Lebanon - If you had been there, you wouldn't have wanted to leave either...

Left Schiphol on Monday morning. Two flights and a stopover in Italy later, we were in Lebanon.

First thoughts:
Free seating on a plane - what is up with that?

People can smoke IN the airport?
Why is the airport one of the busiest ever at 3 am?
I feel under dressed. A little background info on this one: I decided to wear leggings and boots with a boyfriend shirt - dress. Well once we landed I felt super claustrophobic and hot and lost the leggings and boots. Leaving me in ballet flats and a shirt dress. Too much skin for 3 am airport. And too little make-up. Women always look fabulous here. Even at 3 am.

On to Beirut!

We get out of the airport after the immigration officer has extensively checked our passports to make sure we do not have an Israeli stamp in it. If you want to see the world, you have to pick one between Israel and Lebanon. We have a driver waiting for us and take off. I wait for the 'I'm in Lebanon' feeling, but that's kind of absent. I suppose getting onto a highway and into a hotel at 3am won't really give you a good sense of where you are though!

Day 1
The next day we get up and headed to lunch. Or that was the plan at least. I didn't get the memo that I was supposed to be the leader and know where everything was...whoops...didn't study up on my Lonely Planet enough! Note to self: Lonely Planets are amazing, but they are no GPS....you actually have to sit down and study them before you leave...walking and reading and navigating just doesn't go together. Also, it would help if you knew where you were on the map before you ventured out. Do they have Lonely Planet in electronic versions? If not Lonely Planet, it is time for an upgrade. Gen Y does not know how to read from paper. We are in the 21st century after all.

We were wandering with no destination and figured we would run into food...or Ms. Globetrotter here would figure out the Lonely Planet. WRONG. Can we take a cab out of this neighborhood we ended up in? It took some time, but we finally convinced Uncle it would be better if we took a cab. I think we would have wandered forever otherwise. Wandering forever on an empty stomach does not make me happy to be in Beirut...it just makes me wish a McDonalds would magically apppear on the corner. Yup, Ms. Globetrotter is spoiled and always wants to have food at her disposal or she gets crabby. Add heat, and the hotel restaurant is starting to sound good right about now.

We finally take a cab to Rue de Hamas, and find a cafe. Wonderful! I'm happy again and ready for the next adventure! I thought the cans of Diet Pepsi with Arabic writing and the hand written receipt were the coolest thing ever! We were off to a mall, but more about that in my next post. For now, we have every cab in the street honking at us as they drive by, and I suppose we will just get into one and hope we arrive safely.

Signing off from here, there and everywhere,

Ms. Globetrotter