Elation!

Success! I finally figured out how to get taxi drivers to drive you for the actual price (2000, which is about a dollar, instead of sometimes 5x that price). Finally I don't feel like such an asshat.

Last night I walked with four French girls and an American guy all the way down the coastal prominade, which is like 3 or 4 km. It was a trip-- all these families sitting around smoking nargileh, people competing to see who can play the loudest American or Hindi pop. Anyways, we got to pigeon rock and I realized I needed to get to the couch I was surfing before 11, so I walked all the way back the 4km, checked out of the hostel, and then walked another 2-3km before I realized that I was in the wrong neighborhood. However, that neighborhood was populated with soccer bars, where people were freaking the fuck out about Brazil (it seems all Lebanese support Brazil, so much so that people are hanging out of cars waving Brazilian flags, people are all wearing green and yellow, and flags are hanging everywhere). Anyways, big ups to my Armenian security guard friend who helped me realize my mistake and put me in a cab and insisted that the driver give me a fair price to Gedawi hospital in Achrafiyeh. By the time I got there, I was tired, covered in sweat, and my feet had started to develop these big, fluid filled blisters. To add insult to injury, the directions I was given to get to the apartment were based on landmarks (go past the shop with chickens in front, apartment with black bars on the front). Unfortunately, because it was 11:30PM, the shop with the chickens had closed, making it look like every other closed shop, and all the fucking apartments in Beirut have black bars on the front. When I found what I thought to be the apartment, the main gate was blocked. However, another one of the tenants came. Using 2 of the 5 arabic words I know (boy and girl i repeated as I pointed to the apartment), I finally made it to my home stay.

I'm staying with two British students at the local university. Both of them are very nice, though the guy is a little abrasive (I thanked him so profusely when I finally found the apartment that he stopped me to say, goodnaturedly of course, "you want to lick my asshole or something? jesus, give the thanks a rest". There are two chinese people staying in the apartment as well, which has been nice-- we are all at an internet cafe in the student area, Hamra, while they figure out how to get a visa to Turkey.

Beach day today! Then, I might go to Syria tomorrow depending on where Ben and Scout and my Syrian friend Azmi are.