Tourist stuff all over Lebanon

Yesterday I started my day boldly venturing out of my hotel alone without waiting for "B" to pick me up. I was determined to find a Coca-Cola and some rolls all by myself. The first three days I was apprehensive about going out alone, and "B" always managed to wake up while I was still asleep. But today I woke up really early and started to walk around Hamra, the neighborhood in which I was staying. Somehow I got lost and made it back to my hotel over 2 hours later. But I did get a 2.25 litre bottle of Coke, despite the predominance of Pepsi, and the general anti-Coke sentiment (boycott) in that part of the world. I managed to communicate with the woman in the grocery too. I managed to meet "B" a little after she had left my hotel wondering where I was.

I went with "B" and "A" on a trip around almost all of Lebanon. We started going south. We did not get to the border, but we managed to get some ways toward it. "A" was a great guide.

We saw Lebanon's version of stalagmite caves in Kfarhim. They were nice, though once too often the guide pointed out that there was a resemblance between some rock formation and some actual object like a lion or a mother and child. The brochure for the grotto of course claimed that "La Grotte de Kfarhim incarne la majeste de dieu." -- and they seem to take this quite seriously.

We went to some castle on the coast in Saida (Sidon) (also home to the Ein El-Hilweh refugee camp, a favorite terrorist hideaway, especially recently) in which had a nice view of the river which smelled pretty bad. Nearby we saw an exhibition of Saudi women painters. I have to admit that some of the stuff was pretty daring for Saudi women, though some was cheezy, and most of it was derivative. (But keep in mind that "daring" is a very relative term.) In Saida we also had some Arabic ice cream. It was pretty good. The texture is a bit different and so is the taste. I forget the name of the flavor I had.

We went to a castle in Beit Eddin (in Chouf), "Musa's Castle" which according to legend was build solely by Musa as a gesture of triumph to a teacher who once beat him; it is a wax museum. It seems to be a sort of shrine to himself and his collection of guns. But there are some great wax stuff that depict daily life in old Lebanon, or something like that.

An old Arab woman fortune teller who hung out near the castle and used sea-shells to read my future told me the following: I had a painful life full of misery. I had a great loss with lots of misery, but now I do not regret it. I am not wealthy, but I spend money freely. I will live a long life. I will have 2 sons and a doughter. I have good news coming from home soon. I will marry a foreign woman, and have a happy and successful life. I will enter in to a successful partnership soon. I will also move to a new house.