Sunday, June 12, 2016

Exploring the Beauty

This weekend has been full of activities. Friday I got a message saying three friends were going to see the Blue Mosque and did I want to come. I said of course, so after work and a farewell potluck lunch for a staff, I rushed and got ready to go. We took a service down to Dawra Square, it's sort of like grand central station and from there you can get buses or mini-vans to go wherever you'd like to go next. We found a mini-van and piled in. This one took us downtown and we just knocked on the window when we wanted to get off. It was the equivalent of $2 one way for both taxi & bus combined which is really handy. My friend & I didn't go inside the mosque since we peered in and didn't see any ladies inside so the two guys went in. Then we wandered all around downtown and took pictures with the must-have, the sign that says I Love Beirut. We ended up in Pinkberry where I tried the watermelon flavour which is really delicious.

We weren't sure where to catch the mini-van to go back to Dawra Square, but we started walking in the right direction. Sure enough, before long a min-van passed us and honked, we missed that cuz we didn't realize they'd do it but we were ready for the next one which slowed down, we hopped on, and soon enough we were back at Dawra. We got a taxi-driver and off we went, me wanting to stop at the ATM to get some cash as I was getting sorely low. I told the taxi driver I wanted to get out when we were coming up to the ATM, and he gestured towards the place and I still don't know if he said, see I remember you wanted to stop here, or if he said, see I understood what you were saying, but regardless, I got to practice a little!

Last night I picked up the book my brother gave me for Christmas and started to read some phrases out loud. I was surprised to see how much more made sense than 4 months ago. Now I'm starting to put things together. This morning Ana gave me a lesson on how to say, "I want, you want, she wants, he wants, they want," and now I can practice that. For example, I can say, "Ana badi wrouh al Dawra" which means I want to go to Dawra.

On the side, all the Brazilians/Portuguese insist I must learn Portuguese and so far I know noun and siin (no and yes) and hoy (hey) and lindo/linda (beautiful). My mind can't handle multiple languages though, so I think I'll focus on Arabic for now. Having a background in Spanish is slightly helpful, but the Brazilian Portuguese adds a lot of soft sounds to the words so you will hear "ch" while the Portugal Portuguese will say "c". So if I were trying to understand Portuguese, I'd do better with the one from Portugal.

This morning we were off a little after 8:30 in the morning. Four of the group went by taxi to Dawra Square and caught a different bus going to Byblos while the rest of the group went by car. We had a lovely time in Byblos, walking around town, seeing inside the castle, eating lunch, buying souvenirs. When we sat down to eat, we were given expensive menus with burgers and things inside. We immediately asked for the Lebanese food menu and that was 1/3 of the price! I loved eating the babaghanoush, hummus, potatoes with fresh coriander, and other local staples. 

Then part of the group went home but two of the guys and I wanted to go to Harissa so we took the bus, then walked for ages following a nice couple with a small baby who got off the same bus and knew where to go because they were going there too, and finally got to the cable car or telepherique as it's called here. It's quite a ride up, apparently a mile long, so it took at least 15 minutes to go up. A bit daunting to see how high up we were and of course the guys kept joking about what would happen if it were to break. At the top we saw the Lady of Lebanon, went up a bunch more steps, popped inside the church where they were having a service, and then went back down again.

Thankfully we could catch a bus right outside the telepherique and didn't have to walk ages back to the highway and before we knew it we were home. We did have to pay a little extra for the last taxi home because we were going all the way up to the university, but I paid a little less than $7 today total which I think is an excellent value for the amount of traveling I got in! I'm super pleased to be learning the public transportation system though I won't travel it by myself because I'm a little wary of that.

I love getting off campus and exploring this beautiful country. It's a wonderful excuse to walk without feeling bored, see new things, hang out with friends and get lots of sunshine.I'm looking forward to next weekend already and planning what I will do!

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