Tag: travel

A Day in Dubai: The Burj Khalifa

Posted on by Lark

Dubai Day started bright and early… and after an INCREDIBLY restful four hours of plane sleep on my flight from Beirut. My flight landed at 4:45AM, I zoomed through immigration, and I tried to somewhat pull myself together in an airport bathroom before venturing out into the world.

My first stop was the Burj Khalifa, aka the tallest building in the world. You can schedule a time to go up to one of the viewing decks (I opted for the lower one because I’m not rich), and I signed up for a sunrise time slot. I made the mistake of going to Dubai on a Friday. That was stupid because Friday is the Muslim Sabbath day, and in the UAE, it’s a “non-work day”. It didn’t mess me up TOO much, but most things opened later in the day which wasn’t ideal since I got in so early in the morning. The metro wasn’t open yet, so I took a cab from the airport and got dropped off next to the building.

Welcome to Dubai! That body of water is the Persian Gulf.

The thing about being “next to the building” is that when the building is 828 meters tall (2,716 feet), the base of the building is not small. I had NO idea where to find the correct entrance to go to the viewing decks, so I just walked in a direction that I thought made sense until a guard told me I was going the wrong way and redirected me. No doubt that’s a normal occurrence in his job.

The walk to the right entrance was about 15 minutes, and I didn’t mind one bit because the world was quiet, and the city was still asleep. That’s one of my favorite times in a city (though I hate being awake so early).

Nighttime city view

One of the best parts of going to viewing platforms in tall buildings is getting to learn about the building. They always have information about the design and how it was built. Learning about the process makes the experience so much more interesting!

Excavations for the Burj Khalifa started in January of 2004, and it was officially opened in January of 2010. Even though it boasts a height of 828 meters (2,716 ft), the top floor is located at 584 meters (1,915 ft). The rest is just a ridiculous spire to make it taller.

The piles that make up the foundation system are 50 meters deep (165 ft). They also had the challenge of making sure that the in-ground structure could withstand the harsh minerals found in the soil. After a year of construction to prepare the foundation, work started on the floors. They created a process that allowed them to pour the concrete for one floor every three days! They also pumped concrete from the ground up to 601 meters (1,972 ft) which is about 3/4 the height of the building. That set another world record (there really is a world record for everything).

The quantity of building materials that went into the structure is insane. The foundation alone used 45,000 m3 of concrete (58,900 yd3), which is like if you filled 18 Olympic swimming pools, and the superstructure used another 330,000 m3 (431,600 yd3) or 150 more swimming pools. If you lined up the steel rebar end-to-end, it would go a quarter of the way around the world.

See the area of brown out in the water in the upper right? That’s where they’re building the world islands. There’s an island for each country… It’s like Epcot on steroids.

During the summers, temperatures easily reach over 44 degrees C (about 110 degrees F). In order to keep work going through the summer months, concrete was poured at night when the sun was gone and temperatures were lower. Also, as the tower’s height increased, workers were subjected to stronger winds, making their work more challenging and dangerous. Another crazy statistic for you: 22 MILLION man-hours went into the construction.

The building’s shape was determined by its structural requirements. A Y-shaped floor plan was selected to add stability, and the weird shape and setbacks were designed to reduce the impact of wind on the building. The occupied levels were built with poured concrete floors, but the structure of the spire is entirely steel. It has 54,000 windows. Can you imagine being in charge of window cleaning??? I wonder if they ever do clean the windows because it seems like that would be terribly unsafe. Haha I just looked it up… it takes 36 workers 3-4 months to clean all of the windows. The top 27 levels are cleaned by unmanned machines. (Also, the window-cleaning system cost US$6.3 million which I personally think is insane.)

Looking up… and this is just the part of the building that’s above the viewing deck.

It holds the titles of: tallest building in the world, tallest free-standing structure, tallest man-made structure, building with the most stories, highest occupied floor, highest outdoor observation deck, and a few more. It houses a hotel, apartments, a restaurant, and offices. At its base is the Dubai Mall, filled with expensive stores and ridiculous attractions such as an ice rink and an aquarium.

After my brain was filled with knowledge, I took an elevator to the 124th floor. I think it only took a minute, and the elevator was so smooth that you could barely even tell it was moving. For reference, I live on the 7th floor of my building in Armenia, and I’m fairly certain that the elevator there takes longer to go 6 floors than this one takes to go 124. Not sure if that’s a compliment to the Burj Khalifa elevator, an insult to the one in my building, or a little of both. Apparently, the building is so tall and the elevators are so fast that you can watch the sunset twice from the building, once from the base and once from the observation deck.

At the top, I wandered around a bit before the sun started to rise. It was still completely dark outside, so I got to see the city lights all the way around the building. About half an hour before sunrise, I claimed a spot next to the windows with a good eastern view and waited.

It was awesome getting to see the world light up and the city wake up. The streetlights gradually turned off, along with the building lights. The world got brighter and brighter and the sky more and more orange. Then, finally, the sun broke over the horizon, and everyone cheered.

Based on the group’s reaction, you’d think no one had ever seen a sunrise before, but it felt extra special that day. You know how things like the sunrise or stargazing can make you feel like your problems or day-to-day worries are so small? Like there’s a whole big universe out there, and you’re just a tiny part of it? In that moment, as we watched the sunrise together, It didn’t matter where we were from, what language we spoke, or what our beliefs were. Everyone, young and old, had the same look of excitement and awe on their face. The sun rises every day, it rises in every country, and that morning, it shined its light on our shared humanity. At our core, we’re all the same. And we all love sunrises.

Yes, I’m wearing a scarf in the desert. It was a chilly morning! (But it came off VERY soon after this.)
The sun is cominggggg. I love that the roads are little lines of light. That’s some serious street lighting!
The sky is brightening…
The city lights turn off. The sun peeks out! The crowd goes wild!
Good morning, sun!

After the sun rose, I walked around again and took another look at the city. It’s cool how light transforms things. The city has a completely different personality during the day. It was like I got double the value for my ticket because I got to see two different Dubais, or maybe even three. Night Dubai, waking up Dubai, and daytime Dubai.

It’s such an interesting skyline… most cities have some tall buildings in the middle, and then they gradually get shorter as you move out. In Dubai, it’s like skyscrapers were dropped from the sky without any rhyme or reason.
There’s just so much empty space between the buildings, and immediately next to a 100-story building is a 1-story house. It feels so unnatural.

I stayed there longer than anticipated. By the time I got downstairs, it was about 8AM. Part of the sunrise deal was a drink and breakfast sandwich, so I still had to eat before moving on to my next activity. The only drinks included were different types of coffee (the ongoing struggle of eating and drinking like a child), so I just asked for a cup of hot water. The guy working there thought it was weird (who drinks a cup of hot water in the desert?), but I conveniently had a hot chocolate packet in my backpack. Score!

I was originally planning to take a bus to my next stop at 8:30, but at that point, I figured I might as well take my time and wait for the metro to start running at 10. After breakfast, I headed into the mall to poke around a bit. The stores were mostly still closed, but I wasn’t interested in those. I got to see the aquarium from the outside (you can pay to go in, but even without entering, there’s a huge tank visible from the mall), the ice rink, the “human waterfall”, and the general ambiance of the mall.

Divers in Dubai Mall
The aquarium!
And a dinosaur because why not?

Between the mall and the metro, there’s a crazy long “metro link”, aka a series of above-ground tunnels connecting the two. I didn’t mind the walk because the tunnels are lined with floor-to-ceiling windows, and it was cool to see the city from a VERY different perspective than the top of Burj Khalifa.

To spare you from spending one day reading this post about one day, to be continued…

Check out the continuation here.

Related Posts

Dubai First Impressions – get a feel for the city with a list of my first impressions

Dubai Mini-History Lesson – follow Dubai’s development from a small fishing village into the international, skyscraper-filled city it is today

Dubai Marina and “Old” Dubai – join me as I zig-zag my way across the city after leaving the Burj Khalifa, exploring Dubai Marina and attempting to go back to Dubai’s roots in not-so-old “old” Dubai

Galata Tower (Istanbul, Turkey) – enjoy a panoramic view of Istanbul from the top of Galata Tower… it’s significantly shorter than the Burj Khalifa, but the view is no less impressive

Sky Garden (London, England) – look out over London from the Sky Garden, plus take a stroll through Hyde Park and past Buckingham Palace and St. Paul’s Cathedral

Dubai Mini-History Lesson

Posted on by Lark

It’s time for everyone’s favorite thing… history! I promise that this isn’t going to be nearly as in-depth or complicated as Lebanon’s history. I also realize that promising something is “less complicated than Lebanon’s history” is stupid because I could give a thorough walk-through of brain surgery, and it would still be less complicated than that.

Part of the reason this is guaranteed to be easier is because much of Dubai’s history is relatively unknown. There is evidence of settlements there as early as 3000BC, and then there’s close to nothing until the 1500s AD. So that saves us the review of a solid 4500 years of history.

Enjoy this selection of pictures from the Dubai History Museum that may or may not directly relate to what I’m talking about.

The first settlers in the area were probably nomadic cattle herders who started to explore agriculture and eventually managed to become successful date palm farmers. They settled next to Dubai Creek, right where the river meets the Persian Gulf. Fast forward 3500 years to the 500s AD and the settlement became a stop along a trade route linking modern-day Oman and Iraq.

Classic house with the big tower thing used to keep the house cool.

In the 1500s, there are writings from an Italian merchant talking about the pearling industry. Dubai had grown from an agricultural community to one built on fishing, pearl diving, shipbuilding, and support for the trade route that ran through the area.

Traditional ship outside of the history museum
These axes made me laugh. They’re definitely not for chopping wood! Though I can see how they might be useful in battle. Eek!

There was a time of conflict in the late 1700s/early 1800s. A new tribe settled in nearby Abu Dhabi, leading to frequent fighting between tribes. During this time, Dubai was a walled city. The economy took a hit because the fighting discouraged traders from coming through the area. In 1820, the British negotiated a maritime truce that allowed trade routes to reopen.

The Al Maktoum dynasty took control of Dubai in the 1830s. Under their leadership, the city began to grow. Expats were given tax exemption, and this led to a big increase in the number of foreign workers. The city and economy continued to grow around fishing, pearling, and trading. After the creation of fake pearls in the 1950s, the economy took a temporary dip until a new discovery: oil.

After this development, everything changed. The sheikh at the time, Sheikh Rashid, used the oil money to give Dubai what it needed to become a trade hub again. Dubai Creek was dredged and widened, and other necessary infrastructure projects were completed. Sheikh Rashid was wise and didn’t want Dubai to become completely reliant on oil.

Cruising along the widened and dredged Dubai Creek. On the bank, you can see some rebuilt “historic” structures in Dubai’s Heritage Village.
Wall fragment from when Dubai was a walled city during the tribal conflict years. This is one of the only actual old things that exists in Dubai.
Those little round things are shields… made of shark skin!
The museum talked about the different trades in historic Dubai, and these were illustrated with life-size models.
Some traditional musical instruments. The body of the one in the middle is made from a single piece of wood!

The United Arab Emirates was formed in 1971 and consists of seven emirates. Dubai is the second biggest by land area and the most populous emirate. Dubai and Abu Dhabi have the most political power in the country. The UAE currency, dirhams, was developed and it was tied to the US dollar in 1997. That means that the exchange rate between the two currencies stays the same, and as the US dollar gets stronger and weaker, the dirham does as well.

The first highrise was built in 1979, and that was just a small preview of what was to come. Since the 1990s, Dubai has been working to become a business hub and tourist destination. It has the world’s only 7-star hotel (how do you even get 7-stars if there are only 5 in existence? It seems like the rating system is kind of worthless once you can score better than perfect), the world’s tallest building (only for the moment though… the next one is already under construction in Saudi Arabia and will claim the title by 2020), the world’s largest shopping mall, crazy man-made islands, and a ton of other attractions and features that scream “luxury”.

All of those skyscrapers… brand new. This is at the Dubai Marina which says, “If you’re rich, this is the place for you!” (It doesn’t literally say that, but it might as well.)

The current sheikh, Sheikh Mohammed, has been in power since 2006, and much of the development toward and focus on increased tourism is due to his vision and the work started by his father, Sheikh Rashid. Things such as allowing foreigners to own property and work tax-free have been big draws to bring people in from around the world and make Dubai into a truly international city. Around 90% of its residents are foreigners!

The growth in Dubai over the last 40 years is pretty incredible. Think about the fact that ALL of those skyscrapers that dominate the skyline were built since 1979. Like whatttt? I remember that when I was in Shanghai, we watched a video comparing the development of New York City and Shanghai. For years and years and years, New York slowly grew vertically. It was a very gradual change. Meanwhile, during those same years and years and years, Shanghai was completely flat and flat and flat… until it started to boom. Then, in a snap, buildings shot up and quickly filled out the skyline… while New York stayed basically the same. Dubai’s growth has been at least that dramatic. It’s like everything just dropped out of the sky… the land is empty, you blink, and there’s an entire city in front of you.

Welcome to Dubai!

Posted on by Lark

Welcome to Dubai! Leaving Lebanon was sad, but that was buffered a bit by the fact that I still had an adventure ahead. I intentionally scheduled a long layover in Dubai so that I could leave the airport and check out the city. I was trying to get a normal length layover until I realized that the long one was cheaper, AND it gave me a chance to see something new. Score!

Before I get into what I did while I was there, let me tell you about some of my first impressions…

  1. Vertical city – Dubai claims to be a “vertical city”, and I guess to a certain extent, that’s true. There are a lot of VERY tall buildings. At the same time though, it’s also very horizontal. There will be a little patch of super tall buildings over here, then there’s an area of completely flat land, and then there’s another patch of tall buildings. It’s like if you took the center city areas of a bunch of cities and then put them near each other. Instead of seeming like one city, it’s more like a few weird, disconnected but nearby cities.

    Cluster of tall buildings. Flatness. Cluster of tall buildings.
  2. Not a city made for people – That sounds stupid, I know, but I mean that it’s really not pedestrian friendly. I always consider one of the great things about cities to be the fact that you don’t need a car. If you’re in the downtown area, you should be able to walk to all of the major things. In Dubai, there are places where it’s so hard to find a place to cross the street that you feel like you can’t even navigate the city on foot. It is also completely NOT bike friendly which is enough to make me immediately turn up my nose (I’m a bike snob, I know).

    This night shot is cool because you can so clearly see the roads. All of the orange light lines are street lights… doesn’t it seem wrong that so many of them are floating in a sea of darkness with no buildings near them?
  3. Public transit – As bad as the pedestrian situation is, the public transit really is good. I rode the metro, bus, and trolley while I was there, and all of them were impressive. They were clean and prompt and everything had a separate section for women only. The first time I went on the metro, I was going to just ride in the normal part… until I looked around the platform and realized that NO other women were standing near me. I moved to the women’s car, and I’m happy that I did because it was PACKED, and at least that way I didn’t have to be smushed up next to a bunch of smelly guys.
    The price of the public transit also wasn’t bad… a little over a dollar for a ride. I think that if you have a more permanent card, it’s even cheaper too.
    There are A LOT of rules on the metro. The number of things that you can get fined for is actually kind of impressive. There are penalties for eating, drinking, chewing gum, falsely pressing the emergency button, being a man in the women’s cabin… probably more that I’m forgetting. I don’t know how seriously they enforce the rules, but they exist.

    They make it very clear where the women’s car on the metro is.
  4. Shiny and new – Everything just seems… shiny. And surreal. And inauthentic. It’s like the whole city is trying too hard. For example, there’s this one part of the city that’s supposedly “historically preserved”. In Dubai that apparently means “rebuilt but in the old style”. The buildings are too tall. Everything is too new. It’s just too fill in the blank.

    This is supposed to be “old” Dubai… It is very clearly “new old” Dubai. How could I tell? Well, besides the fact that everything looked pristine, there were fire alarms and lights installed with no wiring exposed. Unless the pearl divers of old Dubai were way ahead of the rest of us in harnessing electricity, I don’t think those are original.
  5. Foreigners – There are foreigners everywhere. Tons of tourists, tons of foreigners who live there. If you were trying to guess where in the world you were just based on the people, I don’t know that the United Arab Emirates would even be top 15 on your list of guesses.
  6. English – On that note, you can speak English everywhere. When I was getting ready for my day in Dubai, I stumbled on some forums where people were asking if you needed to speak Arabic to be able to navigate Dubai easily. The answer was a resounding no. After being there, my answer is an even more resounding no. You can easily speak zero Arabic and have zero issues.
  7. When everything is impressive, nothing is – If you’re a genius and you work at a company filled with geniuses, is anyone a genius? Or are you all just average? Next question: If you’re an impressive skyscraper surrounded by a bunch of other impressive skyscrapers, are any of you impressive? Or are you all just normal? Dubai is filled with statement buildings. They are weird and funky, and in any other city, they would help to define the skyline. Instead, they’re surrounded by other weird and funky buildings that make them look normal. It’s almost a shame that anyone even bothers putting effort into their designs because it’s only a matter of time until there are more tall buildings on all sides, and you can’t even see the first building anymore. If you want to build a statement building and have anyone care, don’t build it in Dubai.

    Hidden away in this picture are two skyscrapers that I knew about before I went to Dubai, Princess Tower and Infinity Tower (since renamed, but I’m going to pretend not). If I hadn’t KNOWN that they were there, I wouldn’t have even looked twice. Infinity Tower is the twisty one to the left of the big block building on the right side of the picture, and Princess Tower is behind it with the round spaceship-like top. It’s the second tallest building in Dubai after the Burj Khalifa, but you’d never know because it looks dwarfed from this angle by all of the surrounding buildings.
  8. Construction – Remember when I said that there’s a lot of construction in Beirut? HAHAHA. That’s like child’s play compared to the construction happening in Dubai. Everywhere, there’s some sort of construction happening. It seems like it’s endless, and I seriously just don’t understand it. Which leads me to my next point…
  9. Confusing – This is a long one. Dubai confuses me in many ways.
    There are a few developers who are doing most of the construction in the city. They seem to just keep building more and more and more, and I don’t understand how it’s sustainable. Are they seriously making enough money that it’s worth it to keep building? Maybe this has changed, but I always think of Dubai as a ghost city where there’s a ton of empty property. The numbers have probably improved since back when Dubai was just starting to emerge, but I can’t imagine that everything could be full.
    This is going to sound like a direct contradiction of #7, but that’s part of the reason why this is going under the category of “confusing”. Dubai is filled with icon buildings and icon things in general (for example, the palm islands or the world map islands)… and then those iconic things might be right next to the most boring, uniform pop-up of skyscrapers ever. There were some skyscraper clusters where it looked like the architect got bored or fired after designing the first building, and every building after that was just slightly modified from the first. Maybe this one has 10 fewer floors. Maybe that one has one column of windows shifted slightly. Why build an army of buildings that all look the same and that are all seemingly empty?

    Have you ever seen a more boring group of skyscrapers? Just wait until you see them from the back…

    Okay, NOW have you ever seen a more boring group of skyscrapers? Seriously, how lazy can you be? B.O.R.I.N.G.
  10. Over-the-top – Everything. Nothing can be done halfway. If something is done, it will be the _______est. The Burj Khalifa is the tallest building in the world. The world map islands are the most ridiculous collection of man-made islands (that’s a title that I just made up now, but I am extremely confident that it would hold up in front of a judge). The I-can’t-remember-the-name flower garden is the most absurd flower garden in the world. It’s like everything is super-sized whether that be in actual size or just in concept.

There are a few of my first impressions of the city, but if I’m being totally honest, none of those were surprises to me. I think it was about what I expected. That doesn’t make it any less weird, though, when you’re surrounded by tall buildings and there’s not a person in sight. There were moments when I felt like I was in a post-apocalyptic movie or something, and I was the last human on earth. The city is built for SO many more people than live there. I wonder if it will ever grow into itself. Better question, if it DOES grow into itself, will there be enough capacity in the public transportation and roadways to accommodate those people?

Next, I’ll tell you a little bit about the history of Dubai and how it turned into the craziness that it is today. Maybe the history lesson will clear up some of your confusion regarding the mysterious existence of this wacky city… or maybe not.

Last Days in Beirut

Posted on by Lark
The church at Antelias

Does it feel like we’ve been in Lebanon forever? It’s amazing how much you can pack into 9 days! All good things must come to an end though, and here we come (side note: I’ve just now decided that is a very dumb saying, and I’m not going to use it anymore. All it does it make you dread the “inevitable end” of the good). I spent my last couple of days wandering around Beirut, making sure everything was checked off my sightseeing list, and revisiting some of the things I saw with Badveli in the rain or the dark.

Maria and I went on an adventure to the “Etchmiadzin of Lebanon”. As a refresher, Etchmiadzin is like the Vatican of the Armenian Apostolic Church. It’s where the Catholicos (the Armenian version of the Pope) sits… but of course, nothing is simple, so here’s another quick, complicated history lesson for you. When Armenia was under the control of the Seljuk Turks in the 1100s, the Catholicos ended up in Cilicia and set up camp there. A couple hundred year later, when the situation in Cilicia started to fall apart, a new Catholicos was elected in Etchmiadzin. The Cilicia Catholicos settled in Antelias, Lebanon, and now there are two Catholici, with the one in Etchmiadzin serving as the supreme Catholicos. The Catholicos of Cilicia is responsible for the Armenian Apostolic churches in Lebanon, Syria, Cyprus, Greece, Iran, and the Gulf countries.

The compound includes a cathedral, museum, library, the Catholicos’s residence, and a school for clergy. There’s also an Armenian Genocide memorial that includes sand and bones from Deir ez-Zor, the major “concentration camp” located in the Syrian desert. I put that in quotes because those words imply that there was something there, but it was just open, empty desert where people were sent to wait for death. There used to be a memorial and museum there, but those have since been destroyed in the Syrian war.

Chandelier party in the church at Antelias… hehe
Their mannequin nativity made me giggle

The building where all of the old Catholici are buried
Outside of the Armenian Genocide memorial
Inside the Armenian Genocide memorial
Plant. Covered. Walkways. <3 <3

The rest of my remaining adventures took place around Beirut. I started out my last day with a leisurely walk to downtown on Armenia Street (the name changes halfway, but we’ll just claim it all for Armenia). There are some cool alleyways that I had noticed earlier in the week and wanted to go back to check out more closely. Based on my walk, I’ve decided that every staircase should be painted, and every walkway should be covered with a canopy of plants. Those two things make everything look at least 100 million times cooler.

St. Elias… probably my favorite church from the outside. I tried to look inside, but it was under construction 🙁
Stairs!
Seriously though, how much more fabulous do they look because of the paint?
These are the coolest ones
There’s some pretty fab graffiti too
Martyrs’ Monument

Once I made it into town, I paid a visit to Martyrs’ Square… and by “square” I mean “parking lot with a monument in the middle”. The square was the location of executions of Lebanese nationalists by the Ottomans and was thereafter known as “Martyrs’ Square”. The first statue was erected there in the 1930s, and it showed a Muslim woman and a Christian woman holding hands over a coffin. The current statue replaced that one in 1960. Martyrs’ Square was a place to gather, a place to demonstrate. During the civil war, it was right on the dividing line of the city, and the statue suffered a lot of damage. After the war, they decided to restore the statue and leave it with some of the war damage as a reminder. It has reclaimed its former position and now sits in the middle of two muddy parking lots. There are plans to rebuild the square, but they definitely haven’t come to fruition yet.

Street views
Pretty but deserted streets leading into the central square
Anddd empty…
Crusader Castle in Beirut… not quite in the same condition as the one in Byblos!

Yay for twinkle lights!

Another spot in the city that I visited with Badveli was the Beirut Souks. The name is misleading because “souks” implies that it’s a market, but it’s actually just a mall. Back in the day, it used to be a market. You know, one of those bustling, crowded, personality-filled markets. I love those places. The people-watching is always fabulous because they’re full of people with purpose. I think it’s cool when you’re in a place that seems like nothing but chaos to you, but when you look around at the people who clearly live and work there, they all know exactly what they’re doing and where they’re going. From the outside, it looks like chaos. To the people on the inside, it’s organized chaos.

When all of the post-war redevelopment of the city started, the old shop owners were offered money in exchange for their shops. The payouts weren’t fair, but with the compulsory purchase power held by the developers, people really didn’t have a choice. I think the new building is nice and all, but it’s just like any other shopping mall. There’s nothing “souk”y about it. They did keep the old streets as the layout for the new corridors, but like… come on. I wanted to hate the building because of what it represents, but I can’t pretend that I didn’t enjoy it a little bit. Especially since when I went with Badveli, it was all decorated for the holidays, and you know what a sucker I am for lights! It’s nothing unique though, that’s for sure. Essentially, it’s like any other mall you’ve ever been in.

Beirut Souks
This would be way more ordinary without the decorations
A building in Saifi Village, an upscale neighborhood in Beirut that was completely rebuilt after the war
More Saifi Village views

Hard at work

The final activity of my last day was a trip to a gallery, Beyt Amir. There’s a little café in the backyard, and we went there for lunch before checking out the show. Maria unfortunately had a lot of things to do at work, so that mostly left Badveli and me alone except for a quick few minutes during lunchtime.

The big thing at this gallery is a bunch of panorama-type pictures of Beirut at different points throughout history. There’s one from 1870, one before the war, one right after the war, and one modern day. Then, an artist did a drawing of what the 2052 Beirut might look like. At the café, the artist’s black and white panorama drawing has been split into pieces and it’s used for placemats! Each table also has coloring utensils at each table, sooooo they’re obviously telling you to color. Badveli and I were talking… and then we were coloring and talking… and then we were so into it that getting our food was almost an inconvenience because we had to stop coloring to eat.

I don’t know how long we sat at that table… but I do know that it was long enough for both of us to finish our masterpieces. It took stealing some markers and pencils from another table to make our dreams a reality, but we did it! It was only after we finished, took photos of our artwork, left them on the table, and went to the gallery that we realized we had colored a couple pieces of a bigger picture… and that our pictures fit next to each other! We rushed back to the table, and sure enough, they matched up perfectly! We found this to be extremely exciting and then obviously took a few more photos before going back to the gallery.

Our masterpieces. Whose is whose? (though I guess the last picture kind of gives it away)
Gate into the cafe

The exhibition was an interesting mix of things. There were the panoramas, plus some watercolors of old, damaged buildings from around the city. Those were cool because the surroundings were all just pen-drawn, and the building that was the focus was painted in watercolor. There were other things that were like little metal dioramas. They were showing war-damaged rooms and buildings but were kind of beautiful because of all the details and the lights that made them look like decorations. The building itself was also pretty. All in all, a great choice of lunch venue and afternoon perusal location.

Inside Beyt Amir
Isn’t this cool?? All of the details are crazy!
Me with my airplane kuftes

And just like that, my time in Lebanon ran out. Badveli, Maria, and I had our last supper, and before we knew it, Hovig was downstairs to take me to the airport. Maria, in a classic Armenian mother move, insisted that I pack kuftes for the road… because that’s such a normal airplane snack… I pretend to grumble in those situations, but it’s nice to feel the love that comes along with the food pressure because you know that you’re only being forced to take/eat food because you’re cared for and no one wants you to waste away (like that’s even possible in an Armenian household).

I was sad to leave, but I went with a full heart. Seriously, it was just the break I needed to refresh me and prepare me for the rest of my time in Armenia. It was nice to be around familiar people, eat familiar food (because the food in Armenia is NOT the Armenian food I’m used to, but the Middle Eastern and Armenian food in Lebanon are exactly what we ate growing up), spend time in familiar community, and just have a little time where I felt like I was truly at home.

I also took a stroll around the American University of Beirut’s campus. They have some really nice buildings! And lots of green space.
AUB greenery
If you keep your eyes open, you can find all sorts of hidden architectural gems in the city.
This is a pretty classic apartment building view. The curtains on the balconies help to keep out the rain and heat.

Byblos

Posted on by Lark

I’ve already decided that I need to go back to Lebanon because there’s SO much more to see there (and because I had a great time hanging out with Badveli and Maria). I spent most of my time in Beirut, so I definitely have to go back to see the major sights that I didn’t get to outside of the city. Next time will be a cross-country tour… which sounds intense until you remember that it takes about 2 hours to drive across the country from west to east and maybe 6 from north to south.

HI, PRETTY WATER!

Anyway, we did get out of the city a couple of times, and one of those adventures was to Byblos (Jbail in Arabic)! Byblos is a coastal city north of Beirut. “They” say it’s one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. “They” seem to say that about a lot of cities though, so I’m a little hesitant to listen to anyone who tries to claim that title. People in Armenia say that about Yerevan too, but there are a TON of waaay older cities than Yerevan. I guess that when you say it’s “one of the oldest”, there isn’t a clear place to draw the line. Convenient. Well then, I’m one of the oldest people in the world. I’m one of the tallest humans. I’m one of the coolest people in the universe. These all could very well be true as long as you stretch your imagination a little bit.

View of the city to the north of the castle

Wow okay, I got a little carried away with that. Like I was saying, pre-rant, Byblos is old. That certainly can’t be argued… Back in the day, Byblos was a fishing village until it turned into an important Phoenician port, shipping out the famous Lebanon cedars and more. It was known for both that and for fantastic shipbuilding. The city grew very wealthy due to its trade with Egypt, and it was heavily influenced by Egyptian culture. It’s also one of the Phoenician cities that gets a few shout-outs in the Bible (though that’s not exactly a good thing because it’s usually when one of God’s prophets is foretelling judgment on the city that will lead to its destruction or something to that effect).

That water though…

As Tyre became more and more important, Byblos became less and less and started to decline. It had a resurgence under Babylonian and Roman rule until almost fading out completely during Muslim rule. During the brief upswing, they exported a lot of papyrus. For this reason, the Greek word for book, biblio, came from the city’s Greek name. And the word for Bible came from the Greek word for book… so the Bible is kind of named after Byblos. After the Muslim conquest of Byblos, they cared so little about the city that they didn’t even bother fixing the things that were destroyed during their invasion. Byblos was nearly forgotten until the 1860s when it was brought back into the picture by a French historian (Ernest Renan).

Today, Byblos is becoming a more and more popular tourist destination because of its beaches, history, and beautiful setting.

Obsessed.
One of the restored “souk” streets in the city which basically just sells souvenirs and such now

The “modern” Christmas tree in Byblos. Hovig despised it. I thought it was kind of interesting.

Badveli asked one of his car-owning friends, Hovig, if he could drive us there, and thankfully he said yes. It didn’t take long for me to realize that Hovig has the same *brilliant* sense of humor as Badveli and I do, so all it took was a few corny jokes before it felt like we were old friends.

We went to the Crusader castle in the city, and I absolutely loved it. The castle was built in the 12th century by… you guessed it, the Crusaders. Besides the castle, there are also extensive ruins on the grounds. You can see the foundations of temples and dwellings and fortifications, and the actual castle has been restored to give you a better idea of what it was like in its former glory. It’s pretty cool because there are ruins from practically every part of Lebanon’s history… prehistoric dwellings, the Phoenician necropolis, Egyptian temples, Persian fortress, a Roman amphitheater, and more. The site is right on the coast, so there’s a beautiful view of the sea which is made even better by the fact that you can go all the way to the top of the castle to see it. I kept marveling at how pretty and blue the water is… and Badveli and Hovig responded by saying how gross and dirty it is because trash and stuff get dumped into it. Well excuuuuse me. I didn’t say it looked clean (though from afar it looked fine), I just said it looked pretty.

Entrance to the castle

Can you see me?
Me, Badveli, and Hovig on top of the castle

Badveli took over as the official “Lara in holes” photographer during the trip. Can you find me?We were at the castle until closing when a guy started aggressively blowing a whistle to get people to leave. I, of course at that very moment, was poking around a building on the site that I felt like maybe I shouldn’t be poking around. (My recent approach to sightseeing has been “do what you want until someone yells at you” because so often, things that you wouldn’t be allowed to do in the US are totally okay in other countries. If you limit yourself to the things you think would/should be allowed, you’ll probably miss out on something.) Since you get super jumpy when you think you’re doing something wrong (or at least I do), the instant the whistle started blowing, I was sure that it was someone whistling at me for being somewhere I shouldn’t be. I’ve been to places (I can’t remember exactly where… Machu Picchu maybe?) where that’s the how the guards get your attention. I kind of spazzed and ran to what I deemed a more acceptable location before realizing that he wasn’t whistling at me. And of course, Badveli and Hovig laughed at me the entire time (to be fair, I deserved to be laughed at). Apparently not having learned my lesson about trying to look semi-normal, I then ran around like a lunatic, trying to see the couple of things we hadn’t gotten to yet before the whistle man kicked us out.

Poke poke poking around… this is just moments pre-whistle and spaz attack.
The castle from my illegal (but not actually) stop on the steps of that building
Egyptian obelisk temple that was relocated to this site to conserve it
Weird flower field
Looking south

We used the last hour or so of daylight to walk down to the harbor where Hovig was a helpful tour guide by showing me where you can see trash floating in the water. I chose to ignore it, not because I think it’s fine that the water is gross, but because I wanted to enjoy the illusion that the water was blue and pure and that humans weren’t doing what they do best and ruining nature.

Despite the garbage, it really was beautiful. There were some very nice rocks, and the sun was starting to set. Boats bobbed around in the harbor, surrounded by picturesque buildings. The air was that perfect, comfortable temperature, and a breeze was coming off the sea. We stayed there for a bit, me soaking in the beauty of the moment, Hovig looking in disgust at the dirty water, and Badveli most likely making a fantastic(ly bad) joke (Badveli – by bad I obviously mean good… but if not good, definitely funny… or at least cringe-worthy).

The harbor
Sunset!
Admiring the *clean* water

Okay, quiz time. What’s the best way to make a great day into a phenomenal day? The answer is ice cream. Always ice cream. On the ride back to Beirut, we stopped and got Arabic ice cream which is different because it uses flour made from orchids that helps keep it from melting and mastic tree resin to help stabilize it (whatever that all means). I’ll be honest, if you didn’t tell me that it wasn’t normal ice cream, I never would have known. It was delicious. We were supposed to just stop to pick up a container to bring back with us, but we obviously ate some there also (unless Maria is reading this… then that didn’t happen and we just did what we were told because we’re very good at following directions). Then, I ended up eating ice cream TWICE, and that’s how you make a phenomenal day into a historic day that will be remembered forever.

If you remember anything from my blog, let it be this: Ice cream makes everything better.

LOL
Chocolate and vanilla because I’m boring

Pigeon Rocks, Luna Park, and the Coast

Posted on by Lark

When I finally awakened from my post-Christmas caroling coma… I wanted to go right back to sleep. But no! I had a set amount of time in Lebanon, and I had to make the most of it. By the time I managed to pull myself together, Maria was home from church with plans for us to check a few more things off our sightseeing list.

We hopped on the bus and went all the way to the western waterfront of the city where Badveli was waiting to meet us. Our first stop was the famous “Pigeon Rocks.” There isn’t too much to say about these… They’re a couple of big rock formations out in the water. They are definitely cool looking! And it was nice to be by the water. They probably look even cooler during the sunset, but we were there earlier in the day and saw the awesome sunset from elsewhere along the coast.

Apparently, people sometimes try to go through the hole in the big rock in boats. Like… come on. After watching the waves crash against the rocks and the water rush through the hole for about five seconds, I was convinced that that’s a terrible idea. I’m all about adventure and taking risks or whatever, but not when they’re stupid. Sorry, that was strongly worded and full of judgement. Let’s try again… As fun as it sounds to attempt to launch myself through a rocky hole in a little boat while waves try to smash me into tiny pieces, I think I’ll pass. (I don’t think that was any less judge-y… oh well, I tried.)

Pigeon rocks. Aren’t you tempted to brave the tunnel?

From there, we walked north and went for a nice stroll along the water. The weather, finally after three days of constant rain, was perfect. There’s nothing like the feeling of the sun warming your face, and the smell of the air reminded me of the beach back home. It was a snapshot of summer in the middle of winter, and what’s better than that? I’m sure it gets miserably hot during the summer months, but I was happy to enjoy the warmth while it was juuust right.

I’m sure it’s completely safe…

Our next stop was Luna Park, an amusement park right on the coast. Luna Park isn’t any sort of special name for that particular spot. More like it’s the generic name for “amusement park”. Fun fact: there are a ton of “Luna Parks” in existence. The name originally comes from Luna Park on Coney Island in New York, and it was borrowed by a few other developers who built amusement parks across the world. Now, in more countries than just Lebanon, saying “Luna Park” is the same as saying “amusement park”.

I wanted to go on the ferris wheel, something Badveli and Maria had never done before, probably because it’s another one of those “this ferris wheel has been here since before the beginning of time” situations.  But you know, remember how I was talking about risks and how some are worth taking? Terrifyingly old ferris wheels are almost ALWAYS worth it.

Since this isn’t exactly high season for the ferris wheel, there was no one else riding when we got on. That meant that we got an extended ride and went around like 5 times. I’m fairly certain the operator just started the ride, went and drank a cup of coffee, and then came back to stop it. We got a great view of the city and the water, and the ferris wheel had those cars that you can spin around and around until you feel like you’re going to throw up, so that was fun too. I was just happy that my brothers weren’t there with us because they’re known for spinning those things so fast that you can feel your stomach trying to leap out of your body… and so fast that everyone watching is almost positive that your car is going to disconnect from the ride and spin off into oblivion. Thankfully, our experience was slightly less dramatic than that, though still pretty great.

Ferris wheel party!
Photo credit to Badveli for this cool pic!
View from the ferris wheel

After the park, we kept walking along the water. It was such a pleasant night, and hearing the water crash up against the shore is always so calming. There was a spectacular sunset, and all of that put together was almost enough to make me forget that the first few days were filled with rain and rain and rain.

Can you spot the lighthouse?
Picture perfect!
Check out the water!! So blue! <3
Sunset walk along the water.
Sunset!
It’s almost like the clouds were intentionally and perfectly arranged to make this look as cool as possible.

Rain, Ruins, Everything

Posted on by Lark

Ready for more walking? How about more rain, some ruins, and a little bit of everything else? I left off my last post at St. George Maronite Cathedral in downtown Beirut. Directly next to the church and Al-Amin Mosque, there’s a large area filled with ruins! At the moment, it doesn’t look like much besides a grass-covered pile of rocks. There are a few columns standing, but besides that, it’s hard to tell what exactly is there. Supposedly though, the ruins date back to the Hellenistic period (around 320BC – 30BC) and have layers from the Roman, Byzantine, Umayyad, Mamluk, and Ottoman times as well.

Future Garden of Forgiveness

The site was discovered during the post-civil war excavations. There’s a procedure to follow when ancient ruins are found during construction: construction halts, the authorities are notified, and archaeological excavations are undertaken until they are considered complete. Then, a decision is made about what will happen, based on the findings and secretly probably the level of influence of the developer. The ruins are either left in place, moved, or demolished to make way for the construction.

These particular ruins have been set aside in the Beirut master plan as an area to be left unbuilt. The intersection of the Roman city’s two major streets was found there, and archaeologists also think that the famous Roman law school was located nearby. They haven’t found the school, but they know it was next to a church whose ruins have been located. There was a competition to decide what to do with the land, and a plan for creating a “Garden of Forgiveness” was selected. The project hopes to be “a step towards social harmony in Beirut by raising awareness about the need to resolve historical grievances”. The plan integrates the ruins and also includes lots of trees and water features and other things that I guess are supposed to suggest peacefulness and harmony. The construction is currently on hold though, so for the time being, the overgrown pile of rocks is here to stay.

The ruins with St. George in the background
Outside of St. George

There’s ANOTHER St. George church on the other side of the ruins, St. George Greek Orthodox Cathedral. It was originally built in the 1760s, but there had already been churches on the same site for hundreds of years by then. The first known church there was built in the 5th century AD, and that’s the one I mentioned that they know was located next to the Roman law school. That church was destroyed along with the law school in the 6th-century earthquake, and a new church was built in the 12th century. Another earthquake in the 18th century destroyed that one as well, and another new church was built. During the civil war, the church was shelled and left in ruins. Geez. Talk about bad luck.

When they decided to rebuild the church in the 1990s, they used the opportunity that the ruined church presented to conduct some archaeological excavations before reconstruction. Over about a year and a half, archaeologists worked to uncover and decode the layers of history underneath the church. They found the ancient cathedral, plus evidence of other churches built on the site. There are also graves, remains of a paved street, and columns that used to line the colonnaded streets of the Roman city.

St. George Greek Orthodox Cathedral. I just think this is the coolest picture ever with the lights and the frescoes visible through the windows.
Excuse this picture of a picture, but I thought it was really cool because it shows the church with the floor all opened up during the excavations.

After the excavations were finished, they turned them into a museum and restored the church above. Badveli and went to visit the church first, and it was AWESOME!!!! I love frescoed churches, and literally every surface in this church was covered in frescoes. There were magnificently done, and they actually had them lit so that you could see everything! I wish I’d had all day to scrutinize each fresco, but it would have taken hours to do anything more than quickly glance at them while walking a loop through the church. The frescoes obviously all had to be restored after the war, but a few bullet holes were left as a reminder. I like when they do that… It’s like saying, “We’re rebuilding and moving on because that’s what we have to do, but we also can’t forget about the past or pretend that it never happened.”

Inside St. George Greek Orthodox Cathedral
I have no words… except for HOW FREAKING COOL IS THIS???
EVERYTHING was painted.
It’s a little creepy looking up at the church from the museum!
Material timeline!

From there, we went to the crypt museum to check out the ruins. Badveli had never been before, and I was glad that we were doing something new for him so that the whole day wasn’t just him playing tour guide for a bunch of things he’d already seen a million times (most of the day was that, but thanks to this museum, it wasn’t the WHOLE day).

The museum is small, but it’s one of the coolest archaeology museums I’ve ever been to. Since the museum IS the excavation, things are mostly left where they found them. You can see the layers of churches and their different mosaic floors. You can see exactly where graves were found, and a bunch of them still have the skeletons inside. When you first enter, there’s a wall that shows what is basically a vertical timeline of the site. The different material layers in the soil are identified and dated so you can see the various civilizations all stacked on top of one another. The Ottoman layer has a skeleton sticking out, so that’s fun too (eek!). They also have cases with various things in them, but it’s so much cooler knowing that those things were found right next to where they’re now displayed.

A grave… creepy. The last year has made me VERY certain that I want to be cremated because as cool as skeletons are, do I really want people from hundreds or thousands of years in the future digging up my bones? Nooo thank you!
The floor of the medieval church!

It also gives you an idea of how archaeologists piece things together. Since you’re looking at exactly what they were looking at, you can see what columns they used to determine the orientation of the medieval church or the fragment of fresco that was the basis for their assumption that the entire church was painted. The museum has a path for you to follow with numbered stations. At each, you press a button on the information panel, and lights turn on to direct your attention to the places it’s talking about. It was very well done! I felt like I was an archaeologist too, uncovering the secrets of the site as we went from station to station. Maybe I just have an overactive imagination, but it was awesome.

You can see the walkways and information panels

Doesn’t it just look like a cool museum? (I ran around and hit like 5 buttons to turn the lights on for this picture.)

You can see two layers of mosaic floors!
Fresco remnant from the medieval church.
Archaeologists in training!

From there, we walked out into the central square of Beirut. There’s a clock tower in the middle (that escaped damage during the civil war because was disassembled and hidden until it was over) and the Parliament building. It’s a bit eerie because the car traffic is incredibly limited there, so it’s practically a ghost town. Fun because you can walk in the middle of the street, but still just a little weird.

Clocktower! This was taken on a sunny day later in the week, and even with the nice weather, you can still see that there are barely any people out.
The baths on a sunny day when I went back later

Another area of ruins in the city is the Roman baths. They were discovered originally in the late 1960s, were further excavated in the 90s, and are designated as land to remain “unbuilt” in the city. They aren’t the best-preserved baths I’ve ever seen, but they’re definitely still impressive, especially when you think about the fact that they were buried under the city for hundreds of years! The floors are almost completely gone, but they’ve re-set many pieces of the little pillars that held up the floor in the hot room so that the warm air could go underneath. I need to brush up on my Roman bath knowledge again because I didn’t remember too much beyond that, but it was still cool to look at while not knowing anything.

The Roman baths! And you can see the tower of Saint Louis Capuchin Cathedral in the background.
The baths from above

Right near there is the Grand Serail which is the headquarters of the Prime Minister. Badveli said that they can get pretty defensive if you try to take pictures…  even if you only want a picture of the Armenian church Surp Nishan that happens to be right next to it. I’m not interested in getting on the wrong side of someone with an assault rifle, so I didn’t try to take one from any closer than from the Roman baths.

Grand Serail to the left
Surp Nishan from an angle where no one will yell at you for taking a picture.
Inside St. Louis Cathedral

From there, we walked over to ANOTHER church, St. Louis Capuchin Cathedral. It was originally built by Capuchin missionaries and is named after the French King Louis IX. By the time we got there, it was getting dark outside which made it extra dark inside. We couldn’t see much of the interior, but luckily, the stained glass windows were still bright! I went back later on during the day, and I got to enjoy the stained glass again and see the pretty paintings on the ceiling above the altar. No matter how many churches I see, I’m still amazed by how each of them has something that makes it different from the rest. I haven’t gotten sick of them yet! That’s saying something, too, because I’ve been to Rome and I’ve been to Armenia, and they both have more than enough churches to keep you busy.

We saw a couple more things after that, but I’m going to save those for later. When we were both about ready to collapse, we decided to walk the 40ish minutes back to the apartment because it was rush hour. That means walking is probably close to as fast as driving, and I wanted to see the nighttime street life anyway. The walk was nice, though it would have been even nicer with functional sidewalks. I know, I know. I expect too much sometimes.

Check out those paintings!
St Louis Cathedral
Louis from the front

Downtown Beirut Tour!

Posted on by Lark

The next day, Badveli and I braved the rain and walked around downtown Beirut. This was one of those infrequent times when I wished that I had a step tracker or something to know how far we walked because we were on our feet practically the entire day!

This was as much as we could see of the inner part of the museum (I stuck my head through the window in the exterior doors in an effort to see as much as possible)

We started off at another museum, Beit Beirut (House of Beirut). Unfortunately, it was closed, but we looked at what we could from the outside, and Badveli explained the story and described the interior to me. The building was built in 1924. It was an apartment building, originally called the Barakat house after the family that commissioned its construction. The building’s architecture was very transparent, connecting the occupants to the city around them with beautiful, unobstructed views. There were eight families, both Muslim and Christian, living in the building when the civil war broke out. They evacuated, and the building was taken over by Christian militias.

It is located along the Green Line, the road that divided the east and west sides of the city during the civil war. There are five major crossings, and the Barakat building is on the corner of one of them. That strategic location, plus the architecture that allowed for such fantastic views, made it into an ideal location for snipers to prevent people from crossing the street.

After the war, it was discovered by a Lebanese architect, Mona Hallak, who became determined to preserve the building and share its history. She said, “To me it represented Beirut: before the war through the archives I found under the dust and debris, during the war through the sniper additions, graffiti and bullet holes covering its walls, and after the war through my fight for the preservation of our heritage, identity and memory against the sweeping amnesia.”

Beit Beirut

It took years of battling with both the Barakat family and the city, but she was eventually successful in ensuring its preservation. It went through a serious restoration process to make sure it was structurally sound while preserving the interior and exterior damage or “war architecture”. There was also an addition to support its new function as a museum.

I would have loved to go inside. It seems like a pretty spectacular and powerful place, and despite the damage, you can still see the beauty and elegance of the building. Welp… guess I’m going to have to go back to Lebanon! Oh darnnnn…

Ruins on the left, shiny new mosque in the back, construction on the right.
Armenian Catholic Church! It looks exactly the same as every church in Armenia except for the material, doesn’t it?

From there, we wandered towards downtown, pausing to observe the absurd amount of construction happening along the way and wonder about the buildings that have gone seemingly untouched since the war. There’s a big developer that has control over practically all of the rebuilding and development in the downtown area. They have compulsory purchase power which means that they can force people to sell their property even if they don’t want to and pay them way less than it’s worth. There’s a weird feeling that you get in a lot of parts of town that they’ve heavily developed. They certainly look nice, but they’re missing personality and life. There’s no color, both figuratively and literally because everything is built out of the same, yellowish stone. The streets look like they should be full of people, but it’s like the city falls asleep as soon as you step into one of the little development pockets.

I kept having these conflicting feelings because often, I thought that the buildings were pretty. But what’s the point of having pretty buildings if no one can afford to use them? Buildings are made to be used. Otherwise, they’re worthless. Yes, architecture is also art, but what makes it such a cool art form is the fact that it needs to be both functional and beautiful. Without function, you have nothing more than a very large sculpture. The city changes from a living, breathing place into an inauthentic, amusement-park-type attraction.

Here’s one of those pretty but deserted streets… See what I mean?

Also, sometimes you have to wonder if more buildings really are better. More buildings means more people. More people means that you need more space for people to do their living. Not just apartment space, but outdoor space. Space for kids to play and people to socialize. A city with only tall buildings quickly turns into a very isolating, suffocating place.

Detailing on the side of Al-Amin Mosque

From there, we walked past Al-Amin Mosque. It was built between 2001 and 2008 and is the largest mosque in Lebanon. There’s some controversy surrounding the procurement of the land that it’s on, but I can’t mentally handle learning about more complicated history sooo… here’s the one second summary of what I think I know, and we’ll leave it at that: the prime minister at the time was the one who managed to do the previously un-doable purchasing of land which seems a little questionable. That’s all I’m going to say.

Of course, the controversy doesn’t stop there because why would there ever be a simple story for me to tell you? That would be way too easy. The mosque’s architecture is Ummayyad, Mamluk, and Ottoman-inspired, and many people think that it looks out of place in the center of Beirut. It’s also extremely large which makes it stick out even more. The minarets are 72 meters high!

Personally, I didn’t love the exterior. It definitely felt like it was forced and didn’t quite match the other things around it. However, I went back later on my own and went inside… and it was spectacular. The painting, calligraphy, and gilding in the dome were like nothing I’ve ever seen before. I could have stared at the ceiling, marveling at its beauty and complexity, for hours. I kept thinking, “Who the heck can do something like this? And HOW LONG did it take them??”

The church and mosque from behind with all of their towering components.

Well, let me just say… the internet, my friends, can be a wonderful thing. Guess what? The dude who did all of that is named Harout Bastajian, aka definitely Armenian. He specializes in the painting of religious buildings, and he says that the painting of Al-Amin Mosque took him and his team ONLY 3 MONTHS. Ummm how.

Obsessed.
IS THIS NOT THE COOLEST THING YOU’VE EVER SEEN??????

My visit to the mosque was also very interesting because they have a guy there just to talk to visitors. I was the only visitor at the time, so I got to ask him anything I wanted about the building or Islam. He was trying to convert me which obviously wasn’t going to work, but I was excited to have someone to answer my many questions. I’ve been getting more and more interested in learning about other religions so that I have a basic understanding of what other people believe, and reading about religion on the internet only leads to headaches. When you’re talking to someone, you can ask them exactly the things you’ve been wondering about and get answers that aren’t written for religious scholars.

Directly next to the mosque is a church, St. George Maronite Cathedral. One of the complaints about the mosque is that it dwarfs the church, and I guess they decided to deal with that by building a randomly tall clock tower topped with a tacky (in my non-objective opinion) light-up cross. To be honest, I don’t know why they built the clocktower and if it actually had anything to do with the mosque or not, but there is kind of a nice sentiment behind the height they chose for it. It was going to be a bit taller to match the height of this clock tower in Rome, but they decided to cut off a few meters so that it’s the same height as the towers on the mosque to send a message of harmony and solidarity between the religions.

I think that’s enough for now, right? I don’t want to overwhelm you with information all at once… we’ll save more overwhelming for the next post. 🙂

The campanile (aka clock tower)
Night view! You can see my favorite glowing cross.
Inside St. George

Museum Day

Posted on by Lark

My first few days in Lebanon were rainy. When I say “rainy”, I’m not talking about just overcast skies and some little showers here and there. I mean that for three straight days, it was like the sky decided to finally unload some serious emotional baggage. I usually don’t believe in umbrellas (don’t bother trying to make sense of me), but no chance was I going out in THAT with just a rain jacket.

We started out by planning “rainy day activities” and ended by defiantly going outside despite the rain. The National Museum of Beirut was stop #1 on the rainy-day Beirut tour, and it was a great way to start off my time in Lebanon! It’s an archaeology museum, and they have a huge variety of artifacts. There are so many different types of things, and they span thousands of years of history. The museum has over 100,000 artifacts, and about 1,300 of them are displayed. If you think that sounds like they’re kind of gypping you, trust me when I say that 1,300 is more than enough. The museum is incredibly well done with enough stuff to make you feel satisfied but not so much that your brain is mush by the time you leave. I was also impressed with their audio guide… they give you an ipad! And you go around the museum scanning barcodes to bring up more information about certain objects. So high tech!

Doesn’t this just look exactly the way you think an archaeology museum should look?

The museum is located right along the road that served as the separating line between the east and west sides of Beirut during the civil war. That meant that there was no chance of the building making it through the war unharmed, so the curator of the museum at the time undertook measures to protect the collection. Some artifacts were relocated to other parts of the country, and other small objects were hidden in the basement. Those storerooms were walled in so that no one even knew they existed, aside from the very few who were involved with the installation. Larger, unmovable objects, such as the mosaics set into the floor and large statues, were encased in wood and concrete and left in place.

Museums are the best.

The war lasted longer than expected, so despite these protection measures, the collection still suffered greatly. The artifacts hidden in the basement storerooms were in an uncontrolled environment for 15 years. Flooding in the museum led to high humidity levels (around 95%). A fire caused by shelling resulted in the destruction of museum records and artifacts. Large objects suffered damage from the salt in the concrete and the lack of ventilation in their emergency casings. Looting scattered the collection across the world. The building itself was covered in shell and bullet holes and graffiti.

I’ll be honest, I don’t remember what these are. I imagine they’re like the ancient version of little green army dudes (ignore me).

It took 21 years after restoration began for the entire museum to open again. The building needed a serious overhaul, and the collection had to be inventoried and restored. In 1999, four years after restoration efforts began, the museum permanently reopened, but the final floor wasn’t completed until October 2016. The museum is STILL working to track down artifacts that were stolen and sold during the war.

Some cool rings that they found buried with the anthropoid sarcophagi.

I was lucky that the basement was open by the time I visited. It included some of the coolest stuff in the whole museum… there were three naturally mummified people who were found in a cave, a huge collection of anthropoid sarcophagi, and a 2nd-century frescoed tomb that was relocated from Tyre. I don’t have pictures of the people because it seemed disrespectful or of the tomb because photography isn’t allowed, so I guess you just need to visit Lebanon if you want to see them…

I checked out the National Museum solo, but Badveli and Maria joined me for the next museum on the list, the Nicolas Sursock Museum. During his life, Sursock was an art collector, and his will left his house to the city of Beirut to be converted into an art museum. I’ll be honest, 90% of the reason I wanted to go was just to see the house. It’s a modern/contemporary art museum, and we all know the complicated relationship I have with modern art. I figured that no matter what the art was like, the building would be worth the trip. Badveli was interested in checking out these 19th-century pictures they have of the ruins in Baalbeck, so we made it a family trip!

That stained glass though…
Talk about an epic doorway!

The house was built in 1912 and is a cool mix of architectural styles, including some elements inspired by Venetian and Ottoman architecture. It also has a bunch of stained glass which basically guarantees that I’m going to like it. The museum first opened with the house kept in its original condition, and exhibitions were shown in the many rooms of the mansion. Eventually, a project was undertaken to reconfigure some of the rooms into more traditional gallery spaces. Recently, a much larger project was completed that added four underground floors beneath the house and garden. I can only imagine how fun that construction process must have been, figuring out how to levitate a mansion while constructing another building underneath it.

For the most part, the exhibitions were about what I expected… weird. There were a few cool pieces, but it was largely baffling, as is the way with modern art. Don’t get me wrong, I have no issues with weird. I love weird things! But the weirdness of most modern art is a type that must be incompatible with my personal brand of weird. There was one thing though… as we were leaving, we walked past a curtained doorway marked with a sign saying, “Please do not touch the floating burger.” I was intrigued. Burger like hamburger? Why was it floating? What about it made touching it so tempting that they explicitly had to tell people not to? I peeked my head inside, and somehow what I saw was simultaneously exactly what I expected and the last thing that I expected. It was a floating burger. The room was completely dark, a blacker darkness than any I’d ever experienced. The only light shone directly onto a floating hamburger. It was like a beacon, calling you towards it. The burger practically screamed, “TOUCH ME!” I’m not an uncultured scrub… I know that you’re not supposed to touch things at museums, but I’ll be honest. I wanted to touch that burger. HOW DID THEY KNOW?  It was like I was hypnotized. There was also a museum staff woman standing by the entrance, probably making sure that the burger was left untouched because I bet she’s felt the same, inexplicable desire that I felt to touch the forbidden burger.

Like… how could you NOT look after seeing this??
Genius.

I felt like my faith in modern art was restored… until we left the museum and I read the pamphlet that accompanied the piece. It was something about capitalism and blah blah blah profound symbolism blah blah blah. I immediately forgot what I read because I knew that trying to assign too much meaning would inevitably ruin the whole thing for me. Maybe that’s the problem. I want modern art that has no explanation besides “I made this because I thought it was weird and funny.” Otherwise, it gives me flashbacks to university where we’d make a design that we thought looked cool and then go back later to make up some stupid, symbolic meaning because the project required it. What’s wrong with just saying, “I did this because it looked cool”? To be fair, sometimes the explanations feel legitimate, but most of the time they seem like a bunch of hooey.

This is the salon where Sursock would entertain guests. It’s a ridiculous room but also kind of awesome.
I couldn’t get over how much detail there was in EVERY aspect of the room.
The wood paneling on the walls was brought in from Damascus.
Geez.

Modern Lebanon History

Posted on by Lark

What a day! I just spent WAY more time than expected trying to understand the history of Lebanon from 1915 to the present, and I kind of think that my brain might fall out of my head. I’m one of those people who really likes math because there’s always a clear answer. It’s straightforward. This, on the other hand, is not. There are too many details and too many people involved and too many things happening. My. Brain. Hurts.

I’m going to show some various war-damaged things, but some of them have longer stories that I’ll talk more about later. For now, I’ll just caption them briefly. This is a mosaic in the National Museum. The hole in the bottom left is from a sniper who shot at bystanders through the wall behind the mosaic.

You might be wondering why I’m spending so much time on history instead of just getting right to the fun, pretty things I saw. One thing that I’ve realized more and more over the last year is how much better you can understand the people and the situation of a country if you take the time to look at their history. I know, that’s another “DUH” statement, but it’s something that I didn’t used to do. Usually, when people travel internationally, they go to a country, they see the sights, they decide all the things that they like and don’t like about how the country works and how the people behave there, and they go home, usually with some feeling of superiority about their country and the way that they live. I know that’s not true for everyone, but from what I’ve seen, it’s not uncommon. I’ve heard people talking about experiences in other countries and ending with the basic statement of, “They just aren’t as civilized as we are.” That statement. Is horrible. People are different. Different cultures value different things. My idea of “civilized behavior” isn’t the same as that of someone born in India or someone born in Ghana. Does that make any of our ideas wrong? Yes, there are some universal morals that stand despite any cultural argument. More often than not, though, the things that we find so offensive in others are based on nothing more than personal preference and stereotypes.

Sorry for that rant. Mostly I’m not even talking about Lebanon anymore, but this is just something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. So, like I was saying, if you want to be able to identify WHY something is the way it is, something you may not like, you need to have some context… which leads us back to the history lesson. On that note, here is my attempt to explain the last century the best I can without making your brain hurt too.

Many of the large pieces in the National Museum that couldn’t be moved during the civil war, including this one, were encased in concrete for protection. Smaller artifacts were hidden in the basement behind fake walls so that no one would know they were there.

I left off my last post at the end of World War I when Lebanon and Syria were put under French control. During the Ottoman years, the size of Lebanon was greatly reduced. Much of the eastern and southern land was cut from Lebanon’s territory by the empire. In 1919, a Lebanese delegation presented their argument for an extension of Lebanon’s borders back to their previous locations. This was mostly driven by the Maronite Christian population who wanted a Lebanese nation. Interestingly, those territories were majority Muslim populated, so the addition of that land to Lebanon practically eliminated the Christian majority.

A constitution was written in 1926 that was supposedly meant to balance power between religious groups but was really favoring the Maronites. The President was a Maronite Christian, the Prime Minister a Sunni Muslim, and the Speaker of Parliament a Shiite Muslim. The Parliament seats were divided into a 6:5 Christian:Muslim ratio based on census information at the time. The President had a very strong and influential position, and this is still mostly true today, though some things have changed since the original constitution (and the Parliament ratio has changed to half and half of Christians and Muslims).

During World War II, Britain sent troops to Lebanon because Germany was moving weapons through the country. In 1941, the British recognized Lebanon’s independence. There were elections in 1943 that weren’t recognized by France, and the new leaders were thrown into prison. International pressure convinced the French to release the leaders and recognize the new, independent Lebanon!

From the time of independence until around 1958, Lebanon prospered. The economy was booming, and tourism, agriculture, and education were flourishing. Then, in 1958, Arab nationalism was on the rise in the Middle East, and Egypt and Syria joined together to create the United Arab Republic. They wanted to unite all Arab nations into one country which required eliminating any governments seen as “pro-West”. After Iraq’s government was toppled, the Lebanese president asked for help from the US to keep Lebanon independent. Some Lebanese, mostly Christians, wanted to remain aligned with the west, while others, mostly Muslims, wanted to join the new Arab nation. The US intervention successfully stabilized the country, though 2000-4000 people were still killed.

This is Martyrs’ Monument. After the war, it was restored, but some of the war damage was left as a reminder. You can see holes in all of the statues, and one of them is missing half an arm.

The beginning of the 1960s was relatively calm, and Lebanon continued to grow economically. Then, in 1967, more Palestinian refugees fled to Lebanon after the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, joining the over 100,000 who had already settled there after the 1948 war. The Palestinian militant forces, previously operating out of Jordan, were kicked out and also moved to Lebanon. The Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) started using southern Lebanon to launch attacks on Israel. Israel retaliated, and the Lebanese people were split between pro- and anti-Palestinian groups (the former was mostly Muslim and the latter mostly Christian).

An agreement signed in 1969 gave the PLO control over the refugee camps and access to northern Israel, and it had to recognize the sovereignty of the Lebanese government. The Lebanese army then had to leave the PLO alone, and Maronite militias took their place. Before this, Lebanon had managed to stay out of all conflicts with Israel. The PLO ended that neutrality when it set up what was effectively a mini-state in southern Lebanon and stepped up its attacks. Israel retaliated by bombing Lebanon. The Lebanese government was weak and divided and couldn’t really do anything to defend its people.

The Lebanese Civil War started in 1975. The fighting between the Maronite militia and PLO spread to Beirut. It started with a few minor clashes and then erupted into an all-out war. More and more militias started to emerge, each generally tied to a religious group. Practically everyone had their own militias – the Maronites, the PLO, random secular groups, the Druze, the Sunnis, the Shiites, and the Armenians. Everyone had their agendas, supported different sides for different reasons, and were funded by different outside sources. The Armenians mostly tried to remain neutral and only fought when they needed to defend Armenian areas. The western part of Beirut turned into the “Muslim side” of the city and the eastern part the “Christian side”, and they were separated by a road that became known as the “green line”. People fled to the appropriate sides for safety.

These are some objects in the National Museum that were damaged during the civil war. The storage room where they were located was shelled, and the resulting fire fused together all of these different materials.
The part of the city with a bunch of nice hotels became a battleground with militias fighting each other from building to building. This one, the old Holiday Inn, had only been operating for a couple years before the war started. It is the only hotel in the area that’s still left in its post-war condition due to disagreements about its future between the owners.

Meanwhile, the leader of Syria declared that “Lebanon is part of Syria, and Syria will take it back”. Syrian troops entered the country and started fighting for control of the land and the Palestinians. The Maronite militias, the PLO and pro-Palestinian Lebanese National Movement (LNM), and the Syrian army fought each other and also massacred innocent civilians during random attacks on villages, camps, and neighborhoods. A ceasefire was negotiated near the end of 1976, but the PLO continued to attack Israel, and Israel continued to retaliate.

In 1982, after Israel invaded Lebanon all the way to Beirut, there was an international attempt to move the PLO and Syrian forces out of Lebanon. Israel was told to withdraw from Lebanon as well as stop its attacks. Foreign troops landed to supervise the PLO evacuations. Fighting continued with Maronite militias attacking Palestinian refugee camps and killing innocent people. The Syrian army refused to leave, and suicide bombers attacked the US and French troops who were there for peacekeeping, eventually forcing them out of the country.

The fighting didn’t stop, but it was a little more sporadic after that. A new extremist group, Hezbollah, entered the mix in the early 1980s, backed by Iran and Syria, and worked with Palestinian forces to attack Israel. Raids on towns continued by all of the various groups, and civilians continued to be killed. There were bombings and shellings and assassinations.

This building, the Barakat house, had tenants before the war who all moved out because it’s located right near the green line that divided the city. Thanks to its open architecture, it was the perfect place for snipers to hide and be well protected. It was a big strategic location during the war.

Finally, in 1989, an agreement was signed to try to end the war. It called for the Syrian army to withdraw within two years, which they rejected. The war ended in 1990 when the Syrian Air Force bombed the presidential palace, driving the interim prime minister, General Michel Aoun (Lebanon’s current President) into exile. The government was restructured to give equal representation to Muslims and Christians. The militias were disarmed, except for Hezbollah because it was a “resistance force” fighting Israel (and had Western hostages to use as leverage). Over the next few years, Syria did all it could to keep the Lebanese government dependent on it to run the country.

This is a random alleyway I wandered down, and I was thrown off by the fact that there are all of these rebuilt and refinished buildings except for this one little swiss-cheese wall that still shows war damage.

General elections were held again in 1992 and were boycotted by the vast majority of citizens because they were organized by Syria. Despite the civil war being “over”, there were still ongoing incidents. Hezbollah and Israel continued to actively fight, even after Israel withdrew the rest of its forces in 2000. In 2005, there was a series of assassinations of government leaders. The same year, the remainder of the Syrian troops finally withdrew. In 2006, another war broke out between Hezbollah and Israel. The infrastructure of Lebanon took a hard hit with Israel’s bombing of many of the bridges throughout the country.

Since then, things have settled down, and the country is in a weird limbo of simultaneously rebuilding and still having a bunch of unresolved issues. The Syrian war has put extra strain on the country in the form of an estimated 2 million refugees. For a country of only about 4.5 million people, that’s significant. Plus, there are still about half a million Palestinian refugees in the country. That is a huge economic challenge, and it’s expecting A LOT from the country’s infrastructure.

“The Egg” was part of an unfinished construction project when the war started. It was meant to be a movie theater. Now, it just looks like a weird, concrete bunker.

Lebanon has so much potential in so many ways. It’s beautiful, for one. It used to be a hopping tourist destination, and there’s no reason why it shouldn’t be able to get there again. There have been so many conflicts in the country’s history, and after many of them, it was able to enter a period of peace and prosperity. Maybe I’m just optimistic, but I hope that’s something that can happen again. Let me try to help out with the tourism revival… you should visit Lebanon! I never felt unsafe, and it was so interesting to visit a place with such a complex history.

Now that you’ve read more historic details than you probably ever wanted, my next post will get into the fun stuff!

The rebuilding had the unexpected side effect of revealing hidden ruins, and the unique circumstances gave archaeologists a chance to investigate things that had previously been inaccessible. Their findings led to the conclusion that the city of Beirut may date back as far as 3000BC!