beach club for the day. We ate amazing food (as a connaisseur of chocolate and chocolate cake, I am making a bold statement, going out on a limb and stating that I have had the best flourless, brownie melty chocolate cake I have ever had in my life, here, in Beirut, at Casablanca restaurant, please go, just do it). We joined the beach club, paid obscene amounts of money for everything and had the absolute time of our lives. Taking a plane from Beirut to Amman was amazing to me. I am actually here, I am actually doing this. I am traveling throughout the Middle East. It was just so surreal. Triple metaphor but reality hit when we hit the run way and an eager Arab man opened up the overhead to get out his stuff and dropped his bag on my head while the plane was in full motion.

Welcome home.

The drive from the airport made me happy, nostalgic, amazed, antsy; it made me proud.

Coming back to Amman was certainly a nice relief from the claustrophobia that was our living situation, and taking a shower probably felt to me like life felt to that turtle not long ago. I am certainly glad to be back, but I will certainly miss Beirut.