Some Pictures from Lebanon

Well, as I think I made clear from my older posts, I loved my time in Beirut. Unfortunately, the internet connections that I had access to were a little slow making updating the blog hard and putting pictures from Beirut up on my blog impossible. Well, now I seem to have faster access to the internet and can put up pictures. So here they are, a little dated, but nice.....

The first picture is my on the route from the main road to Will's home. Will moved since the last time I was there and now he is living in a beautiful house that has balconies, lots of windows, sunlight, and Syrian turtles living on the roof. The only downfall to the apartment is that you have to walk up a pretty steep hill and then a bunch of stairs to get to his house. Fortunately, the path is quite beautiful, as you can see below:


Will and I took many walks around Beirut while I was there. One day we headed to the northern part of the city. On the way, we saw a man selling Christian paraphernalia and plastic flowers that he had decorated his car with. When I expressed interest in taking a picture he added even more flowers to add to the beauty of the picture. This is him and the flowers:


We also took a day trip to Tripoli. Fortunately, we went a week before the conflict began there. It was a really nice city. I enjoyed the, what seemed to me to be, a calmer pace than Beirut. There was quite a nice old part of the city that we wandered around. While we were there we met a very nice woman that makes soap. We also walked around and looked for a castle, but unfortunately, could not find it. This is a picture of part the old city with some boys taking a break from playing soccer.


Will and I also took a trip to the south. There we visited a castle that was built by the Crusaders and later used by the Ottomans. It was really fun to wander around the castle, climbing staircases, and exploring nooks and crannies. Below is a picture of Will at the castle: