Dinner toether in Beirut!

Zaitunay Bay, the harbor, in downtown Beirut.

Gorgeous skyline of offices & high end apartment buildings. Yachts. Restaurants & cafes with indoor and outdoor seating along a family friendly dock from which you can feed bread to eagerly waiting schools of large catfish.

Evening view from our balcony.

The church is the Saint Maroun Maronite Church. Built in 1875.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maron

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maronite_Church

Church of the Armenian Orthodox. View from Saifi Village.

Playground at the American University of Beirut.

http://www.aub.edu.lb/Pages/default.aspx

Christmas decorations at the ABC Mall in Achrafieh.

Amazing little village with mechanized/moving parts... Mary cradling Jesus, a woman stirring a pot over a fire, a baker rolling the dough...

(The third wise man was to the right, out of the frame.)

The Christmas decorations in the small lobby area of our apartment building.

Yuppie Park

Locally better known as Sanayeh Park.

“...is located in the Sanayeh district of Beirut, Lebanon. The garden is one of the oldest public open-air spaces in the capital. Khalil Pasha (1864-1923), commander of the Turkish Sixth Army during World War I ordered the creation of the garden in 1907.”

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9_Moawad_Garden

The Mohammad Al-Amin Mosque. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad_Al-Amin_Mosque

We are moving apartments - leaving Saifi Village and going to Hamra.

Around the AUB campus...

We like Hamra! A cool mix of eclectic shops & eateries! We can walk to two playgrounds (the only two in downtown Beirut), the grocery store, the Corniche, and many other places. It’s busy, lots of traffic in the evenings, but we like the vibe a lot better than Saifi Village which felt stiff, new, pretentious. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamra,_Beirut

In our Hamra apartment.

Jamey’s birthday!!

Christmas 2017

Road trip!

Jamey’s contract officially ends tomorrow, and as we don’t want to stay in Beirut for the loud New Year’s festivities and as we want to experience other parts of Lebanon beyond the capital city... we rented a car and borrowed car seats and we’re heading north and then northwest to Smar Jbeil, Bcharri, and Byblos.

Peanut butter & fig jam on the biggest, flattest bread we’ve ever seen. I think this Lebanese bread is called khubz markouk. And, the homemade fig jam (made by our AirBnB host) was DELICIOUS.

Citadelle de Smar Jbeil

The castle - or fort? - of Smar Jbeil.

http://livelovelebanon.com/en/smar-jbeil

“Most of the historians recognize that the castle was built by the Phoenicians, and was under the Persian Empire control in 555 B.C. It passed to the hands of Alexander of Macedon's (the Great) in 331 B.C.” - Wikipedia

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smar_Jbeil

Rainbow on the drive from Smar Jbeil to Bcharri.

First beer for the birthday boy 😉

Cedars of God

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cedars_of_God

Face plates and twinsies.

River Roc restaurant, downtown Bcharri.

Delicious. Best Lebanese food we’ve had so far.

Breakfast at a small mom & pop cafe in downtown Bsharri. The pizza-looking “man’ousheh” are thin breads cooked on a grill or in a really hot gas oven and covered in cheese, meat and/or veggies, and/or herbs. (No tomato sauce). Yum. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manakish

Bcharri and Kadesha Valley.

Bcharri.

Byblos. Downtown old Byblos is so cool! In case of any confusion, the old name for Byblos is Jbeil.

“It is one of the cities suggested as the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world and the site has been continuously inhabited since 5000 BC. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.”

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byblos

Byblos old souks. “Souks” means shops or market (collection of shops).

https://theculturetrip.com/middle-east/lebanon/articles/this-is-why-the-old-souk-market-in-byblos-lebanon-is-such-a-tourist-hot-spot/

The Byblos Castle/Fort. Wow. Just wow.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byblos_Castle