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.