Not Beirut

So I am currently in the apartment of a friend of a friend (Aaron's friend Sandra, who is very sweet and apologizes to me for watering flowers in her own house when I am unexpectedly asleep on her couch) in London, which is not Beirut, which is where I'm supposed to be right now. I was reading the news but found it depressing and so I stopped doing that and started drinking wine instead (which is actually not an uncommon or ineffective coping mechanism, as it turns out, though I'm not sure it's one that I would like to hold on to after this whole "adventure" is over). Right now I am drinking water though, for a change of pace.

I'm pretty sure that now is not the time to write anything particularly stimulating. Also, Heather just brought me a glass of port. It is sweet. Apparently, the name port comes from the fact that it originated in Portugal.

Okay, looks like the whole "not livejournal" (is it LIVEjournal or liveJOURnal?) thing is not working out because I am just rambling. About alcohol. Though I am capitalizing things, which is new for me.

So the point is that I am supposed to be in Beirut right now doing the CAMES summer Arabic proram at the American University of Beirut. And that's what I was doing up until the middle of July when Hizballah decided that it would be a good idea to go and steal two Israeli soldiers and then Israel decided that it would be a good idea to bomb the shit out of Lebanon. Nice one, guys. Then the US and everyone else decided that it was probably a good idea for their citizens not to be in Lebanon anymore, so we left on the lovely Norwegian ship Huac, AKA Fly Heaven. That was lovely. Before that (and actually for awhile during that), Beirut was great and beautiful and fun and pretty much all you could ever want.

I do have a more detailed and interesting account of everything that happened between the Friday before the soldier kidnappings/shit bombing and right now, but not with me at the moment so I will post that later. Also, honestly I'd really like to get to my glass of port. Also I have the dirty short skirt song stuck in my head and am hoping that Heather has her iPod with her so that I can listen to it. And there are digestives in the kitchen. England is a nice place. So there will be stories, hopefully tomorrow. The point of bothering to start this blog now, when all the real action is over, is that I will still be traveling for the next month all over Europe. I am going with Heather and Aaron (friends from CAMES/AUB) on one of those fun tour things through STA (the student travel agency) to Amsterdam, the Rhine Valley, Prague, Austria, Slovenia, Croatia, and Venice for the next two weeks, then I am going to Greece/perhaps Venice again with Katie (from home/high school), then I am going home to sleep in my own bed and get a hug (or lets be honest, about 40,000 hugs) from my mommy. And then I am moving back to Ann Arbor.

Okay, I'll be more interesting and say better things in the morning. For now, I'll pretend it isn't happening, because apparently I only have two modes: either nothing is happening to Lebanon or what's happening to Lebanon is all that's happening.