Beyrouth

---

Last week we had yet another week off from school for Eid Al-Adha, the day commemorating Ibrahim's (known in the Bible as Abraham) willingness to sacrifice his son for God. According to Muslim tradition, God placed a ram in place of his son when Ibrahim showed his intention to carry out God's command.

For me, all this meant was that I had another week to travel before I set off for Pakistan.

I had decided that I wanted to visit Lebanon. My friend Christina, upon getting word of this, decided that she wanted to go with me. So last Thursday, after our last class, we headed straight from campus to the airport and set off for the expensive, yet very short, flight to Rafiq Hariri airport.

As some of you will remember, I visited Israel last break. Lebanon and Israel are still, technically, at war with each other, although both sides have agreed upon an armistice. Relations between the two countries seemed to be improving. That is until 2006 when, as some of you may remember, members of Hezbollah kidnapped 2 Israeli soldiers standing guard at the border, unleashing a month of air strikes and an invasion of the country's south by Lebanon's not-so-friendly neighbor. Following the ceasefire, Lebanese-Israeli relations have been strained (even more so than they already were). To this day, under no circumstances can a traveler with an Israeli stamp on their passport enter Lebanon. As they say in Egypt, this posed for me a mishkele kabeera (big problem).

In order to go to Lebanon, I had to go through the arduous task of applying for a second temporary passport with the US Embassy. I received said passport just a couple of days before my set departure and so had no time to get a visa for Egypt. So, I had to go through passport control with en empty passport.

When I walked up to the front counter, I tried to explain (see: lie) to the Immigration officer, in my best Arabic/English that I lost my other passport and just received this one. He kept flipping through my passport and asked me where my stamp was. I kept telling him "Passport akra khalas... da passport jadeed" (other passport, finished...this passport is new). He didn't understand, and his unassuming demeanor suddenly transformed into a mean old man, screaming at me to show him my stamp. I threw up my hands in frustration and asked him if he spoke English. Apparently the only phrase he knows is how to scream "WHERE IS YOUR STAMP?!" So they shuffled me aside into a side room. I produced my itinerary from New York to Cairo and showed them my AUC ID. An officer sitting next to me grabbed the itinerary and gave me an absurd pop quiz over the details, asking questions like "What time did you arrive in Egypt?" "Where did you fly in from?" "What airport in New York..blah blah blah." I had to chuckle a little bit at his attempt to call me out. I simply pulled out my passport, pointed to my name on it then pointed to the name on the itinerary. He gave up. In short, I had to answer even more absurd questions (apparently they thought I had snuck into the country - for whatever reason) paid a 150 pound fee and they waved me through.

It felt nice to not be on official Egyptian soil any longer. We celebrated with a beer.

After a short flight, we arrived in Rafiq Hariri airport in Beirut. No problems getting through Immigration control there, except on the woman's insistence that we produce an address for where we were going to stay. I pointed to the first hotel in the Lonely Planet book and was stamped in. I have to admit, for all the stories I had heard about the difficulty of being allowed entry into Lebanon, it was surprisingly easy - I still breathed a sigh of relief once I saw her stamp strike against the empty page.

Little did I know, the people I saw at the airport would be a microcosm for the rest of the city. Young, pale Lebanese men conversed freely in Arabic and English (with American or British accents), with a little bit of French thrown in for good measure. Young women wore high heels and lipstick, with a hijab that barely covered half of their hair. Saudi men stocked up on alcohol at the Duty-Free (which we partook in as well). We found a cab driver and we asked him to take us to the American University in Beirut (where most of the hotels/hostels are located). The driver helped us find one near the campus.

The woman behind the counter was tall, thin, with long black hair, a subtle smathering of make-up, and wore jeans with a jean jacket. I hadn't seen an outfit like that since I left Chicago - considering the rather homogeneous way Egyptian women dress, to see variety was something of a culture shock. She said that they had a room so we took it. The hotel was rather nondescript. Christina became sick (most likely from the meal provided by EgyptAir), so I struck out on my own, walking along the corniche and grabbing a bear at a local, low-key bar. On the way back I decided to stop by a gas station for some water. The man behind the counter engaged in a conversation with me. He asked me how I liked Lebanon so far. I said so far its been good but, after all, I had landed only a few hours previously.

"That's good. Hopefully, nothing bad will happen while you are here."

I would realize later that this would become a common response after I expressed my feelings about Lebanon.

A bartender: It's easy for you to say that you like it. You haven't seen a war yet.

A woman on the street: Yes, it is a wonderful place. Inshallah, you're trip here will be a peaceful one.

Later, a man came in to pay for his gas while the employee was talking to me about Hezbollah, Israel, ect. The other man grumbled something in Arabic that I couldn't quite understand.

"He's from South Beirut," the employee told me. South Beirut was heavily damaged during the 2006 Lebanon War with Israel.

The following morning we checked out of the hotel, the loud clerk was smoking a cigarette and continuously joked with us as he calculated our bill (in both USD and Lebanese Lira, as both are perfectly acceptable in Lebanon- at the ATMS, you can choose which currency you want). We went to a cafe down the street to look into a new hostel. As we were sitting around on my laptop, an older woman walked by and looked right at my screen.

"Ingleesh?" she asked.

"American" I said.

"Ahhh!" She walked away and then turned back.

"Right here in de Lebahnon?"

I laughed. Yes.

"Ohhhhh! Welcome to de Lebahnon."

We then walked to Pigeon Rock, which is a series of massive rocks right off the coast. They are both several stories high, each looking like it supports its own micro-ecosystem. A couple of scenes from the Pirates of the Caribbean movies were filmed there. Or so someone told me, but I can't find anymore evidence to back it up.

From there we took a cab to our new (and much cheaper) dwelling place- a hostel called Pension Al-Nazih. It was on the other side of town in a much trendier and low-key neighborhood called Ashrafiyeh. The owner was a relatively young, middle-aged woman (dressed fashionably- like 90% of Lebanese women) who welcomed us with open arms. She helped us settle in as, luckily, she had one bed available in the male dorm and a plethora of beds in the female dorm. Christina went back to sleep, as she was still feeling uneasy and I unpacked my bags. In my room was a young Frenchman named Maxim. We talked while smoking a cigarette on our balcony. He was from Paris and was doing a report on the gay community in Beirut (Lebanon is famous -or infamous, depending on who you talk to - for its tolerance of gays throughout the Arab world) and had been living in the hostel for about a month. From here, I decided to explore the city.

Beirut can be a strange experience on foot. On one block you see the influence of the French presence, as the streets are filled with French architecture, now home to cheap restaurants and antique shops and the city's famous nightlife.

You move a little bit to the west and you see the new, revamped downtown - a clean and pedestrian friendly area hosting expensive restaurants and boutiques. The strangest thing about downtown is that it was once a major battleground during the 15 year civil war, with rival militias having open gun and mortar battles in the streets (the Lonely Planet books described this area as looking like "Paris, post-apocalypse" in the early 90's). Now, its the most touristy part of the city - resembling Disneyland more than an area trying to recover from a long and brutal war.

Then you move even further to the west, where the posh InterContinental hotel, where you can see wealthy Lebanese speeding into the parking garage in their Ferraris, sits right in front of the now-deserted Holiday Inn. The Holiday Inn was taken over by the Phalange militia in the mid-70's and was used to launch attacks on the Lebanese army during the "Hotel wars," in which militias took over the city's hotels to launch attacks on each other. Many of the hotels have now been rebuilt or completely destroyed- but the Holiday Inn still stands, with its mortar and bullet holes draped along its sides, its windows blown out, and overgrowth coming out of the rooms on the 10th floor- like an enormous tombstone reminding the Lebanese of their recent, violent history.

Then, from here, you keep moving and you enter Ras Beirut, home to the American University's stunning campus, some of the city's most expensive real estate, and hole-in-the-wall restaurants, cafes, and shops. You're more likely to hear English and French being spoken here than Arabic. Overall you get the sense that the city's landscape is somewhat schizophrenic, not sure if its European, Arab, or some bizarre conglomeration of Mediterranean culture. However you choose to categorize it, its enchanting - even though you get the distinct sense that its a city that is, essentially, still in the process of rebuilding.

That night we went to a bar with a couple of our friends from AUC. Our conversation with the bartender caught my attention- even though I was, admittedly, tipsy. We tried to ask him a couple of things about the local dialect of Arabic spoken in Lebanon. He stopped us.

"We don't speak Arabic here. We speak Lebanese."

That's funny, I thought, because they sound awfully similar. I didn't think my sarcasm would have been appreciated at this moment, so I allowed him to continue.

His rant about the Arabs, Arabic, the media, Islam (he was a Christian) went on for quite some time.

"I am not an Arab" he said. "Arabs are from Saudi Arabia - my family, for thousands of years, have been from here. I am a Phoenician. I speak Lebanese. What is this Arabic? It's not my language."

He went on about the "backwardness" of the Arab countries ("These Egyptians think they built the pyramids. They couldn't have. They're too stupid"). We let him rant for a while. He did, however, give us a free beer for "the good conversation."

Not exactly the answer I was looking for when I just wanted to know how I ask where the bathroom is.

We spent the next day relaxing and exploring more of the city- people watching at a cafe and walking along the corniche. Many of the Lebanese went out of their way to make sure that we were having a good time, that we were enjoying ourselves, and rarely a conversation went by where we weren't given recommendations for things we "had to do" during our time there. The hospitality in Lebanon was much different than the "hospitality" in Egypt. In Egypt, every time someone "helps" you find where you're going, it inevitably leads to a perfume shop or an attempt to buy some counterfeit piece of jewelry. At first, its kind of an "exotic" experience, after a while though, it grates on you and one can become immensely frustrated. The one time I experienced true, selfless hospitality was on Mt. Sinai with a Bedouin man. In Lebanon, however, the attention given is less seldom but was, 100% of the time, authentic. People wanted to help you out, make sure you were enjoying yourself, and never hesitated to tell you how proud they are of their country. They are happy that you are there - and not because they know they can get 20 pounds out of you for buying their perfume. It was the most welcome and comfortable I had ever felt in a foreign country.

A bartender that night explained it to us this way.

" I would say that 85% of Lebanese have been abroad. So they know what its like to be a foreigner in a different country. But they also love their country. They want you to see through everything that you hear about on the news."

He exemplified this later on. He gave us a few free beers and offered to drive us up to Baalbeck. Having already made plans with the others from our hostel to go there, we politely declined. I had another discussion later on with a young Lebanese man. We talked about Wes Anderson films and American/Lebanese music while a jazz band played in the background. I could have been in New Orleans for all I knew.

The next day we joined Maxim and another Frenchman from the hostel, David, on a hike through the Chouf mountains with an organized group that does hiking every week. The pictures will say everything about the hike (which lasted for about 8 hours). On the way up I sat next to a Lebanese man who, despite saying his English was no good, was able to carry a fluid and somewhat nuanced conversation with me on the way up to the mountain. We lunched in a small house in one of the villages in the mountains. After living in Cairo for months, it was exactly what I needed. On the way back down, everyone traded jokes, in French, English, and Arabic (obviously) and, needless to say, I remained silent for 2/3 of them, only being able to understand the jokes in English. Overall, everyone was in a great mood and we felt very, very welcome.

I should stop here. I am currently suffering under sleep deprivation and time is ticking away for me to start studying for my Arabic final tomorrow. I'll write more once I have more time.

---

Photos

Mohammad Al-Amin Mosque
Across from our hostel, providing the wonderfully ironic sight of a giant Christmas tree in front of a mosque.

Downtown
The new downtown. Former stage of the civil war- now the most touristy part of the city.

Memorial
Memorial for assassinated Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri.

Place Des Martyrs
Before the war, this area was filled with cafes. During the war, it was the Green Line and the most dangerous part of the city. A month after the assassination of Rafiq Hariri, a million Lebanese ( a quarter of the country's population) gathered here to protest the Syrian presence in Lebanon, who were implicated in the assassination. Syria withdrew all of their troops soon after.

Holiday Inn
Used as a base for the Phalange militia during the civil war.

Comments

[MaikuSasi]

interesting
Really liked your post. Lebanese abroad including me are always happy to read about home. We miss Lebanon always and its dilema's. I run also a travel blog and we spent during our one year trip a few months in the middle east, please take a look and would love to hear what you got to say about it. Www.maikusasi.com Cheers! Sasi.

[Ilsalund]

Hiking
I am planning a trip to Beirut and would love to know the name of the hiking group that does organized tours. Thanks.