A Lovely Sunday Morning

You see the Meditarreanean Sea on the left (hard to see maybe) and the snow up ahead?

By some miraculous occurrence, my kids and the cousin from a sleep-over   were up and dressed and bundled up into my car by 9 A.M. Sunday morning. Had I planned it this way, it wouldn’t have happened.  Not sure what made it happen.

This view always gives me a very luxurious feeling

I had to pick up something in the mountains early morning. I know why the teenager in the group came along; he had the option of ‘either you go study, or you go with your mom.’ I guess the second one tagged along because the teenager came, and the third came because the second one went.

And so early in the morning we drove up to the mountains. Early Sunday mornings in Beirut are gorgeous; there is almost no traffic. That’s what I like about the days after bomb explosions; everyone stays off the road, and Beirut is lovely without traffic.

Villages in the mountains

Driving along the Corniche, you can see the snow-capped mountains on the other side of the bay through the palm trees in between. This view always gives me a feeling of luxury. It’s like a mixture of Aspen and Monaco. While you drive in the sun, you can see the snow. It’s a cliché – and a rather incorrect one at that – that you can ski in the morning and swim in the afternoon in Lebanon. Traffic makes it virtually impossible.

Main street (often the only street as well)

The weather in Beirut is still warm, and way up near the snow very cold, but at about 6, 700 meters, - where we had to be – it is brisk and fresh.  Too cold for T-shirts, too hot for jackets. And up in the mountains, when you drive through the villages, the smell of manakish permeates the air.

The cheese manakish ready for the oven

The manakish goes into the oven (I'm a sage person myself),

Colin Thubron wrote in his book ‘The Hills of Andonis’ that the christian villages in the mountains are separated from the druze villages by muslim villages. I wonder who told him that. It hardly is true. He may be forgiven; it was one of his very first travel books, and he wrote it in ’68. Many villages are mixed now (up to some extend).  The separation is still there in the minds of people though. Different faiths may live next to each other, and they will mingle in daily life, but they will not marry each other.



while the kids wait outside and watch the traffic pass by

The kids wanted manakish for breakfast. (You don't think I had them fed by 9 A.M. as well, do you?) I like cheese, but in my family there’s a preference for zaatar (thyme). The village manakish store was busy, and in between the baking, the lady suggested I dress my children more warmly, asked me where I was from, whether my husband was Lebanese, what village he came from, whether I liked it better here or in Holland, and remarked that it was good I had three children. I decided not to tell her they weren’t all mine.

 

Cheese manakish . . .

. . . . and the zaatar.

We ate breakfast in the main street of the village. We were quite a sight. I don't think they see many 'foreigners' in winter time.

We all had one; the teenager ate  four  (?!). Where does it go?

And then, when I was done with my errand, we went down the mountain and back to Beirut, where by this time, traffic had picked up from the lunch crowd. A lovely Sunday morning, if I say so myself. 

View over Beirut