Tripoli

Sorry to have not posted in a while, but I've been busy... traveling back to America!  I'm just started to get over my jet lag and thought I would go ahead and finish some posts I started when I was in Lebanon, so you can expect a few more Leb posts to leak out over the next week or so.

Our last Saturday we went to Tripoli, the second largest city in Lebanon.  Tripoli is known for many things, but it's famous in Lebanon for its sweets. I wanted to post a picture for you, but I didn't take any and apparently no one else did either.
I have a confession to make.  I'm not that cultured.  I'm not a super picky eater, but there are some things that just aren't on my pallet, and baklava and these types of sweets are some of them.  It's doesn't help that I don't like nuts.  Have no fear though!  I still found some sweets for me.  Cooper (the 2 year old) and I split a kiddie cannon, which is a ice cream sundae served in the shape of a cannon.  We both loved it, which only reinforces my suspicion that I don't act my age. 

Tripoli also has ruins from a castle. 

The castle was once held under siege so there is a tunnel that runs underground from the castle to the sea.  Of course I had to go through it, because we all know that crawling in 1000 year old tunnels is just my thing.  It doesn't go all the way to the sea now, but we went as far as we could.  Worth it!

It starts with this inconspicuous doorway.

From there we headed down some stairs.

Past the crumbling room...

Then we ducked in a doorway and went down these spiral stairs. They went
several stories underground.

It was very dark under there!  We ended up using
our camera flashes as a light to navigate the eroding stairs. 

Above ground again we climbed some scaffolding to get some pictures of Tripoli.  The scaffolding wasn't quite finished though...

What could've made daring the scaffolding worth it?  That mountain in the back is Syria!  Or so I'm told...

This was my first time in Tripoli but it's easily one of my favorite places in Lebanon.

Arabic

During my time in Lebanon I set my mind to learning Lebanese Arabic, which feels a little like fighting an angry hippo with a Q-tip.  I am taking a few Arabic classes while here, but a couple hours 4 weeks a year weren't getting me very far.  After realizing there is no casually learning Arabic, I invested in a few books on the Lebanese dialect and a few orthanography books on the Arabic language.  I am about halfway through the Arabic alpabet, and I can ask you your name, your friend's name, and if it's time for a break.

Arabic class is good, but we always leave tired!  There are just so many sounds in Arabic that we don't have in English.  Not only are they difficult to pronounce, but it's hard to even hear them apart.  We love our Arabic teacher Nivine though.  She really wants us to learn Lebanese Arabic, and she makes class fun. 

It's Laundry Day!

One convenience that is pretty unique to America is clothes dryers.  Most other places in the world air dry their clothes, if not wash them by hand all together.  Americans are some of the only people in the world who are so impatient for their clothes to dry that they would spend money to own and run a machine to speed up the process. 

I however, lack not only a clothes dryer but also a clothes washer here in Lebanon.  Thus is instituted the weekly ritual of laundry day.

My friends Mikey and Cindy came with their baby Cooper, so they have a lot more laundry to do than I.



For convienence Mikey does laundry in the bidet. 
Don't worry, they don't use it as a bidet, and Cindy thoroughly cleaned it. 



I'm an old-fashioned girl; I do my laundry in the sink.

 

My Morning with Cooper

Today I got to spend some extra time with my little buddy Cooper.  I stayed home because yesterday I twisted my ankle getting off a bus.

This morning the rest of my friends went to culture class to learn about Lebanese geography and tourism, but since you have to walk up hill all the way to get there I didn't think my poor ankle could handle it.  I did laugh a little though, because I hurt my knee and was on crutches on my way over here, so it would make sense that I find way to be injured on my way home next Tuesday.

Since Cindy was sick this morning, Cooper came up to my room to hang out with me while his dad went to culture class.  I was wondering if Cooper would be okay with me not being able to pick him up and throw him around like I normally do, but he was very content to sit with me.

Cooper came with a coloring book, a Magna Doodle, a
Pooh Bear, and an airplane.  We had lots-o-fun chilling on the bed. 

He also took these all apart.  Twice.

And he really likes to play in curtains...

Had fun with you this morning Coop!



Byblos

One Saturday some friends and I traveled to about 45 minutes north of Beirut to Byblos, the oldest continually settled place on earth.  Byblos is home to a castle, a Crusader's church, some ruins of Roman rule, and a market where they sell everything.

The Crusader's Castle

Outside of the castle, there are ruins from the Phonecian era.
The Phonecians invented the first alpahbet. 

The Market



The Crusader's Church- It was decorated for a wedding this day.

 Although Byblos is the oldest city on earth, somehow modernity has a way of sneaking in.  Many things in the market have cause me to scratch my head, including a Tupac backpack, a George Bush backpack, and an NRA poker set.  How they got there I have no idea, but right now I'm wishing I would've gotten pictures. 

Tonino's Crepes!

As I walk along Bliss Street and across from a 200 year old wall surrounding the AUB campus, I pass many great food booths, but none so wonderful as Tonino's, a crepe stand. 

In any other part of the world crepe would sound like crape, ryhming with grape.  But in Lebanon it's pronounced crep, rhyming with step.  It's very important that as you read this post say crepe proper accent. CREP. 

My favorite crepe is the white chocolate Nutella with strawberries, but you can get almost anything on them. You can mix and match the entire list of ingredients, including Nutella, Kinder, Hershey's chocolate, butter, sugar, strawberries, bananas, nuts, cookies and cream, peanut butter, etc.


The Sweet Crepes Menu



Just a few Tonino's ingredients.



The White Chocolate and Strawberry Crepe=My Favorite

Tonino's is owned by Kareem, who was born in Canada and lived there until he was 17 and his father, who is Lebanese, decided to move the family back to Lebanon.

Tonino's has served crepes forby AUB for 12 years, and is an essential part of an authentic Hamra, Beruit experience.  I highly recommend it for whenever you're in Beirut.

Harissa

Just north of Beirut at Harissa there's a statue of Mary.  People from all over Lebanon travel there to pray and take in the views of the city. To get there you have to take a cable car and an incline car, which is part of the fun of the trip. 

Beirut

The Beirut Port

At the top there is a food court and some stores, and then it's a short walk to the statue.

100 stairs in a spiral staircase lead to the statue. 

My purse was really heavy so Mikey carried it up for me.  Poor guy,
he was trying to be nice and helpful  but everyone was looking
at him like he was so weird with his big coral purse. 

The Statue of Mary

The views from the top are amazing. 

Cooper's favorite part of the day (other than eating all of my pasta at lunch and refusing to eat his) was the incline car ride.  His little 2-year-old life is an adventure every day...

Lebanese Lira

One fascinating (and convenient!) thing about Lebanon is that it uses both the Lebanese lira and the US dollar as currency.  From the day you step off the plane until the day you leave you can spend your US dollars anywhere.  In addition, you may pay in dollars, and get back lira and dollars, or pay in lira, and get back dollars and lira.  You can both pay and get change in any combination. 



Lebanese Lira is so colorful it looks a little like play money,
which makes it very easy to spend!


The going ratio from lira to dollar is 1,500 to 1.  So 3,000 Lebanese lira = 2 US dollars.  This makes for some interesting math when you're trying to pay for something and count your change. 

To make things even more complicated (or fun if you like math, which I do), restaurants do not split checks.  So when we're in a group of 10, we may get a bill that says 50,000 Lebanese lira, and then we have to figure out how to pay and get change for every one's individual purchase and combination of dollars and lira, plus the tip.  I enjoy figuring out the money when I'm out with my friends because every time it works out perfectly, I feel a little victory boost in my day.

Some friends and I eating lunch at BarBar

Our whole bill was 62,000LL.  That's right, we're high rollers. 
That's about $40 total.  For 10 of us. 

Baalbek



Saturday we headed to Baalbek, home to the ruins of the 3 largest Roman temples.   

Yes, we did ride camels at the temples.  Sean (above) got
on his and said, "This is by far the most touristy thing
we've done since we've been here."

The temple of Jupiter, or Baal to the Phoenicians, is the the largest in the world. 

Unfortunately when I got home I discovered that there was a smudge
on my camera lens all day, so all of my pictures from Baalbek
have this hazy area on them. 

This trim work fell from the roof.  The eggs represent fertility,
while the leaves at the bottom and the 'teeth' above represent
 youth and old age respectively.  Something on here somewhere
represents death (bad memory), so that the whole circle of
life is inscribed in the stone.



These pillars are huge!

This sign is original to the Phoenician era of the temple.

    

 We climbed into some of the podiums that used to house the statues and took the liberty of making some poses of our own. 

 

The smallest of the 3 temples is the temple of Bacchus, the best preserved temple in the world. 

The day we were there some men were installing bleachers
for the upcoming festival.  I think Baalbek puts any of our
venues in America to shame. 



This column just tipped over one day.  The next picture shows where
it pushed a stone in the wall out a little bit. 

The stone 2nd from the top in the column was pushed when the
column behind it fell.  This is how archaeologists knew that there
was nothing between the stones holding them together.  They're just
stacked and kept together by precise cuts and mutual weight. 

Down the road from Baalbek is the cite of a quarry where some of the
stone was mined.  This stone is the largest stone in the world!  How they
tell such things I do not know, but it took 40,000 men to move it
when it was cut.  There's a little flag on the top claiming it in
the name of Lebanon.