Beirut Day 9 – July 2, 2009

Sarah, Jessica, Teresa and I all went to Kababji to eat lunch. It was really nice and I had ra’a’at which are a sort of…mozzarella stick without breading and instead being in a light pasty. I also finally caved and split spiced French fries with Teresa. I had been trying to avoid them as being too Western but they were apparently highly recommended and tasted so good. And Teresa suggested it so clearly it was her fault.

In class we were given the option of watching two films as part of the club section for the day: one on an important Druze woman from the past and one on the 2006 war. We chose the war. I had been expecting something perhaps analytical or news story or historically based. No. It was all up-close graphic images of the dead and the injured, including lots of children. It was incredibly depressing but blessedly short. After that we discussed it a little bit and then watched the first twenty minutes of the biopic which actually started with the historical background on her important and powerful family dating back to Ottoman rule so we still didn’t exactly find out who she was.

While getting ready to leave for dinner with Claire I realized that I had lost my ID card. This is very bad because you have to show your ID at the gates to get in. Sometimes they don’t care, or if you’re in a group or they saw you leave, but other times, especially at night, they check. Sometimes saying you’re in CAMES will work but I will definitely have to get it replaced on Monday if it hasn’t somehow magically appeared in the lost and found at the Protection Office.

Claire and I decided to try a Thai place mentioned in Lonely Planet called The Blue Elephant. Since it was a nice night we decided to walk along the Corniche and then the sidewalk to the restaurant and if we got tired we’d call a service (a shared taxi). I realized I haven’t explained the Corniche yet in any detail. Here is a short description. It is basically a promenade along the sea. There are food vendors there and people strolling, riding bikes or rollerblading. There is also what Lonely Planet describes as a BYO nargileh culture. Nargileh, sometimes known shisha (NOT hashish), is smoked out of hookahs or water pipes and is essentially flavored tobacco. Men or families will bring their own pipe to the Corniche and smoke it there with their friends. There are also men who hang off the rails and stare at the passing women and make cat calls or smooching noises…mostly at the American women who are reputed to be easy, or so I’m told. I really can’t understand why men (in general) would think that cat calls or whistling would make a girl want to stop and talk to them but apparently it has to work somewhere.

We finally reached the Blue Elephant, which was nice. A bit nicer than we were expecting and were clearly a bit underdressed in our shorts and t-shirts. But they let us in and there was actually only one other group there in the opposite corner. There was a small waterfall and a fish pond and a pleasant background (contrary to Lonely Planet’s description of it as “screeching”) of Thai music. As it was a bit posh in terms of what we were expecting it wasn’t outrageously expensive, about $32 for the two of us. In relative terms that’s fairly expensive in Lebanon (but perhaps average for places I’d probably go to at home) but nothing that made my jaw drop. It also had a small vegetarian menu which of course won points from me. I got fried tofu in a pineapple and chili sauce that was alleged to be three elephants of hotness but I couldn’t taste any hotness even with my fairly low sensitivity to it. A really nice touch was on the way out the maître d’ gave us both a stem of orchids in a little tube of water. I still have mine (as of Saturday night) and they haven’t faded.

We walked back along the Corniche towards AUB. Once again we were followed by honks, intensively obvious staring, and cat calls. However during this walk I finally got to see something I had been warned about since my first Arabic class: Arabic men holding hands while walking as a sign of friendship. Almost every single Arabic class the teacher would make sure to mention that in the Middle East heterosexual male friends might hold hands. For some reason it made me absurdly happy to actually see it. Another positive point was running into my teacher Hussein also strolling along the Corniche with his friends.