Roman Tyre/Lebanese Suur

I headed down south today and visited Tyre (Suur).  I knew that the city is on the UNESCO World Heritage list, but I didn’t really know what for.  As I walked around the city today, I quickly found out that the city is loaded with some incredible Roman ruins.  They are  scattered around the city, [...]

My new sticker album (Part II)

I splurged for another box of stickers the other day.  As I sat in my depressing hostel room watching the news, I gradually worked my way through the box.  I started filling up pages in my album, but I still had no Hassan Nasrallah.  I was beginning to think that there are no Nasrallah stickers.  [...]

A Day in Tripoli

Sorry for the lack of recent updates.  I’ve been busy with schoolwork, so I haven’t done anything exciting in the last week or so.  I have been spending most of my time in the cafes of Beirut working on my Arabic and typing up notes for my classes.
Today I went to Tripoli.  The bus stopped [...]

Patrick Cockburn on the Surge

In today’s Independent, there is a detailed piece by Patrick Cockburn on President’s Bush “surge” in Iraq.  Cockburn looks at what has been achieved after six months.  It’s some grim reading, but well worth it.
Technorati Tags: middle-east, iraq, cockburn, surge

My new sticker album

I think it was the third or fourth day of my Arabic class when Maha brought in a copy of the latest trend in Lebanon: a sticker album for Lebanon’s political parties and past politicians. She showed it to the class, and I was instantly impressed.

A few days later there was a post on [...]

South Beirut

On Thursday afternoon, I had the opportunity to go to Dahiya, the Shia suburbs in south Beirut with some of the people from SINARC.  We went to visit Hezbollah’s memorial to last summer’s war with Israel.  Before reaching the memorial, we saw some of the sites that had been bombed by Israel.  After having spent [...]