TheDromomaniac.com

     There’s a very pretty 20 year old Japanese girl on her own in the hostel and it seems like every guy here is trying to make a move. In a place like Beirut where everyone has been traveling for a while in the region, let’s just say the males around here are, um, “restive”.
     I asked her what kind of no-good mother would let her lithe, nubile, raven-haired daughter run around the Middle East by herself—I didn’t phrase it like that—and she said her mother only asked her to bring back souvenirs.
     I had made small talk with her in Japanese in the lobby and then later when some guys came to chat her up, an American who was frustrated with her English shouted, “We have to speak English! Americans only speak English!”
     We furtively glanced at each other with barely perceptible smiles.
     You’re all invited to the wedding.
     My two dorm-mates are from Paris and Sacramento and how about the coincidence that those two cities have the most trees per capita in the world? Did you know that? TheDromomaniac.com is a nonstop learning experience—and I don’t charge a penny! It’s just not right.

     Beirut still surprises me. I went for a long east-west walk across town and saw the bombed-out old Holiday Inn from the civil war, then a section of town that looked tres francais, then the American University of Beirut campus that made me feel like I was back at my old school, UC-Santa Barbara.

     Yup, it's an American university all right. I miss college.

     Beirut: it's a little bit of everything

     I hadn’t been hearing great things about Lebanon. It was said to be expensive, modern (nobody wants modern until they are sick), accommodation is problematic, and most damning of all, the falafels were too dry. The dry falafels was a claim from some Syrians at my hotel in Damascus as I was checking out. Upon hearing this I threw down my jacket in a huff, dropped my bag and said, “Then forget it! Life is too short for dry falafels—I’m staying!”
     I am going to try and keep an open mind. I can live with a more expensive town for some days. I’m excited about warmer temperatures. I’m excited about being in a new country. First time in Lebanon!
     People also say that Lebanese women are beautiful, but I am going to keep an open mind about that, too, because I know the phenomenon: you travel in countries where the women are covered and then you come to a place where lots of women are wearing “normal” clothes and suddenly everyone looks like Salma Hayek. My beef with the women on this trip is that many shave their eyebrows and instead draw them in. I like the traditional big Middle Eastern eyebrows. That’s just me.
     The whole day was one niggling annoyance after the other, nothing by itself a big deal, but can I get a break on my birthday? I got one of the last beds in the only reasonable hotel in Beirut, a $12 dorm bed in a place run by gruff men. Within my first hour of walking around I saw a car with California license plates (expired registration–tsk, tsk) a Ferrari dealership, a man walking a chihuahua while drinking a bottle of Perrier, more fifi bars than I could count, and here is lil’ ol’ me, new in town, the light rain falling on my head like a reproach for dreaming it would be better weather here, and feeling like the lone outsider who doesn’t belong.

     I stopped a family on the street to ask where the post office was as I wanted to get there early tomorrow. I switched on my flat, slow, deep, accent-less English that I have honed over the years to perfection: “Excuse me, do you speak English?”
     Of course, it stopped them in their tracks. I’m good.
     “Yes,” the mother said, at attention.
     “Do you know where the post office is?”
     They looked at each other blankly and murmured before finally admitting that they didn’t know and directed me to two pointy-haired boys on the corner. The mother said, “Maybe those two boys know, but they probably don’t speak English.”
     “It’s OK, I can try,” I said, “But what is the word for ‘post office’ in Arabic?”
     The three all nervously looked at each other again and said that they only spoke English. I was dumbfounded by that and asked, “But…how would you ask them?”
     They didn’t have an answer and I appeared to have embarrassed them by the question. They wanted me to go into a restaurant to ask someone, but I went straight to the boys. I gave them the standard greeting of “Salaam Aleikum” (Peace be upon you).
     They exploded in laughter. “Salaam Aleikum! HAAAA!” and then mocked me with the answer in unison, “Wa-aleikum as-salaam!!!” and whooped it up like it was the punch line of a great joke. What was I supposed to say?
     They were actually quite helpful, telling me that the post office and most everything else was going to be closed for the next two days.
     And it is supposed to rain the next three days. And why is everything closed on a Sunday? Isn’t this a muslim country? No one can explain this to me.

     Downtown Beirut feels like downtown West Palm Beach, Florida, It feels fake and fancy and looks pretty in a faux Italian, don’t-touch, sterile way. The big difference is that there are tons of attentive police in full military gear with automatic weapons at the ready. There are barricades and their presence is everywhere.
     It took a lot of running around looking for a place where normal people eat, and all I could find to eat was this above, my birthday dinner.
     The cherry on the top of my wretched birthday was two inconsiderate, snoring guys from mainland China (I didn’t have to ask to know where they were from) in my dorm room who proved, once again, that it is impossible to whisper in Chinese.

     See the guys with guns on the left? I saw the two Chinese snorers come out of Dunkin Donuts so I screamed 'Shoplifters!' and they were mowed down in a hail of bullets. Belly laughs all around.

     Have you heard the claim that there has never been fighting between two countries that both have McDonald's? Doesn't Israel vs. Lebanon disprove that?