ruins in tyr

June is here. The weather is still pleasant- upper 70s, but the sun feels stronger here and it is a bit humid. At night it is usually cool and breezy. Whenever we are home we have all of the doors and windows open and it is quite comfortable- apparently this will not be the case in July and August.

So Beitedinne is actually closed on Monday (oops) so we had a rather pleasant drive into the mountains, but didn’t see the museum. The Chouf is quite close to Beirut, we drove there in about half an hour. There are a lot of ancient cedar trees there, though we didn’t drive that far. We passed through some Druze villages, which prompted the taxi driver to explain that the Druze worship female calves the way that “we” worship God. While this seems to some sort of wild rumor, there must be many wacky things being said about Druze beliefs, as they themselves are not allowed to know what their religion says. They are an off-shoot of Shiite Islam, but I think that many people today consider it to be something more cult-like. They believe in reincarnation and that there are a fixed number of souls, so you can’t become Druze.

I sort of wanted to stay in the mountains, as it was so sunny, cool, and breezy, but we headed back down to the coast and went south to Tyr. We visited some Roman/Byzantine ruins which are right on the blue Mediterranean-really stunning, the crumbling pillars against the sea. Later, we headed to Saida, where we bought some olive soap and wandered around in the souk. There is a lot of renovation going on of the old medina, and it was very pleasant. We went into the Khan there (a khan is a sort of old hotel for travelers where you could leave your animals in the courtyard or on the first floor, and people stayed upstairs). They seemed to have renovated it for shops to go in, and one place seemed to be a performance area, as there was a stage inside.

Back in Beirut, we went to an Armenian restaurant that was truly delicious. I definitely want to go back. There are a lot of Armenians here in Lebanon because many fled here during the genocide in Turkey.

Ethan remains frustrated with all of the internet issues (mainly with VPN, but also because of the slowness) which have been interfering with his work. We have internet service in our apartment now, at least. Today he plans to go to Starbucks and see how service is there.

I found a really excellent DVD rental place around the corner – they have all kinds of great stuff. The owner told me that he has the third season of “Six Feet Under’ on order, but that it will still be a few more weeks because “customs sucks here.” In order to get a membership, I had to tell him my first and last name and give him our cell phone number.

I’m not sure if I have mentioned how excellent the produce is here. Really delicious tomatoes are everywhere for about 30 cents per kilo, a big bunch of cilantro or parsley is less than 10 cents. Everything is fresh and delicious, and as long as you stay away from imports, you can feed yourself very well for very little. Alternatively, a pint of Haagen Dazs is something like 8 dollars. And I am going to have to learn how to make tortillas, because I haven’t seen them anywhere.