TravelChick

Beirut, part 1

This past weekend my friend and I went to Beirut. We survived a fairly reckless taxi ride there, our driver making it from Damascus to Beirut in two hours, including about twenty minutes or half an hour we spent at the border. He passed trucks on mountain curves, ate, talked on his cell phone, and drove, and turned around to look at me and my friend when we expressed some sort of anxiety.

Our driver dropped us off in Martyr's Square and under a bright blue sky we blinked and tried to get our bearings. Directly across the street was us was a wall with grafitti saying 'Syria Out!'. We walked over to get a closer look and then headed across the square to Hariri's grave.

Although I've been aware of the consequences Hariri's assassination might have for Lebanon, and understanding of the depth of emotion surrounding his death eluded me until I stepped into the tent over Hariri's grave, a quiet, cool place filled with his photos, flowers, and people walking around quietly. My friend and I walked in front of Hariri's grave, a mound covered in flowers, and then walked back to his bodyguards' graves. I think that's when the enormity of this event overwhelmed me. My friend and I stood there, stunned, looking at the photos of the bodyguards, one of them younger than us, and felt an absolute sadness.

We walked back out into the sun and over to a group of tents set up in the middle of Martyr's Square and ended up talking to a group of enthusiastic young Lebanese guys, all of whom had been sleeping in the Square since Hariri's assassination and were moving out the next day, their mission to get the Syrian troops out of Lebanon accomplished. One of them, a thirty-something man in a green silk East-Asian jacket, leaned over and told me he had lived in the US for 22 years when he found out I am from the US. He told me he had lived and studied with Steven Segal. I was duly not impressed. At the same time, another eager young fellow was asking my friend for her e-mail address (this before he had asked what her name is). That was about the time we decided to leave and wander off to the coast.

posted by Travel Chick @ 6:49 PM