still in Beyrouth
Well, still in Beruit (Beyrouth as it is spelled here). Today is actually Assumption Day, or some other Christian religious holiday, so most sites and whatnot are closed. So I am kinda losing a day, since I had been planning to go to a site outside of Beruit, but I guess it will have to wait. The 15th is also the Saint Day for Mosteiros, so I think people right now in CV should be recovering from last night, and are out on the beach right now, or at least in a few hours.
Beruit is a crazy city. I am staying in East Beruit, right next to their newly reconstructed downtown. I haven't seen photos of what it was like after the war last summer, but from what I can tell, they have been very quickly reconstructing. So, it's nice, but all really fake and more geared toward rich tourists from the Gulf and Europe. The area around the American University is more middle class and down to earth.
I have not been to South Beruit because of the whole Hezbollah thing. Yesterday, in fact, was the one year anniversary of the end of the war with Israel. Hezbollah held a big rally in one of the neighborhoods in the south, and as I was getting ready to go to bed on the roof, I could hear and see the reflections of fireworks.
Yeah, so I'm actually sleeping on the roof of the the hotel that I found. They are booked full, but have three beds on the their roof, which I am sleeping on one for cheap! It's a bit annoying since there is also a big billboard on the roof, and so they have to have lights shining on it at night. However, I have been so dead tired these past few days, I have not had problems falling asleep.
I don't know if I blogged about it, but I got a wonderful case of diarrhea while in Praia COSing. Thanks. It must have been my going away gift from CV. So, I was dealing with that, trying to get thought all of my COS stuff, visit the host family, see a few people for the last time, and deal with leaving site, which was a bit harder than I thought. So I really did not sleep well in Praia.
But as luck would have it, when I got to the airport in Praia, I ran into two PCVs from Senegal who had just finished a 10 day holiday in CV. So, I hung with them, and when I got to Dakar, instead of staying at the airport for 6 hours, I ended up going with them for a few hours and met a bunch of other PCVs at some kind of club. So that was really nice, the PC network of love strikes again!
My bags actually made it from Dakar to Beruit with no problems, so thank you very much Royal Air Moroc. I will be sure to use you in the future. The Casablanca airport must have been the first modern airport that I have stepped in since leaving JFK two years ago (speaking of airports, I noticed that they are adding on to the Dakar airport, which almost made me scream with joy, because I hate their airport so much, so any additions will surely be an improvement...now if they could just get some better taxi drivers).
I feel pretty safe here in the city (of course, I am not really going far off of the beaten path) and I feel a lot safer than when I was in West Africa. I am not sure why that is. For a day, I seriously had been worried that maybe it was some kind of unconscious racist thing, whereas I feel more comfortable amongst lighter skinned people. But that doesn't really make sense, since I was fine when I was in CV. But after thinking about it more, I realized that it was actually more of a class thing, this place just feels a lot better off than West Africa, so it doesn't seem like there are as many people on the street looking for trouble.
Hearing Arabic here has been a treat, in the sense that me being an American, when I usually hear Arabic, it's on a TV show or movie. And of course, it's usually an Arab man with a menacing voice saying something along the lines of "We will use (insert name of weapon, armament or explosive device) to (insert end goal of killing, injuring or scaring) Westerners because of (insert incident that occurred 1,000 years ago, 650 years ago, or two weeks ago)! Then victory will be ours!" So, my point is that Arabic always sounded a bit menacing to me. But here, where I can hear flight attendants, kids and random other people using it in every day usage, it sounds just a lot more normal.
I also realized why it is that I haven't been worried about coming to the Middle East, despite my lack of Arabic language training. It's no worries for me, because I've been living for the past two years in a place where I hardly understood anything! So it's not really that big of a change of pace for me. And enough people here speak a bit of English, so I know I will get by ok.
I am dealing with a fair amount of culture shock here in Beruit, so I think I will be well adjusted by the time I go back to the States. There are so many cars on the roads here, I am surprised there aren't 10,000 accidents a day. So I am getting used to dealing with cars again. There is also a Virgin Megastore near my hotel, so I am been there once, and I seriously walked around for like 10 minutes, with my mouth gaping. I could not believe the amount of magazines they had, or books. Or DVDs. It was crazy.
Well, that is all for now. I think I will try to blog again when I get to Syria. I was worried about the Internet connections there, but have been told that they are plentiful.
Beruit is a crazy city. I am staying in East Beruit, right next to their newly reconstructed downtown. I haven't seen photos of what it was like after the war last summer, but from what I can tell, they have been very quickly reconstructing. So, it's nice, but all really fake and more geared toward rich tourists from the Gulf and Europe. The area around the American University is more middle class and down to earth.
I have not been to South Beruit because of the whole Hezbollah thing. Yesterday, in fact, was the one year anniversary of the end of the war with Israel. Hezbollah held a big rally in one of the neighborhoods in the south, and as I was getting ready to go to bed on the roof, I could hear and see the reflections of fireworks.
Yeah, so I'm actually sleeping on the roof of the the hotel that I found. They are booked full, but have three beds on the their roof, which I am sleeping on one for cheap! It's a bit annoying since there is also a big billboard on the roof, and so they have to have lights shining on it at night. However, I have been so dead tired these past few days, I have not had problems falling asleep.
I don't know if I blogged about it, but I got a wonderful case of diarrhea while in Praia COSing. Thanks. It must have been my going away gift from CV. So, I was dealing with that, trying to get thought all of my COS stuff, visit the host family, see a few people for the last time, and deal with leaving site, which was a bit harder than I thought. So I really did not sleep well in Praia.
But as luck would have it, when I got to the airport in Praia, I ran into two PCVs from Senegal who had just finished a 10 day holiday in CV. So, I hung with them, and when I got to Dakar, instead of staying at the airport for 6 hours, I ended up going with them for a few hours and met a bunch of other PCVs at some kind of club. So that was really nice, the PC network of love strikes again!
My bags actually made it from Dakar to Beruit with no problems, so thank you very much Royal Air Moroc. I will be sure to use you in the future. The Casablanca airport must have been the first modern airport that I have stepped in since leaving JFK two years ago (speaking of airports, I noticed that they are adding on to the Dakar airport, which almost made me scream with joy, because I hate their airport so much, so any additions will surely be an improvement...now if they could just get some better taxi drivers).
I feel pretty safe here in the city (of course, I am not really going far off of the beaten path) and I feel a lot safer than when I was in West Africa. I am not sure why that is. For a day, I seriously had been worried that maybe it was some kind of unconscious racist thing, whereas I feel more comfortable amongst lighter skinned people. But that doesn't really make sense, since I was fine when I was in CV. But after thinking about it more, I realized that it was actually more of a class thing, this place just feels a lot better off than West Africa, so it doesn't seem like there are as many people on the street looking for trouble.
Hearing Arabic here has been a treat, in the sense that me being an American, when I usually hear Arabic, it's on a TV show or movie. And of course, it's usually an Arab man with a menacing voice saying something along the lines of "We will use (insert name of weapon, armament or explosive device) to (insert end goal of killing, injuring or scaring) Westerners because of (insert incident that occurred 1,000 years ago, 650 years ago, or two weeks ago)! Then victory will be ours!" So, my point is that Arabic always sounded a bit menacing to me. But here, where I can hear flight attendants, kids and random other people using it in every day usage, it sounds just a lot more normal.
I also realized why it is that I haven't been worried about coming to the Middle East, despite my lack of Arabic language training. It's no worries for me, because I've been living for the past two years in a place where I hardly understood anything! So it's not really that big of a change of pace for me. And enough people here speak a bit of English, so I know I will get by ok.
I am dealing with a fair amount of culture shock here in Beruit, so I think I will be well adjusted by the time I go back to the States. There are so many cars on the roads here, I am surprised there aren't 10,000 accidents a day. So I am getting used to dealing with cars again. There is also a Virgin Megastore near my hotel, so I am been there once, and I seriously walked around for like 10 minutes, with my mouth gaping. I could not believe the amount of magazines they had, or books. Or DVDs. It was crazy.
Well, that is all for now. I think I will try to blog again when I get to Syria. I was worried about the Internet connections there, but have been told that they are plentiful.
posted by jende turtle at 4:00 AM
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