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.