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.

Not sure how many days it's been now

Everyone in Lebanon is a band-wagoner. I feel like they all have the flags from every single country in the World Cup and pick out the ones that are winning. There definitely weren't any Spanish flags hanging in Beirut before tonight. I really think these people look for ANY excuse to make noise. After the game people were blowing air horns and honking and driving around like crazy and lighting off fire works. You couldn't hear yourself talking outside. I don't know what these people will do after the world cup, but I'm sure they'll find another random excuse to make pointless noise.

Random side-note: We don't have a microwave in our apartment, only an stove. We've eaten pasta every single day, and it's always plain pasta with tomato sauce. Since I don't see that changing anytime soon, anyone got any other simple recepies we can use with pasta? Maybe some good Mac & Cheese?

Today I went up this lift thing on top of this mountain where they have a statue of the Virgin Mary. It was pretty cool. Nothing else to really say about it, except it was annoying trying to walk around the people praying at the top of the statue. Why do you have to come to a statue on top of a mountain to pray? I'm pretty sure God can hear you in your own house. Unless you live in our apartment with concrete walls and bullet proof doors. He might have to listen a bit more closely in our case. Anyway, here are some pictures:

Today I bought this chocolate cookie pack and it had this written on it:

American Quality? REALLY? You might as well put a huge stamp on it that says "WARNING: THIS PRODUCT PROBABLY SUCKS." American Quality just means that it's so overloaded with partially hydrogenated oil that whoever eats it will instantly gain 5 pounds (or 2.268 kg since I'm not in America anymore).

Days 9 & 10

The internet connection in our building finally started working on a regular basis. The only problem is that all the buildings here are built with solid concrete walls. And don't forget about our bullet proof (and apparently also internet proof) door. To get a signal I have to sit next to my main door while it's open so I can pick up the signal from the hallway.

I got interviewed on T.V. the other day. The guy stopped me on the street and we had a conversation. This is it pretty much word for word (translated from Arabic):

Man: "Do you follow Lebanese politics in America?"

Me: "No, the media doesn't show much."

Man: "Since you've been here, have you heard or seen anything on T.V.?"

Me: "No, I don't have a T.V."

Man: "You don't have a T.V.?"

Me: "Nope, and I don't have electricity, internet, or water either."

I don't have much else to update on. I've been sleeping from 3am - 7am everyday except last Friday. Too much going on! Life is amazing here. I really don't want to come back. Here are a few pictures from today:

How to get around Beirut.

Pigeon Rock

Probably the saddest looking cat I've ever seen. It's in the pet store next to my apartment.

Days 7 & 8

The world cup here is HUGE. Like I can't imagine how dead this place must be when there's no world cup going on. Literally every single restaurant is World Cup Themed, and everyone is repping either Brazilian or German flags. Why they picked those two countries, I'm not sure. They actually root for any country that's winning pretty much. There are fireworks after every game no matter who wins. And when Brazil or Germany win, you can even hear gun fire. Then everyone drives around waving flags out their cars and honking like mad. However, to get the channel to watch the Cup, it's $150 for the season. So you see people crowded around restaurants and public areas watching these little TVs everywhere.

This weekend, the school took a trip to the city of Tripoli, and then to the Cedars up north. Tripoli is an oceanside city, but really ghetto. People are so much poorer than Beirut. Sandwhices are like $1.00, and water bottles are $0.25. The view is absolutely amazing though. There's an old crusader fortress from a super long time ago that we visited.

The Exit.. just in case things got too rough for the Crusaders...

View #1 from the top of the fortress

View #2 from the top of the fortress

Then in the city, there's the market place. It's like a maze. I could probably get lost in there for a week. Sadly, I only have one picture:

But it's pretty much this stretched over an entire town. It was like out of an old crusader movie or something. Pretty cool. I got this really cool ice cream there:

Ice Cream Flavored Chocolate.

Near the end, this random lady asked us to come sit inside this room next to her soap shop and drink coffee. Probably the coolest room I've ever been in in my life. I only have one picture, but it was a small room that looked like this, and on the opposite side from us was a huge flatscreen TV. Really random considering how poor everyone else is around them.

We then took a boat ride and saw all these really cool random island things that people take their boats to and hang out for the day. Oh, and people here drive their boats just like they drive their cars. Watch that video I posted earlier and imagine that with boats. And boats don't even have brakes.

And yes, Muslim women swim in those huge dress things that cover their faces. I really wish I had a picture.

We then took a bus further up to see the Cedar trees. Just like expected, the bus broke down, and we hugn out on this random mountain side until another bus came and helped us fix ours.

The Cedars were pretty cool. Some random guy carved Jesus into one of these trees a bunch of times.

That night we stayed at a hotel near the Cedars. There was a huge dinner, and then a few of us had a small party on the roof till like 3am. The stars were AMAZING. You could see 100 times more stars than anywhere else I've been. The moon started rising behind a mountain, and it was cool because at first, all we could see was a light coming up from behind a mountain. Then the moon appeared, and was rising so fast that you could actually see it moving. It was crazy cool. Ok, that doesn't sound cool, but I guess you had to be there.

At like 2am, the guys who work at the hotel came up on the roof too. Except one of them had this huge shotgun with him and was waving it around. That was when half of us decided that it was probably bedtime. I thought it was kinda interesting so I hung around. He asked me if I wanted to take a picture with his gun, and I said that I have one simliar to it at home. He insisted, and I wasn't about to argue with a 19 year old arab with a gun, so I took a picture to make him happy.

The next day was a hike up to the highest point in Lebanon. Hiking is bad enough, but a 3 hour hike with no oxygen is a lot worse. I could sit here and tell you the view was worth it...

but you're judging from the comfort of your oxgygen filled home while sitting in a chair on the internet. I had none of those. So no, it wasn't worth it. I should have stayed with the handul of overweight American kids that opted out of taking the hike and stayed on the bus.

Afterwards, we went to this amazing restaurant in a valley. The food was absolutely amazing. I have never had meat like that in my life. [side note to the Aboukhairs who might possibly read this... Texas de Brazil had nothing on this place.]

That night was the 4th of July. We weren't in America, so we figured we'd try to find the most American place to celebrate. Hard Rock cafe! Can't get much more American than that. We spent the night listening to bad music, eating greasy hamburgers, and making all the non-Americans in the restaurant hate America even more. What we do best.