The Trip Diaries: The Time We Did Beirut - On the Way Back

And just when you think you eluded one messed up driver, who incidentally sent D 2 text messages and called her to try and talk us into going back with him, you end up going back with someone worse: he gets all kinds of gifts, clothes, vegetable and fruit from Beirut and Syria, fills up the trunk with this stuff, makes a 100 stops an hour, and talks non-stop, the Arabic expression to this would be: بالع راديو.

As we headed out of Beirut, towards Dahr l Baydar, we needed to be pacified because we were in the middle of a snow storm; the streets were filled with dirty snow that goes up to half of your wheel, not to mention the persistent and not so-easy snowfall. It was dark that morning, and the driver reassured us that he took some precautionary measures that I'm not sure I understood, all the while we were listening to the radio and the piece about that Ethiopia-bound plane comes out, and suddenly grief took over me, simply because the depressive nature of hearing about disasters which human beings are part of but can do nothing about makes me feel helpless.

Now. Smoking. The nastiest thing of all, as the driver on the way to Beirut also did; smoking in a car that has no windows open. And of course there weren't any windows opened, only merely cracked, with the speed he was going at. Smoking in confined compartments is simply a retarded and ignorant thing to do; the wish of the smoker not to die alone, but to split his death, with others, half-half (while the Cuckoo Judge would laugh).

After we left the snow at both the Lebanese and Syrian borders, we encountered lots of sunshine throughout Syria, after which, we encountered lots of rain upon our arrival in Amman. I thought, "at least I got to see the snow this winter, I've seen it, smelt it, heard it, felt it and tasted it". Although some people find snow unpleasant, I find it very pleasant, but only the way it snows in Amman; it's like rain, but it's snow. It doesn't imprison people, doesn't stop us from going out and getting on with our daily routines and it still looks like little drops from heaven. But the way I encountered all kinds of weather, from scorching sun to frost-biting snow in less than 6 hours, is just not right. The Middle East needs this one thing to top all its troubles... Global warming, let's all die of weather.

I think these trips are a healthy way to maintain our sanity.

I've got nothing more to say about this trip, except that I can't wait to see where winds will take me next time.