Beirut Blues

Crossing the border to Lebanon felt so good...
We found a nice hostel to stay and met with Niina, a friend from Finland we will be travelling with during our time in Lebanon. It's nice to have some company and to have a third perspective of things as well. In the picture it's us (yes) standing under a tree on the campus of the AmericanUniversityofBeirut - they have like a park there, everything looks really nice, new and american...

Beirut is a strange place to be. There's hardly anything left of the historic part of town, instead there's lots of new (nice and american looking) buildings, skyscrapers and luxury hotels. The reconstruction is still going on, lots of cranes, Syrians working on building sites... But it seems that life has not yet completely returned to the place, feels deserted somehow. And bulletholes in the few old houses left are a present reminder of the war. And on almost every street corner there are soldiers with machine guns. Don't feel so comfortable with all those weapons...

The more recent killing of former Prime Minister Hariri in a car bomb has also left marks on the city. There are boards counting the days since his death and demanding THE TRUTH - so lets hope that the inquiries are successfull and will bring light into all the chaos. As far as I understand Hariri became just another martyr (with a "shrine" set up to remember him and others that have been killed) dying for independence? and progress?. The demonstrations etc. following his death have lead to the withdrawal of the syrian troops and an anti-syrian government was established.
...

Although Beirut is an open and quite western city we haven't found really nice places to hangout so far. Most Pubs and Cafes are exclusively for the "wealthy, the glitzy and the ritzy" (LonelyPlanet style :-).
It's about beeing seen... But we haven't tried everything yet, so there is hope. And Apocalyptica will have a signing session next Thursday. Maybe there's some guys our style...