Last night we went downtown and walked around and had dinner. I can absolutely see why it's called the Paris of the Middle East, I thought I was in Europe. Beautiful mosques, churches and other buildings, lots of green, the bay is beautiful and the food is amazing. Learning about the history of Lebanon is amazing, I can't believe how much of the history in the past five years I had no idea about or didn't remember. Today doing focus groups at school was really sad to see how bogged down kids are by politics and religion. We were at an evangelical school, which is still attended by a lot of muslim kids, but none of them really saw religion as separate from politics and as anything that offered them guidance or direction in life. They were very talkative and really fascinating. They pretty much all said that they live in constant fear of war and they all said they don't want to live here when they grow up b/c it is too stressful. 

i didn't land in lebanon until about 3:30 a.m. b/c our plane was delayed an hour b/c someone forgot to pick up their duty free bag and they had to call in the bomb squad. Getting through lebanese customs and passport was just as easy as london or canada, i was shocked, maybe b/c it was so early in the morning. I was worried that there wouldn't be a taxi driver waiting, but he was there. He asked me if i was hungry and i said not really, so he proceeded to take me out to dinner. He kept asking me if i wanted girls, alcohol or drugs and i told him i wasn't into those things. He was apparently a christian too and so we talked a bit while he treated me to dinner with a bunch of lebanese guys at 4 in the morning listening to classic rock in the middle of the street at this restaurant on the backstreets of Beirut. We drove up a mountain side and he told me that it wasn't like the U.S. and that you have to throw your trash out the window and i told him i didn't want to and didn't believe in it and he told me i was lebanese now and had to so he stopped the car and i shamefully threw the bag out the window. The view was amazing driving up the mountain-side which looked over a bay that was lit up fairly well for nighttime, the picture doesn't even do justice to it. Half way up he told me to get out and take a look and then we went all the way up to the christian retreat center where i stayed. The sun was coming up by this time and I watched the sun rise on the bay, it was amazing. We got there and he wouldn't even let me pay for the taxi or anything, he was such a cool and crazy guy.There is a giant statue of Mary overlooking the bay that was a few hundred feet from my room and on the other side, i have a view of St. Paul's Basilica which is really old and has amazing gold leafed domed ceilings with incredible mosaics and ornate decorations. The Catholic church still leaves me scratching my head plenty. This weekend was Pentecost and so there were lots of pilgrims that came to the giant statue and even motorcycles passing by at all hours of the night. I checked out the gift shop, but decided to pass on the Virgin Mary bottles of win, cedar ash trays and what not. You can check out the statue and the amazing view from the top of the hill where i was staying http://www.harissa.info/flash.htm