Beirut, part one

Finally getting around to writing my posts about Beirut. Things have been moving so fast here and so much has happened in the last few weeks. But, before I start in on my weekend in Beirut, here's a picture of my awesome language partner Muhammad (on the right) and his equally amazing friend Mahmoud. Our weekly three hour meetings have consisted of smoking shisha, watching the world cup, exploring the Jordanian University's campus and library, breaking fast with the staple Jordanian dish mansif, and having some fun but frustrating arguments about religion and homosexuality.  

So we arrived in Beirut around midnight Wednesday night. The humidity was stifling, but we wandered around the Mar Michael neighborhood for a few hours, passing the blue-domed Muhammad Al-Amin mosque which is located across from a Ferrari dealership which isn't far from buildings that look like this:

Parts of Beirut are still damaged from the civil war and the Israeli bombings in 2006. Just when you are being enveloped by the high-end condos and stylish cafes, you encounter buildings like this and they are, to me, a chilling reminder of everything that this city has endured and may continue to endure. It was amazing where I would find these reminders. Wandering around the beautiful National Museum, I was looking at a 5th century mosaic of animals when I noticed the hole about a foot in diameter. I commented, only half seriously, that it was probably remnants from the civil war. Turns out it was. From a sniper who shot through the window, gouging a hole in a 1500 year old mosaic and the wall that displayed it. This kind of contrast marked the few days in Lebanon. 

More pictures of the museum:

The majority of my time in Beirut was spent wandering around the Hamra district, near the American University in Beirut and along the Corniche, on the Mediterranean. The best part about walking around was seeing all of the graffiti. I was familiar with some of the pieces from an assignment I had done on graffiti in the Arab world, so it was nice to see them in person. 

My first full day in Beirut I visited T-Marbouta, a lovely cafe and library in Hamra owned by my former professor's brother. The food was delicious, especially the mutabbal.

Practically all of the food we ate in Beirut was amazing. The first night we ate at Le Chef, which was a simple, homestyle Lebanese restaurant. It was my first time eating molokhia and now I want to cook it myself. We also went to an Argentinian rooftop steak house. Again, delicious. A large amount of our time in Beirut was spent doing homework so we hung out at a few cafes, drinking lavender lattes and writing our weekly Arabic papers.

By far the best part of the trip to Lebanon was the day trip we took to Baalbek. I'll include all the pictures of that in part two.