So, on Saturday I went to Jeita Grotto with the guys from my class. We took a taxi there, it's pretty close to the university. There are two parts: An upper Grotto and a lower Grotto. We took a cable car up the upper Grotto, and unfortunately you are not allowed to take pictures inside. It is unfortunate, because I kid you not, it was one of the coolest things I have ever seen. Look it up if you don't believe me: Jeita Grotto. You can find pictures on Google. It was immense. It's a huge Grotto (of course) just covered in stalactites and stalagmites. It almost looks unreal, like the rock formations are soft piles of sand or something. Like a dribble castle. It was also really tall and the walkway climbs up and up and you can look down and see through to the lower Grotto which is full of water. So we walked through that and then walked down to the lower Grotto. On the way there was a statue of Jesus looking very spritely, reclining between two beams. I'll put up a picture of it. Anyways, we were taking pictures and over heard this Lebanese guy say: "In Lebanon Jesus isn't crucified. He naps." Very funny.
So we walked down (there was also a cartoonish "train" that you could take but it was full, and not really a train because it had no tracks.) In the lower Grotto it's full of water, like I said, you take a little boat through it. In case you weren't sure, that made it 10 times cooler.
After that we went back to the university and later watched the Germany Argentina game in which Germany embarrassed the hell out of Argentina. Insha'allah, Germany wins tomorrow night and then will win in the Final on Sunday.
Yesterday I had Arabic and worked and that was good. Arabic is going quickly, so it's a lot of work, but good work. I am really hoping that at some point, insha'allah, I'll be able to communicate in Arabic. It takes a lot of work to be able to actually have a conversation in another language. It took me a long time to get there with German and I still need to get better at it. (If anyone knows of jobs in Germany, let me know.)
Today the university was closed because the Grand Ayatollah Sayyed Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah died. He was the spiritual head of the Lebanese Shiites (for anyone who doesn't know, Shiites are Muslims. Shia Islam is one of the main branches of Islam, the other being Sunni Islam), and kind of the spiritual leader of Hezbollah (Hezbollah is the Party of God. Perhaps I already mentioned them, but they are the only faction in Lebanon not to disarm as per the 1989 agreement at the end of the civil war. They were the group that kidnapped Israeli soldiers in 2006, precipitating the Israel invasion and subsequent war.) He died of natural causes at 75, just FYI. So today there was a huge funeral in the Shiite suburbs of Beirut. It would have been cool to go, but we didn't. Actually the country observed a day of mourning, so all the universities and what have you were closed. We did go to Beirut today, just to walk around and what not. Tomorrow it's back to work and school. This is my fifth week here, it is flying by. Zibby comes to visit next week and we are planning to see the Ceder reserves and climb the tallest peak in Lebanon. Then the week after that my friend Valeria, whom I met in Morocco last year, who is Italian, might come for her holidays to Lebanon so we might do some sight seeing as well. Busy, busy.
Today we saw a lot of people fishing on the coast in Beirut and it reminded me of something from Morocco: I lived with this family right? The mother, and her three adult children: Sabir, Abul Aziz and I can't remember the daughters name! And the daughters son (baby) Redeh. And Mohammed, another student from the school. Anyways, on the weekends Sabir and Abul Aziz would go fishing on the coast in Rabat. Sabir was the younger son (I think) and Abul Aziz was actually his half brother. And so they would spend all day on Saturday fishing. And no joke, Sabir would catch like 20 fish and Abul Aziz wouldn't catch anything. Isn't that funny (not funny haha)? The half brother didn't catch anything and the full son was very good at fishing? It's like something out of a Grimm's fairytale. Anyways, being here makes me think a lot about Morocco. In some ways they are similar and in some ways they are very different.
Anyways.
So we walked down (there was also a cartoonish "train" that you could take but it was full, and not really a train because it had no tracks.) In the lower Grotto it's full of water, like I said, you take a little boat through it. In case you weren't sure, that made it 10 times cooler.
After that we went back to the university and later watched the Germany Argentina game in which Germany embarrassed the hell out of Argentina. Insha'allah, Germany wins tomorrow night and then will win in the Final on Sunday.
Yesterday I had Arabic and worked and that was good. Arabic is going quickly, so it's a lot of work, but good work. I am really hoping that at some point, insha'allah, I'll be able to communicate in Arabic. It takes a lot of work to be able to actually have a conversation in another language. It took me a long time to get there with German and I still need to get better at it. (If anyone knows of jobs in Germany, let me know.)
Today the university was closed because the Grand Ayatollah Sayyed Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah died. He was the spiritual head of the Lebanese Shiites (for anyone who doesn't know, Shiites are Muslims. Shia Islam is one of the main branches of Islam, the other being Sunni Islam), and kind of the spiritual leader of Hezbollah (Hezbollah is the Party of God. Perhaps I already mentioned them, but they are the only faction in Lebanon not to disarm as per the 1989 agreement at the end of the civil war. They were the group that kidnapped Israeli soldiers in 2006, precipitating the Israel invasion and subsequent war.) He died of natural causes at 75, just FYI. So today there was a huge funeral in the Shiite suburbs of Beirut. It would have been cool to go, but we didn't. Actually the country observed a day of mourning, so all the universities and what have you were closed. We did go to Beirut today, just to walk around and what not. Tomorrow it's back to work and school. This is my fifth week here, it is flying by. Zibby comes to visit next week and we are planning to see the Ceder reserves and climb the tallest peak in Lebanon. Then the week after that my friend Valeria, whom I met in Morocco last year, who is Italian, might come for her holidays to Lebanon so we might do some sight seeing as well. Busy, busy.
Today we saw a lot of people fishing on the coast in Beirut and it reminded me of something from Morocco: I lived with this family right? The mother, and her three adult children: Sabir, Abul Aziz and I can't remember the daughters name! And the daughters son (baby) Redeh. And Mohammed, another student from the school. Anyways, on the weekends Sabir and Abul Aziz would go fishing on the coast in Rabat. Sabir was the younger son (I think) and Abul Aziz was actually his half brother. And so they would spend all day on Saturday fishing. And no joke, Sabir would catch like 20 fish and Abul Aziz wouldn't catch anything. Isn't that funny (not funny haha)? The half brother didn't catch anything and the full son was very good at fishing? It's like something out of a Grimm's fairytale. Anyways, being here makes me think a lot about Morocco. In some ways they are similar and in some ways they are very different.
Anyways.
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