Final Weekend

This last weekend in Beirut was awesome. Definitely a good end to a great trip.

Thursday night after finals we went to a club called Basement. We went from around 5pm-3am for hip-hop night which ended up not really being hip-hop and turned into techno. Regardless, it was a lot of fun.

Yesterday we decided to go to Zouk to the shops in the area. We went to the bus station and jumped on a bus. The trip took a bit more than an hour in the scorching heat with no air conditioning. Torture is too light of a word for it. We got off the bus and walked for 20 minutes and couldn't find the place, so we ended up at McDonald's and got a ton of ice cream before heading back on our journey.



We walked for another 20-30 min and still couldn't find the place, so we stopped to ask directions. The guy there said that it doesn't open until 6pm, but invited us to hang out at his place until then. He owned this Armenian club where old Armenian people go to hang out. So we played ping-pong and cards and hung out and talked to these people for like 2 hours. They were probably the nicest people we met on this entire trip.



At 6 we took a taxi to the shops and hung out there like 2 hours eating and souvenir shopping. We called a taxi to take us back since we didn't want to sit through another bus ride like that. The cab took us back in less than 15 min. This guy was FLYING. He was at 120kph most of the time and driving inches away from cars and swerving everywhere. It was ridiculous and terrifying, but probably the best car ride I've had in my entire life. We all got business cards.




Then we went to dinner at this Armenian restaurant and had some amazing food. We came back and hung out for a bit and then went to this bar called the Rabbit Hole at around midnight. At 2am we leave and go hang out with some friends to say goodbye. At around 5am, we decided to walk down to the Corniche to watch the sun rise. I've never seen so many people out that early in the morning. It was just as busy as during the day.

Now I'm back in my room packing and still haven't gotten sleep, but that's what a plane is for I guess.

All together, this has been an amazing trip. I'm definitely going to miss everyone here but I'm also really anxious to get back to Texas and give my wallet a rest. My $500 budget for this trip turned into $1900, but it was definitely worth it. I'll be back next year for sure.

See yall in Texas.

Less than a Week Left

Well, this trip is almost over and I'm actually really excited to come home. All I've been thinking about lately is how much I miss Texas. Here are a few pictures of some things that have been happening lately:

Saturday we went to another Crusader fortress somewhere in southern Lebanon. We went to Tyre after that, but it was hot so instead of taking pictures I just hung out in the shade with my friend for about an hour while everyone else went to look at rocks in the scorching heat.

Next we went to another Hezbollah museum, but this one was a lot bigger and built on the place where they beat Israel some years back. Not much to say about it other than creepy.

Not much else going on, mostly cause I've been sick for the past 4 or 5 days and haven't been able to go out. But this is the last week so time to party it upppp. Not like I haven't been doing that anyway, but now I actually have a valid excuse for my teachers when they ask me why I go out every day of the week. "I'm trying to experience the culture" only worked for the first few weeks.

I havn't updated this in a while because there isn't much that's been going on. I'm currently cutting blisters off my foot that are bigger than a quarter and the same thickness. That's what playing basketball barefoot outside does apparently, so learn from my mistake. Don't worry, no picture this time.

Phone services here are SO expensive. They only have prepaid phones, probably because if they sent bills to people no one would pay them. I've spent around $60 on minutes already since I've been here.

Anyway, here's the update for last week:

1)

What: David Guetta

Where: Downtown Beirut

When: Saturday 11:30pm - 4:30am Sunday Morning

It was awesome. That's the only way to describe it. Here are some really bad quality pictures:

2)

What: All you can eat/drink wings & beer

Where: Hard Rock Cafe

When: Monday Night 5:30pm - Midnight

Even more awesome. And yes, we were there for over 6 hours. We have to get our moneys worth. This may have been the best night so far for this entire trip.

The Sign in the Bathroom

3)

What: House Party

Where: Still unsure

When: Thursday Night

Basically I met some guy at Hard Rock Cafe and put his name in my phone as "Guy From Hard Rock Cafe" and got a call from him Thursday. He said he's having a house party at his apartment somewhere in Beirut. So a few of us decide to risk our lives with this stranger and go to this party. It started with a cab ride to no where and waiting 20 minutes on the curb for this guy to come lead us to his place. The party ended up being a lot of fun. Luckily no one got killed, robbed, or sold into human trafficking.

4)

What: Beach party

Where: Byblos

When: Friday Night

So someone said there's a "beach party" going on an hour north of Beirut, so we grab taxis and head over there. Since it's a "beach party," some people wore swim shorts and clothes. Ended up just being a club really close to the beach... Regardless, it ended up being a lot of fun. And the taxi ride there wasn't bad! We had a van and it only cost $25 for the hour trip.

Again, full album will be on Facebook soon with all the pictures for these events that I don't have yet.

Probably the best trip so far

For having so many soldiers and police officers standing on almost every street corner in this country, I don't really feel that safe at all. Half of them sit down on a chair and are texting while their gun is a foot or two away from them on the ground or propped against the wall. Anyone could easily grab it and shoot up 10-15 people before anything was done about it.

Anyway, We went on another trip today. We stopped at some really random places but I can't remember what they all were. At one shop I bought some Cuban cigars! Oh, and there was also this sign that I had to take a picture of:

Now everyone can enjoy diabetes!

We met Walid Jumblat (some politician guy) at Beit El Dine, which is this really cool palace that is probably important for some reason but I didn't pay attention during the tour. I didn't get any pictures because the security there was huge and wouldn't allow more than one camera for the whole group and no cell phones, but here's a picture from the internet.

We also went to a winery and went through the underground cave passages where they keep all the wine to age. We got to do some wine tasting and then bought a few bottles for like $5 each to take with us.

We went to Baalbek after, which is this Greek/Roman temple place. It was awesome, that's about all I have to say about it. So here is the only part of my blog you guys actually care about. Pictures!

The full album is on facebook, these are just a few photos. Outside of the Baalbek there is a little museum type thing that is run by Hizbullah. Basically it's a huge bunker filled with weapons and pictures of dead people from the attack by Israel a few years ago, and signs saying that Israel should be destroyed with crosshairs drawn on different places in Israel. It was some pretty creepy stuff. I don't want to post some of the pictures I got because they're really graphic, but here are some from the outside:

I've gotten to the point in my stay here where I'm starting to screw up my English as I speak. That would be a good thing if my Arabic was improving a lot, but that's not happening too much either. I feel like pretty soon I'll start sounding like Helen Keller...

I haven't posted in a while because not many new things have been happening. I go to the beach pretty often to study and hang out. I pretty much stopped swimming there after getting attacked by a trash bag. My cousins here let me drive their cars! It's really awesome and tons of fun. It really feels like a video game, but you only get one life and the mistakes have bigger consequences. It's really cool being able to drive in between lanes and pass people anywhere you want and use the horn every few seconds. I drove on a three lane highway that somehow got turned into 6 lanes.

For loving soccer so much, it sure is hard to find somewhere to play. There was a group of about 14 of us, and we went to AUB (another university here) to try and play, but they kicked us out because we weren't students there. So we come back to our campus, and start to play in the tennis courts, and get kicked out again because the courts are for tennis. So we play in the center of campus where there is a huge open area, and get kicked out again for no reason whatsoever. We ended up kicking the ball around in the dance room inside the gym.

I haven't taken many pictures lately so I don't have much to entertain you guys with. Here's a picture of what I'm eating at the moment:

Nutella and potato chips. I hope my mom doesn't see this. I don't have much to eat in my apartment and can't really go out at 3am so I make due. My roommate eats the Tang powder with a spoon, so at least I haven't gotten to that point yet.

Start of Week 3

The world cup just ended and people are going crazy like usual. I don't see myself getting any sleep tonight from all the noise outside. I can't even imagine what would happen if Lebanon got into the World Cup and won. This city would burn to the ground.

I went to the beach today and swam in the ocean, which is very discouraged around Beirut because of the pollution. I thought, "ehh, how bad could it be?" As I was swimming, I had random pieces of trash hitting me in the face. I guess it really is that bad. I don't know what that water will do to my skin. The gallon of sea water I swallowed couldn't have helped much either. If some "28 Days Later" kind of stuff starts happening to me, you know why.

Ants and Sewage.. Great Combo

The other night I went into my roon and there ants EVERYWHERE. Like crawling all over the floor and some even in my bed. It was like 2am, but I went downstairs to see if there was anyone on duty but there was no one around. I yelled for someone but no one came. Tried the front door but it was locked, so there was no way out of the building either. I wasn't sure whether to be annoyed or scared. Anyway, I gave up and went to sleep and they sprayed yesterday morning.

The drain in the bathroom is clogged or something, so the entire apartment smells like sewage. It's SO gross. I wish I could give you an idea of how bad it smells. Let's just say that we go to the bathroom in there and it makes it smell BETTER. Ya, that may be a gross thought but I'm not exagurating. I have my shirt over my nose and mouth as I'm typing this.

They finally changed the bedsheets here the other day:

Today we went on a trip some underground caves, to some castle, and on top of that same mountain I went to the other day. Here are a few pictures:

I don't have much to update other than that. I've already gone through a ton of money here, so I'm guessing I'll be spending twice the amount I originally thought I would need. Oh well, I have money saved up for a reason.