Sunday Morning Walk in the Mountains above Beirut

I am sharing pictures of this morning (Sunday morning) walk through the mountains above Beirut. A friend decided to join us at 8 AM, quire courageously I might say, but the weather has been lovely lately. Temperatures are dropping (finally), fall will slowly merge into winter, and although the first winter storms will not occur until the beginning of January, the first snow has settled in the higher regions.

If it stays this way, we’ll have a wonderful ski season.

The mountains are a respite from busy Beirut. Beirut is becoming nasty these days. Last Friday I had an argument with a man in a parking lot. Actually, I had the argument. He couldn’t have cared less. To be more precise, he couldn’t give a shit.

You see, I had to buy a chair, but there was no parking to be found anywhere. It was a Friday, noon time, and around a mosque, so parking spots can be a problem then. I ended up giving my car to a valet parking guy, who parked it in a parking lot.

 A certain Issam M. was also looking for a parking spot. Issam M. was in a hurry. He wanted to go and pray but he was late. He had a Mercedes and a mobile phone, but apparently not the 2,000 LBP needed to pay for the parking lot. So he decided to just park in the parking lot entrance, and go and pray. Fuck everyone else in the parking lot. His business came first. He did not think it might inconvenience anyone that they would not be able to leave that parking lot anymore, because his business was more important than everyone else’s, they would just have to wait.

He did not leave his car open so it could be moved just in case. He did not leave his keys with a guard in case someone needed to leave. No. Issam did not do any of that. He had his number on this window, but he turned off his phone while praying.

And so here I am, stuck in a parking lot. For 37 minutes. 

What is 37 minutes in the life span of a human? Nothing.

And although it did bother me, that I should sit in a car in a parking lot, planning to do things but unable to execute them because Issam M. had to do his thing first, I would have been okay with it if, while coming back to his car, he would have looked at me, addressed me, and somehow apologized for his unthoughtfulness. Something like, ‘oh, so sorry, I paid no attention’. Or ‘sorry, I was not aware I was gone for that long’. Or just a plain ‘sorry’.

But no, Issam M. did not do any of that.  He let me wait for 37 minutes, and when he came back, he just got into his car, did not even acknowledge the fact he had let me wait, and decided to drive off. 

Me videotaping him did bother him quite a bit. He was even willing to get out of his car for that. Who had given me the permission to film him? Ahhhh, yes, indeed. Which reminded me; who gave him the permission to block me?  “I was in a hurry”, he replied. And, he said to the parking attendant, he’d been gone for only 15 minutes.  I mean really, what was my problem?  Well. It wasn’t 15 minutes. It was 37 .

I guess time flies when you pray. 

I hope he prayed for forgiveness.

Well, got that off my chest. Maybe I should post that video. Naaah, I am nice. 

And I bet your bottom dollar that I will receive comments that will insinuate I do not respect the muslim faith, to which I will reply - in advance - that I respect every religion equally. 

I also predict that there will be commenters, always anonymous ones, or ones with fake profiles, who will insult me for insulting islam, to which I will reply, I insult the christians that triple park their cars in front of the church in Kahale on the road to the mountains, thus creating traffic jams that go one for kilometers  because they cannot be bothered to walk 100 meters to church as their Sunday duty is so infinitely more important than people trying to drive somewhere else, with equal vehemence.

And for everyone who is offended enough to leave a comment, seriously, why do you bother to read me in the first place?