Beirut-iful, you read that correctly

Last week I was gone. Where'd I go? Well I had the opportunity to travel around Lebanon for a few days. It was amazing. The next few blog posts I do will focus on different parts of the country I saw. (I promise that at some point in the future I will get around to writing the promised post about the Dead to Red Race; right now I'm too anxious to share about Lebanon.)

I started out my trip in Beirut so that's what this post will feature pictures of. Lebanon is so different from what I'm used to in a wide variety of ways. First of was the amount of GREEN things.


Being in the Middle East I've grown accustomed to not seeing much plant life, but Lebanon was full of it! It was beautiful and a nice change of pace. The above picture is taken from the campus of the American University of Beirut which I was kindly given a tour of by a student I met while near the campus. And yes, that IS the Mediterranean Sea in the background. Speaking of the Mediterranean...


The Sea was incredible. Coming from a country where we have mandated water rationing, I was dumbfounded by the beauty of the sea. Other places definitely had prettier views and vistas of the Mediterranean which I will show in a later post, but this was my first look. And I was mighty impressed.


Walking up and down the Corniche I got to take in a lot of the seaside sites. (From Answers.com: the word (corniche) typically describes a waterfront promenade usually paralleled by a main road, such as the renowned Corniche Beirut. I didn't know that either, but that's what all the locals called it.) There was a lot to just sit and take in on the Corniche. Admittedly I was a bit sad I didn't pack running shoes as a run up and down the coast would've been great.


These old boats were just littered along the rocky portions of the beach at points. They had a lot of character that I couldn't ignore; they were practically begging me to take their pictures. Later at other places I got kind of "boat obsessed" as you'll see in later postings when I post several harbor shots.


Something that I always have an eye out for is anything with a distinctly non-Arabic origin but which has been appropriated INTO Arabic culture, whether that be language or something else. Let's call it a melding of the foreign with the familiar. So, I suppose that's why it really interests me to see things like "Henry Ford Street" transliterated into Arabic.


This building was along the shorefront and looked like it had seen better days, but it still had so much life to it. I love the older architectural feel combined with the plants and palm trees. It kind made me feel like I was in a movie.

Alright, I have much more to come from Lebanon. Next time will feature scenes from Tyre.