Hey look, I started a Blog!!!!

It's a beautiful day in sunny Beirut (18C). As I keep saying to friends back home, when was the last time you got to eat outside and roam around (at night) without a jacket or sweater in mid-November? [Hopefully, global warming will not cause this to be a common occurrence in The Great White North.] Last week, on my "30 minus 1" birthday, Glenn and I had dinner on the terrace of a restaurant downtown at 8:30 at night!

As promised I have started a Blog, mostly to post pictures and tell funny stories. I also promised my former French teacher (Florian, I know you are out there!) that I would try my hand at posting to my Blog en francais (it is embarrassing as I don't know how to get accents on this blogging program). True to my word, I will try this from time to time. Those of you who are francophone, please forgive me in advance.

I have now been Living La Vida Lebanese for a month, and I would like to share with you some of my initial (non-political) impressions. Here they are, in no particular order:

(1) Other than a few isolated and politically-motivated incidents, Beirut is truly a safe city for locals and tourists alike. I have never been worried about walking around alone, and have never been harrassed (except by taxi drivers wanting to offer me a ride). This is more than I can say for any Canadian city that I have ever lived in. The warmth and hospitality of the Lebanese people rival those of Canadian Maritimers.

(2) Come to think of it, I have to add something to my first observation above. Beirut is truly a safe city... except if you decide to drive. Some of the shenanigans pulled by the drivers in this town are mind-boggling, if not outright insane. Lanes? Traffic lights? Speed limits? One-way streets??? They are, at best, suggestions. Don't even get Glenn started on drivers who (a) create another lane where there is only a shoulder; and (b) create right/left-hand turning lanes where they don't exist.

(3) Lebanese people put Canadians to shame in terms of their mastery of Canada's two official languages, as well as their own. Many of the Lebanese people that I have met speak English, French and Arabic interchangeably. And their French is impeccable. If you query them, they will tell you that Canadians are lovely people, but that we are rather laissez-faire with our spoken English and French. Hey, we prefer to think of ourselves as "easy going" rather than lazy-fare!

(4) You can get ANYTHING delivered to your home (in terms of food) from just about any restaurant in town. That includes McDonald's and Burger King. Quite often, there is no minimum amount for which they will agree to deliver. And yes, they DO have KFC -- but they have never heard of GRAVY (as evidenced by the rather puzzled query: "Gravy? What eez dis?" when Glenn tried to order it from the KFC delivery line).

(5) Related to the above note about condiments and sauces, garlic sauce (a la Georgie and Sorrento's in Ottawa) flows like water here. They like to eat it with their fries. Oh, and speaking of fries... they put FRIES in their chicken shawarma!!! I was skeptical at first, but I find that the fries do add "an extra oomph".

(6) Although the Lebanese are generally a friendly and cosmopolitan people, for some reason they have trouble spelling the name "Glenn". Receipts have come back with his name spelled "Gramm" or even better "Miss Glen". And I am known among the Lebanese as "Shir-lee". I have tried to correct them, but to no avail. I have certainly been called worse!

Anyway, now that this Blog is up, I will be posting pictures to it very soon (possibly tonight if I can swing it). And there will certainly be more funny stories to come. So stay tuned.