volcano break

Almost immediately after returning from Syria, we found out about the volcano. We were getting ready to go out for a night in a gay club (mere hours after our return) when Mathieu casually asked me whether I’d be able to return to France. Having been out of contact with the news and so having no idea that a threat was looming, literally, above Europe, I was shocked. I thought that it couldn’t really be that big of a deal so I brushed it aside and went out to dance. No volcano all the way in Iceland was going to ruin my fun!

The events of the next twenty-four hours or so are a bit hazy as I became incredibly ill the next day, and not hangover ill. Hannah and I never figured out the culprit, but the suspects included Syria (in general), Acid (the night club we went to, again, just in general) or cucumbers (kindly given to us by her friend Gregor in whose mountain town we stopped for a visit, but sadly washed in a tap). In any case, it was not pretty and by the time my intended flight time rolled around I was thankful for the volcano so that I wouldn’t have to get up and attempt to get to the airport.

My original plan was to leave early Sunday morning, after a week in Lebanon. I ended up staying an extra week and not returning to France until the next Tuesday morning. The first few days of this experience were simply frustrating. I knew nothing and I was inconveniencing Hannah, who had classes and a life of her own. All I wanted was to return to France and everything about where I was started to irritate me – the car exhaust, the language barrier, the lack of free water. But I got over it. Once we talked to my airline (the horribly incompetent Cyprus Airways – I warn you against them!) and it became clear that I wouldn’t be leaving for another week, I resigned myself to have a good time.

Truth be told, I was lucky. I was in a wonderful city and I had a great friend with me (who has friends of her own kind enough to take us in). Hannah and I gathered our things and moved out of Mathieu’s, not wanting to inconvenience him anymore. Instead, we updated, setting up camp in the new swanky and fully-furnished apartment of Hannah’s freelance journalist friend, Nathanael. There was even food in the cupboards because the previous owner had been deported and had to leave in a hurry. We ate her pasta!


the view from the second place we stayed

Our first volcano break outing was a trip to the beach with Mathieu. Well, sort of the beach. Apparently, private beaches are a big thing in Lebanon, but it wasn’t quite the right season. We drove out along the coast for awhile, past fields of banana trees, looking for something suitable until we found ourselves walking through an unopened beach-resort. The pools were empty and the beach umbrellas were lying on the sand, but we settled down on a dock by the water and enjoyed the sun. It was around this time that I decided to enjoy the extra time that I was given here.



One of the nice things about having an extra week was that we were able to do all of the things that had failed miserably in the first week. The next day, for instance, we made finally made it to Shatila, the Palestinian refugee camp. There is a learning center there where Hannah and her friends often go to help kids learn English. In fact, it wasn’t long before the workbooks were set aside and chaos had descended. The center is equipped with little more than a ping-pong table for the kids to play with, but they managed to amuse themselves nonetheless, as kids do.



I felt awkward and helpless, not really knowing what to do with kids in general and unable to speak to them. So I took pictures. That is, until one tenacious little girl decided that she wanted to play photographer and I nervously handed my camera to her, aware that it probably weighed about half as much as her. The kids took turns passing around my camera and I spent the afternoon being silly and playing ping pong.


photo taken by a refugee child

When it was about time for the kids to go home, the director of the center sat us down in his office that has no lights and – in the dark, with his daughters translating – told us about his struggle, not only to effectively run the center but to simply live as someone without a country. We sat and listened and asked questions until the girls offered to show us around the rest of the camp before we went back to Beirut.



The camp unsurprisingly seems to be deteriorating before our eyes – everything seems a little too high and a little too close, held together with tin roofs and connected by wires hanging just overhead. One destroyed building was inhabited by goats and filled with trash. And within it all people still live their lives.



With the week’s good deed done, the next day was time to make our second attempt to visit Baalbek, site of the Roman ruins, or Hezbollah country! We took a bus (by which I mean a van, stopping whenever the driver sees someone on the street so that it will always be full of customers) through a less mountainous route this time. We were able to calculate our distance from the city by how strange the animals being sold on the side of the road were – goldfish, little white bunny rabbits and finally a baboon. Once we reached the city and stepped out of the van we knew we’d arrived because we were presented with our choice of Hezbollah merchandise (including some t-shirts which, I must admit, I’m sad I didn’t buy) and soon after passed some teenage boys carrying large guns and laughing. (“I just wanted to see some old stuff!”)



The old stuff itself was pretty neat. Aside from being old and impressive and covered in graffiti hundreds of years old, we got to climb on it! Unlike boring Europe, Lebanon doesn’t seem to particularly care what happens to their ruins and so we were able to climb on anything we could reach. We walked around, listened in on a French tour that was being given (it had been three weeks since I’d really spoken French and I missed it) and climbed. I can now say I’ve visited a thousand year old playground.

Our next outing was probably one of the stranger experiences I had on the trip. Hannah’s university planned a trip up into the mountains, the point of which I believe was to see some palaces, and she decided to take me along. Up again we went into the mountains and this time the drive was strangely reminiscent of the hilly forests of California – it was certainly one of the most familiar sites I’d seen in a long while. This feeling, however, didn’t last. Our first stop was an underwhelming palace that we couldn’t enter and hardly bares mentioning, mostly because if there is any historical significance to any of the places we visited, I missed that part. (Sorry, Dad!) Anyway, we moved on to… something else.



There was once a man who dreamed of castles. He loved castles so much that he decided he would build one on the side of a mountain in Lebanon so that one day castle loving tourists might flock to it. So he did, and so we did. I’m not really sure what the educational significance of this place was supposed to be, but it sure was bizarre. Each stone was carved in a different manner (some with little pictures or phrases, like “rien n’est impossible”) and all the rooms were filled with historical memorabilia (mostly guns) as well as scenes of creepy wax figures meant to depict life in Lebanon.



One strange figure was living and breathing though – an old man who sat in the dungeon, made us coffee and sang for us while some danced. We took our coffee, sat down for a little while and marveled at the oddity of it all.



We did finally get to see a real palace and it was lovely – beautiful courtyards and gardens, and even beautiful baths with the perfect light for a small photo shoot.





We even got to see some more cedars. This time we were able to take a small walk through the famous woods and hug the trees to our hearts content. It was nice to be in nature, especially in a forest, after such a long time and after being in such a big city. Driving back down this time, through the evergreen trees, felt like Washington.



My last day and my last adventure was another strange one. The Hash – a gathering of middle-aged e-patriots that involves tromping through the wilderness, drinking large amounts of beer and as much general humiliation as possible – is a necessary experience according to Hannah. Thus I found myself, one Sunday afternoon, in an over-filled car being driven by an English man with a beer in his hands as all of us searched for signs and clues to get us to our destination. The hike itself was beautiful – a forest at the bottom of a valley, the likes of which I’d never seen before. We walked past dramatic cliffs and towering trees and rippling feels. At one point we even passed a herd of goats, calmly being watched-over by their herder. All the while, we were strictly required to stay on the path for fear that we may encounter a stray landmine. How exciting! No matter, the strong combination of vodka and kiwi juice kept us strong and focused.

At the end of the trail, the fun, or rather the humiliation really begins. A circle is formed and one way or another nearly everyone in the group is called to the middle for some offense and made to down a cup of beer. The goal, I believe, is simply to get as many people as possible as full of beer as possible. And then there is dinner and more beer.

It was a fittingly odd end to my time in Lebanon. Though my break had lasted an extra week, I was surprisingly sad to go. I had a wonderful time, not just during my big adventures but in all the smaller in between moments too – finding kittens in the back of a bar, drunkenly riding a ferris wheel in an empty amusement park, cooking in Nathanael’s swanky kitchen, watching the Daily Show for the first time in months, bad decisions, brilliant decisions, and large amounts of alcohol.

At four in the morning, one week too late, I finally got into a taxi and said goodbye to Hannah. As I was taken to the airport the song that was playing on the radio was a certain far-too-catchy Black Eyed Peas number that had followed me throughout the trip, and I couldn’t help but smile at the perfection of it.

Unfortunately, after that I was forced to endure another six hours of uncertainty in the Athens airport when my flight was inexplicably landed due to complications. However, let’s just pretend that didn’t happen.