Holiday Weekend - Ramadan Part 1

Ramadan Getaways Part 1

Day 1 of Holiday weekend: Trip to Saida, Glass Shop, and Tyre

Amy, Megan, Scooter and I took a day trip to the Souks (Markets) of Saida, the handblown glass shop, and saw the ruins and ate Meze in Tyre.

Enjoy the pictures

Streets of Saida

Amy, Megan, and Scooter in the glass shop

When I saw all of the beautiful handblown glass in this shop my first thought was, beautiful but then it quickly turned to "hmmm, isn't having a glass shop in the Middle East kind of like having a bull in a china shop..."

I like this shot of Tyre with the ruins and the mediterranean in the same shot.

Tyre, Lebanon (pronounced Tire)

Tyre is an ancient Phoenician city and the legendary birthplace of Europa and Elissa (Dido). Today it is the fourth largest city in Lebanon^[4]and houses one of the nation's major ports. Tourism is a major industry. The city has a number of ancient sites, including its RomanHippodrome which was added to UNESCO's list of World Heritage Sites in 1979 (Resolution 459).^[5]

^{Tyre was founded around 2750 BC according to Herodotus and it appears on monuments as early as 1300 BC. Jesus visited the "coasts" of Tyre and Sidon (Matthew 15:21; Mark 7:24) and from this region many came forth to hear him preaching (Mark 3:8; Luke 6:17, Matthew 11:21-23). A congregation was founded here soon after the death of Saint Stephen, and Saul of Tarsus, on his return from his third missionary journey, spent a week in conversation with the disciples there. According to Irenaeus of Lyons in Adversus Haereses, the female companion of Simon Magus came from here.(taken from Wikipedia)}

In Tyre there is a very large UN presence (as you can see from these photos). I am not quite sure why the UN presence is so heavy. It must have something to do with the location (very close to Israel), population (the city of Tyre is home for more than 60,000 Palestinian refugees) and has a strong Hezbollah influence.

Scooter, Amy, Megan, and I at the Rest House Hotel/restaurant after eating a gigantic Meze lunch.

Day trip to Saida, Lebanon and the beach

We orginally went to this beach for surfing but as you can see there were no waves, we still had a nice time floating around.

To most people a tour of a soap factory might sound extremely boring but it was actually quite interesting. Here is what I learned soap originates from the Middle East, I learned the long complicated process of soap making, I purchased soap made from olive oil (very common here), the picture above shows how they stack the soap once it has been cut, and after all that I appreciate soap a lot more - watch out family, It looks like soap might be a Christmas present for you - sorry, no more Guatemalan coffee.

The video below is of us in the market getting falafels. You can see from the video that the market in Saida is very pretty. Enjoy the video

Click on the video to play (which took me forever to upload so please watch it :) )

Reminder - you can always click on teh photos to make them larger

Tour of the North (Lebanon)

A collage of a tour up North with Dr. Warren and other new hires. Dr. Warren (the Assistant Deputy Headmaster) took a group of the new teachers up North (near the Cedars) to the Khalil Gebrand museum and to his mountain home where we met his wife Daisy and ate a Lebanese feast she prepared for us.

Eco Lodge in Lebanon

This is one of my favorite photos - you can see the mountains of Lebanon, the Sea peaking through and Moza's big snout

These two pics are of us in the back of the pickup truck.  The dogs look so calm and precious in this pic - they did not sit this still for very long.

Last weekend (September 13th, 2009) a group of teachers and Dutch expats went to the Eco Lodge 30 KM outside of Beirut.  (http://www.ecoecovillage.com/)
Getting to the Eco Lodge was a tight squeeze - so many of us were eager to get out of the city that we squished 9 people and 3 dogs into a small truck (it had a full backseat).  On the way there Adam and I sat in the back of the truck with the 3 dogs.  Moza would not sit still- she was so curious about her surroundings, and eager to get out of the city too...

I was in heaven when we arrived at the Eco Lodge.  Trees, no concrete, great mountain river, rocks... wow, so much nicer than the city. It was a beautiful day and we enjoyed swimming in the river, exploring, a great organic lunch, and laying in the sun.  On the way home I shared the back of the truck with the same 3 dogs, Bethany, and Willad.  Enjoy the pictures!