Rue Bliss Ain’t Happiness
Do you feel that stop signs are suggestions vs. requirements? That stop lights are advisements vs. law? That one-way streets are too restrictive? Then you’d love Beirut driving. No rules, no though, all balls and bravery, Beiruties don’t slow for stop signs, don’t stop for stop lights, and find one-ways’ disgusting instead of directional. Into any intersection, at anytime, they drive, not slowing for others, not even looking in your direction less they show a sign of weakness and be required to stop.
Read MoreMonday Night = Beirut Party Night
Monday night, midnight, so maybe even Tuesday morning, and I am in Cuba Libre, the Beirut bar, not the drink, and Ali and I’m out with friends pouncing on a bottle of vodka. Che might not be happy, think we should be on the rum wagon, but I don’t care. The hottest Beiruties are here and my eyes are soaking up the beauty.
Read MoreA Vodka Gimlet Is All I Ask
I stopped in the little shop across the way and for some odd reason, felt it was high time I tried arak, the Lebanese moonshine.
Whoa, damn! Burning my throat, blurring my vision, and blunting my brain, it had me stumbling blind drunk across town to my hotel. Screaming at the Ministries building for being in my way, until the nice men with guns chased me off? Check! Babbling Russian with a random cab driver as he was changing a tire in the middle of Rue Bliss? Check! Being questioned by armed security guards three times in three blocks? Check thrice!
Read MoreIts Beer Pong – Not Beirut
Back in my first days of DC residency, I was introduced to this most American of games; Beer Pong. Meant to be a drinking game for college kids, it’s a skill-less game of bouncing ping pong balls into plastic cups as an excuse to get wasted on bad beer. While its so foolish its banned in Virginia bars, the NoVA kids still hold it in high esteem, and beer pong tourneys are hotly contested.
Read MoreBang Bang Beirut
Arriving in the Beirut airport to super-tight security, we head to the hotel in a somber city. On the way there, I look out on a wild city. Half-finished buildings compete with half-ruined, and half-rebuilt ones, the legacy of a decade of civil war followed by a decade of rebuilding, and decades of neglect. Poverty next to opulence, Christian next to Muslim, church next to mosque, it is a land of differences defining logic.
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