"You Are... Verrrrrrryyyy White.."

After I got off the internet my Chinese friends and I traveled to the beach. We were walking down the prominade, where on the otherside is a five foot drop, some rocks and the water. Not quite a beach, but flat ish and right by the sea. We were flagged down by 4 guys smoking sheesha on the rocks to come swimming, probably because they love asian girls in Beirut (Ashtaa ashtaaa -- hot, hot). One of them, Muhammad, spoke very good English -- he's computer science engineer at AUB and originally from Saudi Arabia, where his father works for Aramco -- the other two did OK, and one, a Palestinian refugee living in one of the camps, didn't at all. But the Palestinian was my favorite, he loved American pop music (I have a video of him singing Cyclone, "She move body cyyyyyccclooooneee she wanna ahniteLOONGGG"), and he was covered in all these crazy scars, which through the AUB student we learned were mostly from being knifed. He was apparently a very good soccer player, but couldn't play anywhere because he's Palestinian. Through his friend I asked him, while looking at his scars, if he had problems being Palestinian in Beirut. He shrugged. "You get used to them", he said.

Anyways, Mom, now that I've made you quake in your heels a little bit, we went swimming and drank Almaza, and then after a few hours, when my belly wasn't jawdroppingly white (actually-- they looked at it, paused, and said "you are... very white"), we left to have dinner in the Souk, the fancy shopping district in Beirut. The Honduras/Spain match was on, so we sat around smoking sheesha, drinking Almaza, and eating pickled bar snacks while watching the game on a big projection screen. It was bizarre to be watching the game, and suddenly hear the call to prayer-- all while getting caught off guard by the stunningly beautiful Lebanese and French girls walking around.

Another note on the girls-- christ. 80% of the girls walking around here would turn heads in the states. Here, they still turn heads, but you don't know where to look or who to look at. It's a constant ashta ashta parade.

Anyways, the two Chinese had a friend playing in a band near the Souk at a music festival that was going on, so we went to watch them. They were kind of shit-- "Circle of Fire-- Acoustic Progressive Rock", but more entertaining was the band after them, "Episode -- Progressive Symphonic", which meant a bass, a drummer, and this electric violinist. I took videos.

We went found our way home to sleep, after chatting for a bit about propaganda in China -- apparently, according to the Chinese government, the Dali Lama drinks out of a bejewelled skull goblet.
... reallly?

This morning, I decided I was sick of Beirut but didn't want to go all the way to Syria, so I took a bus to Byblos, about 17km north. I walked around the ruins and the souk there, and met another American from California at the ruins. He was a little bit like eyore, until I expressed my distaste for Lebanese bus drivers ("Scoundrels! Greedy! Satanic Reincarnates!"). I liked him more. We might meet up in the West Bank, as we'll probably be there similar times.

Now, I'm in Tripoli. Tomorrow to Bcharre and the Cedars, and back to Beirut.