bonjourain

so i was in lebanon this past weekend, and that was pretty wonderful. instead of staying in beirut where it's really ridiculously hot right now (it's totally worse than cairo because of the humidity - and this egyptian guy that i met on the plane said something about how all the *good* lebanese are in the mountains in the summer anyway. he was just haughty enough that he could have been lebanese himself if he hadn't said gabal instead of jabal), i was up in a hotel in naas which is just a little above bikfaya with my grandparents and dany (my aunt) and my cousins sandro and silvio, who are 7 and 5.

and the view from my hotel room was pretty excellent.



the first day i was there, friday, i pretty much just did a lot of getting pretty stuff. i got my haircut and my nails done and etc. that was exciting. my grandma wasn't allowed to see my feet before i got my nails done, so it was a good thing we did that the first day first thing.

saturday i went down to my mom's aunt leila's house in jounieh and met leila and her daughter suha and her granddaughter naya who is 2 and so so so cute but kind of shy, then we immediately went back up the mountain to leila's other daughter rana's house in ballouneh. rana has a new baby named antoine and he is SO CUTE.

we ate a delicious lunch, obviously, and drank almaza and admired the incredible view. at lunch i went to take a bite of french fry with garlic dip stuff and my aunt was like "well do you have a date tonight?" and i was like no... and she was like okay, go ahead and eat the garlic. so odd. even weirder, i was at another restaurant on sunday and i met my dad's cousin for the first time and we were chatting throughout the meal. and when the garlic sauce came again i was like "mmm i love this stuff," and took a bite of chicken with it, and her immediate question was "do you have a boyfriend?" so strange. couldn't i just brush my teeth?

then monday i had lunch at dany's friend lina's house with a whole bunch of dany's friends, and lina's daughter joelle whom i really like. she is moving to paris to do a master's in something about physics? very cool.

then i came back to cairo monday night, and as soon as i walked into the gate for the egypt air flight back to cairo, the catcalls started once again. i don't actually get very much harassment myself, but it was just so disappointing. the best thing about the whole weekend was being able to wear whatever i wanted - i wore no sleeves the whole time, and knee-length skirts - and not having to worry about being stared at and bothered on the streets. just that, and the food, made it a really nice break, in addition to getting to see my family.

it was kind of strange that i was back there at the exact same time that the war started two years ago. and big deals happened while i was there, like a new government, so people we all politics all the time, but that's really the usual. because of the areas that i went to, i didn't really see much in terms of political posters the way you normally do in beirut - pretty much everything was kataeb, and bikfaya was all pictures of pierre gemayel. when we went to lina's house there was a big picture of michel aoun at the entrance to the village, just to let you know what that village thinks about politics. but because i was in the mountains and visiting people i know most of the time and didn't really go downtown at all, it felt like hizbullah had disappeared. it's strange how you can sort of create an imaginary situation for yourself.