Summertime

Summertime,
And the living is easy . . .
We hang out on the beach, have late night dinners on the patio with family and friends, drink copious amounts of (local) white wine, eat tomato salads with basil, and the cousins get to sleep over. This will be the mood (hopefully) for the coming two months.

It is weird how peaceful this place can be, when only seven weeks ago, we couldn’t venture out because of the bullets. I much prefer it this way, even though I make more money when the going gets tough.

Hot hot hot

Family on the Mediterranean

Life is so mellow and slow right now. Everyone is looking for a reprieve of the heat. I went for a boat ride today. Wasn’t the only one. We ran into this little family out on the water. I wonder what they think of us, bikini-clad women on a boat. Probably nothing.

It is hot hot hot. Too hot for the beach even. Is this global warming, or am I just getting too old for this heat? Let’s stick to the Global Warming Theory. Although I do remember years that you’d get out of the shower, and while drying up you’d start sweating again. And how about the nights when you’d have no electricity, and thus no AC, and you’d be sleeping naked on the stone floor in order to cool off? I have a friend, who lives in the Aicha Bakar neighborhood, where the buildings are so tightly built that even a soft breeze cannot get through, and he’s telling me how he falls asleep at night. “I sweat and I sweat and I sweat and then I faint, and wake up sweating the next morning.” So it’s always been this hot in summer. Let’s ignore the age factor anyway.

It is too hot to analyze the political situation. Too hot to even care about who blows up who these days. Pro- and anti-government groups are slugging it out in Tripoli it seems. Alawite against sunni muslims. I thought the alawite were part of the sunni muslims. You learn something new every day.
Once, when in LA, I had a LAPD officer telling me that riots always occurred in summer, never in winter. “The heat makes the blood boil of these southern spirits. They get very volatile in summer.’ Well, we are southerners here too, at least in the eyes of the Europeans. We (Dutch) consider the Spanish and the Italians to be passionate (read ‘irrational’) people. (When compared to other cultures, the Dutch are rather reserved, in public, and do not often touch each other or display anger or extreme exuberance. This is why people and cultures who display these "vices", for example those living around the Mediterranean Sea, are regarded by the Dutch as being too emotional. Source)
Another quintessential Lebanese scene; a little neighborhood ‘dikkane’ (shop), selling bread, brooms and lufah (scrubbing sponges). What else do you need in life but to eat, clean and scrub?

It is almost time to escape the heat and make the annual pilgrimage to the motherland.

Tree House in Beirut

When I walked past this construction site today, the word ‘tree house’ came to mind. Wouldn’t you want to have a tree house like this? The roots have grown all around this little box, and it is now part of the trunk.

They are phenomenal trees, these trees. They grow all over Beirut. They are called Ficus benjamina, also known as the Weeping Fig or Benjamin's Fig, a species native to south and Southeast Asia. In Europe we have these things as indoor plants.
Phenomenal in the sense that they seem to thrive in a hostile environment. Little rainfall for most of the year, most of them totally encased in concrete, yet still they manage to reach heights of 30 meters.
The United States Forest Service states that the use of this tree in tree form is much too large for residential planting, "Roots grow rapidly invading gardens, growing under and lifting sidewalks, patios, and driveways." They conclude this species should only be used as a hedge or clipped screen.

Well, leave it to the Lebanese. We do not do well within confined environments, rules and regulations. No way clipping us in, and that goes for our trees as well.

I hope they’re going to keep these three. But I doubt it.

Two of these trees inspired a landscape architect, Vladimir Djurovic, to create a small escape dedicated to the Beirut and its people. It is called the Samir Kassir Square, and was recently awarded one of nine 2007 Aga Khan Awards for Architecture. Read more on it here.

Slowest

Gone fishing for a couple of days. Boy, life is slow in summetime.

Slower

Ouch, that was a painful experience, this match. I think there were about 600 Russians and only two Dutch at the Beirut Hard Rock. I think I'll go to the beach today, and lick my wounds.

Slow

Ever since this Doha conference, things have been quiet in town. We don’t have a government yet, but we do have a president, downtown is up and running, schools are entering their final week and the beaches are going full-force. We live near the beaches, and ‘t’is the season to get married’, so we’re having a free fireworks display on an almost daily basis now. Most of these displays cost well over $8,000 (according to a friend who is in the fireworks business). Imagine; $8,000 on the fireworks alone. Go figure what the rest is going to cost. We’ve been invited to weddings that had a price tag of $75,000. That’s the down payment for a house! We even have friends that got divorced before they were able to pay off their $100,000 marriage (complete with sail boat, singer and fireworks). I think my wedding cost 75,000 LBP; the price of the cleric. But I am getting side tracked here. What was I talking about?
Oh yes, it has been slow lately. Work is almost done, no stories for the news paper, and so I post some pictures of the shark my son saw yesterday while diving.Yes, we do have sharks in the Mediterranean. Even Great White sharks. But no White ones here. Along the Lebanese coast we only have small tooth sandtiger sharks, which are a rare kind, and grey nurse sharks. Both are bottom feeders, so won’t come up to the surface (in case you swim in the sea here), and both are not considered aggressive (i.e. they won't eat you).

He will pose for these kind of shots

The Dutch are playing the Russians tonight. The Russians happened to have a Dutch coach, so it's a bit of an internal affair. Maybe this will spice up things a little around here.

Shoe Harassment

While walking my daughter to school this morning, a guy – in his early twenties – in an orange T-shirts walks up to me and asks: "Can I ask you a question?”

I wait, assuming he is going to ask me how to get to a place somewhere.

He says; “What is your shoe size, because I like . . . .”

I didn’t wait to hear the rest of it. I walked right on. I was I no mood to have some idiot with a foot fetish harass me in the street at 7:30 A.M. while I've got my child with me. What was he thinking!

The man did not follow me, and did not try to ask me anything else.

And right now, I am burning with curiosity. It could have been some sicko wanting to suck my toes (don’t laugh; you have no idea what kind of people are out there!)

But what if he wanted to ask something totally different? What if it was something wildly interesting? So interesting that I cannot even think of something that would be as interesting as that? My imagination abandons me here. Do you have an idea of what he could have been wanting to ask me?

Running Out of Time

Real estate prices now are just like the stock market, a real estate dealer tells me. “I can tell you the price of this house, but if you want to buy it next week, I’d tell you to call me again next week, because the prices change on a daily basis.”

The apartment we bought five years ago has doubled in price. Plots of land that have laid empty for 14 years are suddenly being bought, and high rise is going up left and right. Apartments in Ras Beirut are selling for an average of 600,000, if not more. Nobody looks surprised when hearing of prices of a million and up.

With the prices of land on the rise in Beirut, the old houses are disappearing rapidly, one by one. I keep telling myself to make a picture of this one, and then that one, but the next time I pass by, it has been turned into a parking lot already.

Is anyone documenting the old architecture of Beirut? So when I passed this one, I had to make a picture. I bet this is the only wooden house left in Beirut.

Brilliant Dutch thrash France

I didn’t make that one up, you can read it here. Ah, what can I say? When we play, we play!

Laura (van Dora) and Simon of 'Old Amsterdam'

The venue; Old Amsterdam in Beirut (seaside road, between Vanlian and Geant), a.k.a. ‘Laura van Dora’. A couple of courageous Frenchmen joined the Dutch community. They started off boisterous enough, but after the second goal, the French became rather . . . silencieux. They took it well enough. Okay, who's next?Join us for the next game; Tuesday, 7 P.M.

Goal # 1Goal # 2Goal # 3Goal # 4

Nostalgia

Beirut apparently once was the Paris of the Middle East. That is what they say. I never saw her that way; I arrived when she was well into the autumn of her life. She’s trying on her second youth, with rejuvenation plans and all, but I kind of like her old glory.Take her city beaches for instances. How many metropolitan cities in the world have beaches? Right in town? Downtown even? There cannot be that many. Most big towns are inland. Those that are coastal, are often industrial (Rotterdam for instance) so too ugly for beaches. Rio de Janeiro has beaches. So does. Los Angeles. But these are so massive that it still may be an hour drive to get to the beaches. In Beirut, you are pretty much within 20 minutes at the beach.

These days most of Beirut’s city beaches are upscale 5 star resorts. But they are cold and clean. No character whatsoever. My favorite ones are a few old ones; hidden behind the dilapidated Luna Park. That one has had its best days as well. These are beaches that haven’t been refurbished since the 60’s, and exhale the old glory days when Beirut was indeed the Paris of the Middle East. Those days are over and gone. I don’t think they will ever come back. The glamour has left it. But when you go to these old beaches, you still feel it a little. Like a trip back in time. They are a little run-down. Not very clean. But somehow, they are quite glamorous. A little nostalgia.

Old Amsterdam in Beirut

3 – 0

Come to Old Amsterdam in Beirut this Friday evening (directions here) and watch with the Dutch how we crush the French! Game starts at 21.45, local time!

Nederland Voetbal / Dutch Soccer

A message to all the Dutch in Lebanon (and all those into Dutch soccer)

English

Come and watch the match Netherlands – Italy in OLD AMSTERDAM, a Dutch pub run by Laura and Simon. Game starts Monday, June 9, at 9:45 P.M. local time. You can find Old Amsterdam on the Sea road, between Geant and Vanlian. (sea side). Call if you cannot find it (01- 243 071). I swear, the Dutch won’t charge you $100 a bottle. Beside, we only drink Heineken that night.

Dutch

Kom maandag avond, 9 juni, naar de Nederlandse pub ‘OLD AMSTERDAM’ die wordt gerund door Simon en Laura (je weet wel, Laura van Daura), om de wedstrijd Nederland - Italie kijken die om 21.45 begint.
De hele pub is oranje versierd en er is Nederlandse muziek; vanaf 19 uur zijn de deuren open.
Er is een Heineken tap en diverse soorten jenever. Verder serveert men broodjes kip , kaaskroketten, kip sate en uitsmijters.
Vanaf volgende week is de pub 7 dagen per week 's avonds open, dus alle wedstrijden kunnen daar gevolgd worden.
De andere Oranje wedstrijden zijn op 13 juni tegen Frankrijk en op 17 juni tegen Roemenie, beide wedstrijden beginnen om 21.45 uur.
Op zaterdag 21 juni is er een speciale Hollands avond; details volgen.
De pub is tussen Geant en Vanlian aan de Sea Road, Dora (zeekant) .
Namens Laura iedereen van harte welkom en hopenlijk zijn we met velen om de sfeer te verhogen, dus zegt het voort!
Voor info bel Laura of Simon op tel. 01- 243 071

On Russians, Wine and Women

Anne was playing last night for a small but – relatively – vibrant crowd in Beirut downtown. Since the Hezbollah tent city was removed, downtown is again the place to be at night. All those establishments that closed their doors some 18 months ago, because customers couldn’t reach them anymore, are slowly opening up again.

And so, afterwards, we (the Dutch contingent) decided to have a drink. There were 6 of us; 5 ladies, and a grey-haired gentleman with a hearing aid (the father of one of the ladies who is visiting his daughter in Lebanon).
Now for reasons that may be clear to you (Lebanese), but not to us (the Dutch ladies living in Lebanon), we are often mistaken for Russians (or other former Iron Curtain countries).

Men (never women) will come up to you and start with “vrya mnoi tye pritsa voi kya omanye bursh vastoi.” This may seem innocent enough to you, but not to us, as Russian ladies in this country are often associated with prostitution.

And although prostitution is a perfectly acceptable profession in Holland, they even pay taxes, it is not considered as honorable a profession in Lebanon.

Anyway, here we are, 5 somewhat blond ladies in various stages of decomposition, (mothers of teenage children, with day jobs, and dressed downright modest for Lebanese standards), and a grandfather, going out for a drink.

The closest place happened to be an upstairs bar nearby, called Citris. Not a real fancy place, regular crowd (I thought), stale peanuts and soapy carrot sticks.
The dad orders a Coke, and we wanted wine. They did not have the wine we wanted ("Sorry, but we only opened two days ago." So? Go the the supermarket!) Instead, we settled for a bottle of rose (La Rosee du Chateau Kefraya, which sells under 10,000 LBP in any local supermarket, the equivalent of 4.24 euros, or 6.61 UD$, and if you live in the States, you can have the bottle delivered to your door at $10 a bottle), and then we ordered a second one.

But the father is ready to go to bed, one of us has to be at the airport at one A.M. and two have to get up early for work the next day, so we keep it at that, and ask for the bill.

This was BEFORE the bill

It was a bit dark, so at first we were not sure we read it correctly. A whopping $233 dollars for 2 bottles of wine and a coke (+ stale peanuts and soapy carrot sticks, lest we forgot). It’s got to be somebody else’s bill, we figure. But as we decipher the bill, it clearly states: two bottles = $200. And the coke. + service charges.

A hundred f*#@*ing dollars for a $6 bottle? That’s like a profit margin of 1500 %! The likelihood that a couple of Dutch would be paying a hundred dollar for a bottle of simple table wine is virtually non-existent. So we send Anne, who is well known for her eloquent use of language in all kinds of situations.

“What the fuck do you think we are,” says Anne, “Russian prostitutes?”

”Oh, you aren’t?” replies the manager with surprise.
A blow to our ego? Hmm. Well, I think you could say that. We finally settled with a $121 bill. This only proves my theory, that the price depends on the customer’s face.

Moral of this story?

Don’t go out with Dutch? Leave your old father at home? Don’t order a bottle of wine? Mention before you order that you are not a Russian prostitute? Don’t go to Citris?

Take your pick.

My Son Says (Notes On Becoming a Teenager)

I am not allowed to make pictures of my son anymore (and most definitely not post them on my blog (I’m so annoying, he says).
I am not allowed to talk about him with my friends (I gossip, he says).

I am not allowed to speak Arabic in his presence (the quality of my Arabic is an embarrassment to him, he says).

I am not allowed to sing along with the hits on the radio station when I’m in the car (I cannot sing, he says).

I may not pick him up in my own car from the school dance tonight, but have to come in his dad’s car (my car is a piece of junk, he says).

I may not review his homework anymore (because I am too dumb, he says).

I am not allowed to question the 9 over a 100 he got on his last math exam (everyone did badly on that one, he says).

I must wake him up in the morning, but I may not shake him, startle him or otherwise annoy him as I do so (You’re so retarded, he screams, as I tickle his toes at 6:00 AM).

I may not ask him who that girl is that calls him every evening on the phone (None of your business, he says).

If you read this with a smile, I bet you have one like that at home. Well, you’re not the only one. Some animals in the animal kingdom eat their young. I can so identify with that at the moment.

I think he has finally become a teenager.

Life Ist Nicht Sie Mal

Gazing at a setting sun in the Mediterranean Sea after a day on the beach, sipping a cold Kefraya (Chateau Kefraya, Blanc de Blanc) from a locally blown glass (from the Khalife brothers in Sarafand, continuing an ancient Phoenician skill) on the balcony, while the kids with red cheeks from sunburns are in the bath tub. Neighbor's hanging over their balconies and surveying the quiet street. Tomorrow back to work. And although I share Tantalus’ sentiments, today I’d say; Life ist nicht sie mal.