Mercedes and Goats.

"Last Post Published on Oct. 28, 2009":  so reads my blog homepage when I signed in.  Gosh it's been a long time since I've posted anything.  Life has gotten busy, but I suppose that's always the way it is.  At the promptings of several friends, I will attempt to make regular posts again.

I noticed something the other day and thought it would make good blog fodder.  The lines between foreign and familiar for me here have dissolved into one another.  Let me explain what I mean by sharing the story which really made me start thinking about this.

I was walking through a neighborhood in a very nice part of town the other day.  Home to large houses, nice to extremely expensive cars, and families probably more well off than I'm used to even in the States.  I walked around a corner to see a Bedouin and his herd of goats walking through someone's yard.  Many of the goats were chomping away at grass, bushes, and anything they could find.  The man was dressed in typical rural-like garb.  I can remember a time when this would've made me think something was odd with this situation.  But somehow over the past year and a half the site of goats being herded next Mercedes and through yards became normal.

This part of the world is so mixed with parts of the old with the new.  So much so that I've managed to compile both old and new into the same working concept in my mind.  Mercedes and goats.  It's just the way it is here.  And it made me realize, this is normal everyday life for me.

No longer is it odd to walk through a neighborhood hung with streamers and full of Arabic graffiti.

No longer is it odd to go for a run and hear shouts in Arabic as the children chase after me.

No longer is it odd to see cats scatter out of trashcans as I throw out garbage.

No longer is it odd to see the dome and minaret of a mosque when I go to the park.

No longer is it odd to see drivers stick their hand out in order to "push" their way through traffic.

No longer is it odd to hear the call to prayer when I'm sitting and reading.

No longer is it a new experience to see a pink and purple sunset over the desert... though it does still amaze me.

No longer is this just some place I live, but it is now my home.  A part of me.  The people.  The food.  The culture.  The language.  The things I love.  The things that I don't love.  The things I still don't understand, but accept because that's the way it is - like Mercedes and Goats.  Who knew?

Saida! Saida! Saida!

Saida is the Arabic name for the city of Sidon. Tyre is in the far south of Lebanon and my route back to Beirut took me right through Saida. I only got to spend a few hours here, but the time was well spent. The city felt bigger and more alive than Tyre. It was incredibly beautiful, as Lebanon tends to be.


The big tourist site to go to is the seaside castle which lies about 100 to 200 meters out into the ocean from the shore. As you can see in the photo there is a long stone walkway that leads out to it.


Almost immediately upon entering the castle I come across two local boys with whom I begin talking in Arabic. This surprised them and we chatted for a while. When I got up to continue on they just followed. I had three shadows that afternoon. One of them insisted that I take his picture; he's the one above, I can't remember his name.


Climbing through the innards to get to the upper ramparts I came across this beautifully lit room. I can only imagine what this might've looked like when it was originally being used.


The view from the top was truly spectacular. The castle, the deep shadows, the coastline, the skyline - it was all too perfect.


Before I left, I made sure to get a picture of myself sitting on the castle walls looking out over the city.


When I got back to the shore I walked a ways down and just soaked it all in. I've noticed I really like to soak in my surroundings. I came across lot's of interesting people, but I seem to always atract younger males. These guys were neat. The one on the bike is actually from Germany but he now lives in Lebanon.


Naturally, there is alot of fishing going on along the shore. As I was walking past I saw this group of kids gathered around a guy about my age. I walked up to find that he had (unintentionally) caught an eel and they were trying to figure out what to do with it. I love the look of almost pained curiousity on the face of the kid in the red shirt.


As I said, there were many groups fishing. I'm not sure these guys were ever even aware that I took their picture. The sunset provided amazing pictures at the harbor.


This is the last picture I took of Sidon before I loaded the bus back to Beirut. I would absolutely go back to Sidon any time I have the chance. It was too much to get in one trip.

Back in the Blogging Game!

So it has been a LONG time since my last post. I apologize for the long hiatus. The good news is that I have my replacement computer so everything should be back to normal now. The posting should resume at least once, if not twice, a week.

There is a lot for me to talk about as much has happened since my computer fiasco happened nearly two months ago. The first major thing I want to talk about is our new house.

When I arrived back in October I had a place to stay in a friend’s house. The intention was to find a place for another guy and myself soon thereafter. For some reason it took us several months to find a place. By early February we still had not found an apartment and I was getting quite frustrated with the whole situation. It seemed like no matter what I did I couldn’t find an apartment that fit the bill.

Thankfully we found a place soon after that which fit our needs exactly. Our new place is great and our landlord loves us! With live in a really interesting part of the city, and we’re pretty close to anything we might need. The best part is that we live really close to the absolute best falafel sandwich restaurant in the city. It’s wonderful.

The view from our bedroom windows is amazing. It overlooks downtown and sees some of the touristy areas. The pictures in this post show the view from the roof of our apartment at sunset. It’s quite beautiful; I think once the warm weather returns I may spend some time up the reading.

Next Blog Post: Running from the Dead Sea to the Red Sea…. FOR FUN!

PS – I apologize if the pictures look somewhat poor. I can’t figure out why, but blogspot is adding some nasty compression artifacts to my photos when I upload them. I’ve tried to get around this for the past hour, but I’ve just given up. I wish they would look as good as the originals. Sorry.

Jerash or Why I Love Sunsets

Sunset in Jerash.

Recently I had the opportunity to travel to Jerash, one of the cities of the ancient Decapolis. Talk about a breathtaking place. There are a multitude of Roman ruins to be seen there. The city is located in a very mountainous area and is surrounded on all sides by olive groves. I'm told that the view from up in the olive groves is very reminiscent of a Mediterranean country village, but since I've no experience with Mediterranean villages I'll just have to take their word for it. I believe the phrase "Tuscan-like views" was used. It was indeed beautiful.

Of course, I took pictures. Since I recently featured ancient Roman architecture on my blog, I thought I'd rather choose a different point of focus. If you're interested in seeing the ruins, check out this site. I was quite fascinated by the olive groves and the views down into the city, so that's what I have a lot of. I tended to favor extremely wide angles for most of the pictures because I wanted to really capture the sense of wide open grandeur that the Jerash scenery gave. Additionally, I really love sunsets and Jerash offered up some great ones while I was there. I apologize if you the reader feels I went overboard with the sunset pictures, but I couldn't help myself haha.

This is a view down into Jerash. I love how open the expanse is.

Great sunset over the hills of Jerash.

A wide shot of an olive grove. The sky was really that blue.

The view from my hotel down into Jerash.

This was a shot from the bus as we were driving away from Jerash.

Random street in Jerash.

Yet another beautiful sunset over the hills.

This was the hotel that I stayed at. It was in the middle of a bunch of olive groves.

I typically steer clear of black and white since it's so overused, but I think it compliments this wide shot of an olive grove nicely. And strangely it reminds me of the Grapes of Wrath...