Beirut - Lebanese Sojourn

It's a Complicated Place
How can you possibly wrap your mind around the history of this place?  I could spend the rest of my life here and never figure it out.  Next to the giant mosque is the Christian church, which itself is built on top of the ruins of a Roman bathhouse and across the street from a gleaming new high end mall.

I'm staying in East Beirut, in Achrafieh, which they tell me is the historically Christian neighborhood.  I guess it would have made a much bigger difference in 2006, during the last war with Israel.  Even more of a difference in the 80's when there was a "green line" dividing the Christian east side from the Muslim west side.  The green line is so named for the greenery that multiplied along a wide, abandoned avenue - a no-go zone patrolled from nearby rooftops by snipers.  My small studio apartment is a white rectangle built on the rooftop of an old six story building.  I take a creaky elevator to the sixth floor and walk another flight onto the roof.  It feels like the building is abandoned.  I've not seen another human, except for the smiling super, who greets me in Arabic when I come in.

Beirut is a small shoulder of land sticking into the Mediterranean.  It's tight and hilly, filled with cream colored stone and concrete buildings, trees and shrubs growing from all angles.  I got a strange deja-vu walking the streets.  It kind of feels like Madrid.  Then, with all the familiar French stores and the fact that many signs were in French, it feels a bit Parisian as well.  It's a great city for walking, small enough to cover from one side to the other in just an hour.  Driving is another story - everyone seems to be exasperated.  The traffic lights and zebra crossings are nothing more than mild suggestions.  They drive fast, honk a lot and aim for you when you cross the street on foot.  They park wherever they like - blocking sidewalks, store entrances and even whole streets.

In Achrafieh I got away with speaking either English or French.  The degree to which that works appears to depend on the neighborhood.  As I made my way west across the city, the English and French disappeared except for the street signs.  In the western side of the city, in the more muslim sections, things feel a bit more run down. 

The exchange rate is fixed - 1,500 Lebanese Lira for each dollar, not that you need them.  Everyone here will take dollars and give you change in Lira.

The street art scene is pretty good.  Many parts of the city are covered by graffiti, some in Arabic and some in English.

I knew roughly where I am supposed to go and not go.  It's strange, there are shiny new towers rising from rubble and just around the corner surrounded by razor wire are a handful of tanks and a couple of cops with AK-47's.  They waved me off as I tried to walk further south.  Presumably I was heading somewhere dangerous.

Speaking of razor wire, there are spools of it piled up everywhere, as if they know they'll be needing it again soon.  Why put it all away only to drag it back out when the next war starts?

It makes the apparent building boom all the odder to me.  You'd have to be the ultimate optimist to plunk down millions for one of the many new condos going up.  I wonder if you can get bomb insurance here?

Most of the new towers are elegant and edgy.  Some, like this one, are filled with tenants and others look to be empty - like brand new unopened presents.

In the same neighborhood there are empty carcasses, with holes presumably created by rocket fire during the last war of the one before it. 

I've seen more AK-47s in the last few days then I've seen in my whole life.  Regardless, I feel perfectly safe.  There is no sense of menace or impending danger here.  Everyone is out, sitting in cafes, smoking, shooting the shit.  During the civil war in the 1980's many fled to Paris and when they returned they brought back a lot of French culture with them.

I spent all my time walking around haphazardly.  Down a long set of stairs near my apartment I found the Gemmayze neighborhood.  It's Beirut's version of Greenwich Village or Williamsburg.  It's filled with tiny cafes, restaurants and shops.  I go to a cafe there for coffee each morning and use the free wifi. 

The shisha smoke is thick in Nijmah Square, the most Parisan looking area I've seen so far.

Just yesterday I strolled freely through it but today I was met by camouflaged police with rifles.  It was blocked off and nobody was allowed in or out.

I took a detour and ended up on an empty street.  Turns out the Beirut marathon was held earlier in the morning and many of the downtown streets were still blocked off.

I headed for the famed Corniche, where the rat pack used to hang out in the 50's and 60's.  The weather had turned for the worse and the waves were so strong they were spraying all the way across the sidewalk.

The fishermen didn't seem to care, they simply kept casting their lines.

I walked all the way around the northern section of the Corniche, hoping to take a stroll through the American University of Beirut but it was fenced in and nobody but students and faculty could enter.  I worked up quite an appetite and sat for a meal in the Hamra neighborhood.  I downed every last bite and didn't eat again the whole day.

By 4:30pm the day grew dark and I made my way to my small white rectangle to rest.