Let me start out by saying that Lebanon is one of my favorite countries on the planet. I didn’t see all of it, and it is not that large to begin with. However, what I did see was truly amazing. When I first found out that the travel study component of my semester in Egypt would be spending a week in Turkey, a little less than a week in Syria, and a whole week just in Beirut, I thought that the scale was a little tipped. NO way! Well worth the time. But I am getting ahead of myself. First things first! From the Syrian side, crossing into the Bekaa Valley was not much of an ordeal. Changing money into lire was straightforward, and none of us had any stamps in our passports that would serve ... read more

Naturally, we couldn’t wait to get as close to the HQ of the axis of evil as possible. It’s not like North Korea or Iran were in the cards for us! Damascus was much smaller than either Cairo or Istanbul, and did not have the same level of energy permeating from its city core. Good thing to, the road is only wide enough for one car at many places, and one way signs or not followed. See pic. We made it to the street called straight, the downtown mosque (watch your shoes, one pair ended up walking off on their own). The (old) Royal Palace was way cool, tucked in a back ally and understated one outside but very elegant from the courtyard. We stayed at some kind of Catholic boarding house on the outskirts of ... read more

The hotel that we stayed at Al Wadi Hotel overlooked the Crusader Castle Krak des Chevaliers. The hotel was really interesting in its own right. It had exterior castle like presence, feudal interior and probably more luxurious rooms than any other place the whole trip. The hotel had way too tempting sward decorations on the walls. Without too much delay, we found out that they could be taken out of their sheaths and used to chase fellow students down the hall. Warning: very likely to piss off hotel staff. Fact: risking that it is well worth the fun! After settling in, we went to the nearby St. Georges Syrian Orthodox Monastery for a visit with the Abbot, vespers and dinner (unfortunately, in that order). We had a great chat, lea... read more

Since the times spent on the bus do not really count for any particular geographic region, and the random places stopped at along the road do not warrant their own entries, they have all been combined into one, entered under Syria because this is the middle of the three countries (Turkey, Syria Lebanon) that constituted the travel portion of the semester. If this entry is too boring for you, let me know. “Pete, if you keep writing like this you should really consider an advertising contract with NoDooze®” will do. Keep in mind that these entries are just as much for me as for any readers, but if they are really trying… Our first random stop in Turkey (about 3 hours from Istanbul) lead to a leaf fight. Remember, we had been in Egypt since August, ... read more

Mike, my roommate, organized an overnight camel trek for the guys on the program. We had met a stable owner while riding horses and guidebooks had mentioned the possibility of spending some time out in the desert on extended camel rides. A few phone calls and a deposit later, we were set to go on what we thought would be a few hour ride out to someplace, camp, and a few hours back. What ended up happening was a several hour camel ride which ended up returning us to a location about 20 minutes from the stable. There, we set up camp (under the stars), and enjoyed a great Pyramids sound and light show from a distance. After staying up for several hours, I decided to try to get some sleep while some of the other ... read more

As we were finishing up our Arabic Language course, we had the option of adding on a Nile cruise for $130. At this price, why not? The cruise was from the southern city of Aswan to the Ancient Egyptian city of Luxor. We took an overnight train from Cairo down to Aswan. We were in first class so it was not too bad, but upon arrival, I had the feeling reminiscent of a good long trans-oceanic flight. Once we all got used to the idea of having traveled south for half a day and now being in ‘upper Egypt’, we started to savor being in a really really hot part of the country. The savoring lasted for about 5 minutes, after which we initiated an ongoing mission of finding ways to avoid the sun. I will ... read more