New Years in Lebanon

We have returned from our New Years adventure in Lebanon. It was a great way to ring in the New Year. A small posh restaurant, owned by a friend, in Beirut was the site of New Years Eve. 10 of us gathered and gorged on an all-inclusive 9 course meal for the hrs that remained of 2009. After the dinner we went across the street to a bar called, Chaos, and partied the night away. It must have been 6 am when we arrived back at the Beverly Hotel downtown Beirut. The next day we grabbed lunch, hopped into our waiting taxi van (7 person) and headed for Mt. Lebanon for our next adventure at Cedars Ski Resort. The drive took us along Lebanon's West Coast for 2 hrs then into the mountain area that resembled that of the Canadian Rockies, or at least what we remember of them. We spent the next day on the slopes learning again how to ski and snowboard only this time it included dodging boulders, jagged rocks, and chunks of ice. The ski hill had not seen a lot of snow this season and so we had to make the most of what we had. Mike and I took the chair lift to the summit and tried our luck at getting down in one piece. We managed; but not before falling many times on pure ice-glaciers that polluted the entire slope. The edge of our snowboard did not exist and therefore we were unable to have much control over what we were going or where we were going. Adding to this was the 100 km/h wind that we headed directly into on the ride down. This helped slow us down....I suppose? All in all a good day, actually a great day as none of us have seen snow in 2 years. We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. The next day we jammed into a taxi van once again and headed on a 14 hr journey to two of Lebanon's largest tourist attractions. Anjar was the first stop. It is one of the few un-mayyad sites in the world. This site existed during the 8th century A.D and only flourished for a few decades. What is interesting is the city was discovered by mistake in 1943 when archeologists from turkey were excavating the area for a different reason. It is full of large monuments and pillars that show a glimpse of what the city once looked like.

Our next stop was Baalbek. This is another site of a very old civilization. It is famous for its exquisitely detailed yet monumentally scaled temple ruins of the Roman period, when Baalbek, known as Heliopoliswas one of the largest sanctuaries in the Empire. It is Lebanon's greatest Roman treasure, and it can be counted among the wonders of the ancient world. The largest and most noble Roman temples ever built, they are also among the best preserved. It was a great piece of history that 5 history teachers in our group got to experience . For the rest of us it was just simply amazing! After a few hrs of exploring we headed back 2hrs to Beirut and checked in at the airport. Our 11:45 pm flight landed us back in Kuwait at 4am. Teaching started at 7, so needless to say there were 10 VERY tired teachers that day at school. Another trip, and country to check off the list with many more memories and stories to tell. Pictures will follow as soon as I find where Kelly put the camera. Check back within 24 hrs for the visuals.

-Ryan-