Amy’s Journal

We are going to pay for it on Monday, when we will have to spend the entire day packing and preparing to leave, but we have been having fun this weekend. Friday we decided to go swimming, a fine choice as it was pretty overcast and breezy. We went to a “beach” in Beirut to swim in a pool and paid over $10 for the privilege. Beaches in Beirut consist of an (in this case, crumbling) concrete slab jutting into the sea, but most people swim in a salt water pool. It is a much smarter idea to go to an out of town beach, but we wanted a quick swim. The highlight was watching a fisherman there catch cuttlefish- we saw him catch 3. There are many people fishing in Beirut, but they never seem to catch anything. Watching this guy was a real treat. The cuttlefish were about a foot and-a-half long.

Friday night we stopped in at Torino and Captain’s Cabin. It was a bit sad saying goodbye to Andre, the owner of the latter.

We spent all day yesterday with Matthew, Mary Ann, and the girls at their place and the park. We are going to miss them a lot but I know we will see them again. I am convinced they will live somewhere visit-worthy for whatever their next gig turns out to be.

In the evening, we met up with Bjorn and went to a concert at Luna Park, the dilapidated amusement park on the corniche. For a year we have been waiting for an event like this. For all of the bragging people do about Beirut nightlife, there is virtually no music scene, which is something that we have really missed. We got to see a couple of bands that we had heard of (The New Government and Scrambled Eggs), but never seemed to actually play shows. We ran into practically everyone we know in Beirut. All of the carnival rides were free, so we sampled some bumper cars, the big ferris wheel, and even this horrible haunted house thing that was full of trash and smelled musty and vile.

The bands were decent and it was all in all a good time. Way more interesting than trying to cram into a boring club in Gemmayzeh or Monot.