Hello, Beirut!

Even for a (fairly) seasoned traveller like myself, there would always be a small hint of awkwardness-bordering-uncertainty-bordering-anxiety when going through immigration going into a country. I was definitely leaning towards the "anxiety" end of that scale, as the expression-less head-scarf-clad immigration officer lady took her time going through my passport. She would glance up to look at me, then look back down, and proceed to ask me where I had come from / where I was going / what I was here for...until finally BAM, the chop went down on an empty corner of my scruffy British passport, and I was through - setting foot, for the first time ever, in Beirut, Lebanon, the Middle East.


It (sort of) all started from an email from J, a university friend from Sweden who currently lives in Beirut (and has been for the last 2 years), telling me that her and her husband K will be moving out of Beirut by the end of summer, to pursue a masters degree in either Europe or the US. And so suddenly there was an urgency to visit her in Lebanon. And suddenly the idea of Lebanon became exciting. And how un-disappointed I was.

Saturday:
I landed at night, and K kindly picked me up from the airport in a little rattly turquoise car (humourously nicknamed "Speedy"), and we sped down the highways and tunnels zipping through taxis and other weekend drivers, who regarded lines on the roads as guidelines rather than rules. Not dissimilar to driving in mainland China, but perhaps with one less hazard that are the Chinese cyclists.

They lived in a walkup, on the top floor, so K had to carry my massive suitcase full of winter+summer clothes+London souvenirs up 5 floors to their cosy 2-bedroom-plus-balcony flat. I met their 3 month old darling daughter E for the first time. J+K briefed me on the logistics of life here - don't throw toilet paper in the loo, where the switch for the water pressure pump was, the scheduled 3-hour power cuts, the taxidermist landlord...And this is the best part of travelling and staying at friends' homes - not merely visiting a country as an outsider, but being able to "do life", getting involved and actually experiencing living (at least for a short time) in this country.

Sunday:
For breakfast, K and I ran down the street to a "snack shop" (Snack Faysal) to pick up some local lebanese pastries - cheese and zaatar manouche, some triangular pastry things (google tells me fatayer), and some other small round meat-pie things (no luck googling that). The neighbourhood is near the AUB (American University of Beirut) and some international schools, so teens/young people with American accents were dropping by to get their morning post-soccer-game snacks and hangover cures. (Respectively, of course).

After breakfast, we took Speedy and drove (and sometimes inched along with the traffic) (with the baby!) around town a bit, taking a rest stop at a lovely little Dar Bistro and Books for a strawberry and banana smoothie, before dropping by to visit the volunteers at the Migrant Workers Task Force who hold English classes for foreign immigrant workers - J's usual Sunday activity before she had baby E.

After a brief chat and show and tell of E to the students and volunteers, we drove down to Raouche, saw the "Pigeon rocks", took the standard tourist pictures, and had a stroll on the Corniche. J also braved "social taboo" and breastfed baby E in public on a bench on the Corniche, and very proud of it! Nothing says counter-cultural (or Swedish) more than openly unbuttoning your shirt and bra to quench your baby's thirst in a pre-dominantly Muslim country (even though the Lebanese government wouldn't make that claim, at least not according to their only census conducted in 1932 where Christians were a slight majority, but then that's another story). J never ceases to amaze ;)

With the sun beating down and the baby getting impatient, we decided to retreat indoors for some solutions to our own hunger issues. We hit Cafe Hamra for some standard local food (hummus, pitta, tabouleh, batata kil bizkara, cheese sticks things etc). E has been attracting a lot of attention throughout the day, her adorably chubby cheeks drawing people on the Corniche and in the restaurant to her. Just wait til she's older...

They then dropped me off near the AUB, where I joined the Walk Beirut tour, a 4 hour walking tour through the heart of the city, uncovering the layers of history and cultural depth in painstaking (but glorious) detail. I say 4 hours, but I was so powered up by the fascinating stories and details that there was no room for fatigue.


I managed to find my way home without much hassle, and we ordered in (from a shop where they had a delivery man who had a BAD KNEE so K ended up having to run down 5 floors to pick up our food).

So. Just another day in Beirut!