Two Weeks Without You And I Still Haven’t Gotten Over You Yet

Friday night, Amy and I babysat for our friends Matthew and MaryAnn. It was nice to hear that they may be moving to our neck of the woods (Hamra) soon. Afterwards we met up with Carrie at Yabani for good sushi. Several hours later we found ourselves at Basement, a funny danceclub in Gemmayze, with Aboud, the proprietor of a bar/restaurant called Kayan that we’ve taken to frequenting lately. I say “funny” because, although it was a danceclub, there was no dancefloor. Patrons are allowed–or rather, expected–to dance on the tables. Something about that kind of intentional, measured chaos–like “We’re bringing the f***ing party every night!”–is kind of comedic to me. I kept wanting to say how it reminded me of a place I’d been to in Paris, but I thought I’d sound like a twit.

So after all this late-night excitement, us three Americans decided to take a little vacation to Byblos (Jbeil) on Saturday. We didn’t get quite the early start we’d hoped for, as some of us got a little too caught up posting comments on a certain “journalist’s” website. So, we didn’t make it to the Edde Sands resort till about 1 pm. I was going to link to their website to give you an idea of how fancy and expensive it is, but if you try to go to their homepage from their slick flash intro, you get a 404 Page Not Found error. Hey, at Edde Sands it’s not about advertising, “…it’s all about feelings.” Suffice it to say that it’s fancy and expensive, but hey, sometimes you have to treat yourself right.

The day was kind of overcast and chilly, but we had a good time having lunch, walking on the beach, swimming, and generally lounging about. As day turned into night, we sat at the restaurant there and had some cocktails. The whole place really reminded me of St. John, in the USVI. There was none of the rocky, somewhat trash strewn beaches with steep grades and fast-breaking waves I generally associate with Lebanese beaches. It did not seem like we were in Lebanon at all. I mean, they imported their own sand. Later, we went to El Molino, a Mexican restaurant in the port. Their placemats where emblazoned with their “mascot” if you will, kind of a Mexican revolutionary version of a Varga girl which blew my mind on a couple levels. The food and setting were great and again we were transported…maybe not to Mexico, but at least to Southern California.

All in all, it was nice to leave Lebanon for a few hours on a Saturday afternoon/evening.

Carrie’s on her way over now so we can grill chicken. Tonight we’re going to a farewell dinner for one of her embassy friends. I don’t know him too well, but I appreciate his wit, humor, and Navy SEAL-ness.

The strains of life are really taking their toll over here in the ‘Rut. (I have to be glib now because tomorrow I’ll be dealing with “internal mobility sites” and converting pdf content to plain text so it can be indexed for site-wide searches).