What happens in Beirut, stays in Beirut: Day One

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The taxi merges into traffic on a busy, dusty street in Amman. People are moving about everywhere, shopkeepers displaying their goods, and children running around. The air is hot and busy and moves through the open windows swirling my hair around my face. Just having taken a bus to Amman after class my friend Robin and I grabbed some dinner in the center of town. We spent the whole time laughing and talking and as the taxi drove off to the airport, and as I was surrounded by this city a feeling washed over me that I was truly at the center of the world. I felt as if I was at the true center of humanity, and that I was connected to everyone and everything, that there was something remarkably common in the world and I had found it. I smiled as the wind whipped my hair and the sun made everything too hot to stand.

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Thousands of miles in the air, we flew through the night sky across the Middle East. I saw Amman and Damascus spread out in intricate designs of streets and circles. The glittering pop of fireworks covered the ground as wedding celebrations took place. Even the areas between the cities, which normally look like empty desert, were dotted with lights and the evidence of people. The land was anything but empty. As we came upon Beirut the plane moves out across the Mediterranean and flies in low along the city. Skyscrapers and high-rise hotels cover the coast line as the city races into the mountains going up, up up. Again, fireworks everywhere and more signs of celebration. Colored lights everywhere. Even in the darkness of night I could tell this was a vibrant city, and one that I was already falling in love with.

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The first night was a borderline tourist nightmare, which means it turned out fabulous and very memorable. As Robin and I flew into the city our companions Austin and Meilakh were driving in from Syria and we were to meet them at our hotel that we had reserved. As soon as Robin and I land we went to go grab some Lebanese pounds or livers and go to the hotel. Problem one: we have no idea what the exchange rate is, so when I popped my card into the ATM my options were given to me in the the thousands, and let me tell you- nothing is more nerve racking then taking 300,000 out of an ATM!! Quote of the night, "I don't know what the hell a livers is but I have hundreds of thousands of them now!!" Problem 2: Besides the crazy taxi driver that I thought would kill us on the way to the hotel, the hotel didn't have any rooms for us. It turns out our friend had forgotten to confirm the reservation. Problem 3: Austin and Meilakh were still driving and had not met us yet, and there was no way of telling when they would get in because of the land borders, so we tried calling them up. Our phones didn't work in Lebanon. So, off the Plan B: another hotel we looked up called the Mayflower. Problem 4: Plan B doesn't work. The Mayflower doesn't have any rooms available, and the very nice concierge guy called all of the ones in the area and everything was booked. He could get us a room for the next night starting early in the morning so he let us lock our things up there and told us to "go out and celebrate" and come back in the morning. By this point Robin and I figured we were never going to find Meilakh and Austin and that we were on our own, and that once they arrived in town would come to the same conclusion as well. So what do you do in a situation like this? Go to a bar and drink whiskey.

Luckily after the whiskey I decided to check my phone (see the whiskey helped!!) and alas text messages work even when calls fail (anyone care to explain?). Now, just in case you ever have to coordinate a cross-town hotel-meet-up in a foreign place when you have no idea what you are doing, do what we did and laugh a lot and in sha allah everything will work out. Alas we rested up the night in Port View hotel and I only woke up once wondering where the hell I was and who are these people I'm surrounded by? And falling back asleep I couldn't be happier to be in such a wonderful place with some amazing new friends.

*In the photo: Me, Austin, Meilakh, and Robin