I am exhausted. Exhausted, exhausted, exhausted. Tired. Knackered. And all because I was away for a measly weekend. Just one little measly weekend when I flitted from here to Abu Dhabi to see Stevie Wonder in concert and then on to Beirut for a bit of clubbing. What a spectacular concert - Stevie began the evening writhing on the ground with the portable electric piano (it has a special name - anyone know?) and ended bashing in spectacular fashion on the drums. If you weren't there, then you missed out on a lot. What the hell is wrong with you? I cannot understand how someone can know that Stevie Wonder is going to perform in Abu Dhabi and not go. IT’S STEVIE WONDER DAMMIT. Ever since I knew Stevie was coming over, I've been flying around and on my perch singing his songs. Everywhere.
I had a lovely time in Beirut. The first night we were there, we walked up Gemayzeh, which is the nightlife street and at the end, near the Armenian bit, came upon a sign that pointed up some steep steps. The sign said, in Arabic “Grotto of the Lady With The Wondrous Tits”. Really. Not joking. We went into an arty shop just down from the sign and asked the nice people there what the sign was about. They didn’t have a clue. The next day, we climbed the steep steps, 99 (or was it 199) in all and didn’t find anything at the top, just a pleasant street with pleasant houses. Everybody, please do some googling and find out WHO this wondrous lady is. More on that later.
We then visited Baalbek, I always find it spectacular there and Armadilla really enjoyed it as it was her first visit. After that, we headed for Shams restaurant in Anjar, famous, and had a lovely lunch there. The waiter was terrible though and I called him Bu-Tumba which means fatso in Kuwaiti. We could never get his attention, he forgot our orders, brought the wrong things and omitted to give us standard things like that complimentary platter of greens and bread. But when the bill came,Bu-Tumba was suddenly charm, smiles and cheer. Rowella and Armadilla both said “DON’T GIVE HIM A TIP”, so I didn’t and he graced us with an evil look that could kill, then tried to block Armadilla from leaving but she elbowed him aside and we left.
The evening, we were shattered but took ourselves out at 8 PM and walked all the way to Gemayzeh again, for a bit of revelry although we were a bit feeble for revelry. Rowella recommended a place called Kashmir and we sat there quietly for an hour or so but perked up a lot when the Lychee “juice” came and we were dancing by the the time it was time for us to leave. The next morning we visited the Jeita caves half of which were closed (due to floods someone said) but the half that was open was amazing and there were only a few people there. Extremely noisy, loud, people but they didn’t stay long.And that was that. On my perch now, feeling sullen.
Oh, it’s Mother’s Day today, according to some. There are so many Mother’s Day’s aren’t there. Today’s one of them, an American one I think, or is it Egyptian? No English!?We tried to find the soppiest, corniest, ugh-iest, silkiest, cringiest card we could find but we didn’t have to look far as we found one free in the Arab Times. Wasn’t that clever? HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY!!!!!!
I had a lovely time in Beirut. The first night we were there, we walked up Gemayzeh, which is the nightlife street and at the end, near the Armenian bit, came upon a sign that pointed up some steep steps. The sign said, in Arabic “Grotto of the Lady With The Wondrous Tits”. Really. Not joking. We went into an arty shop just down from the sign and asked the nice people there what the sign was about. They didn’t have a clue. The next day, we climbed the steep steps, 99 (or was it 199) in all and didn’t find anything at the top, just a pleasant street with pleasant houses. Everybody, please do some googling and find out WHO this wondrous lady is. More on that later.
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Pigeon's Rock - Lebanon |
Another fun thing on our first evening in Beirut was to go to a concert of the Beirut Symphony Orchestra playing Classical Arabic compositions. It was very good. The crowd of course was typical, traipsing in late, walking out in the middle, to-ing and fro-ing. It’s a different perception of what things are and how they should be done, isn’t it. After the concert we wandered down the road, heading for Gemayzeh, when we came upon Falafel Sahyoun which, according to Rowella, is one of the best falafel joints in the town. It sure was, they were scrumptious and we ate the standing up, in front of the restaurant extractor fan which then gave us a very nice aroma which followed us into Lakay, a very nice salsa bar. All the young people dancing in there kept a distance from us, due to the smell of frying falafel I expect.
We visited Ksara, a famous winery in the Bekaa, then next day and tottered out after sampling the wares. The caves there are amazing, they have 2 kilometres of them, with hundreds of oak barrels. We then visited Baalbek, I always find it spectacular there and Armadilla really enjoyed it as it was her first visit. After that, we headed for Shams restaurant in Anjar, famous, and had a lovely lunch there. The waiter was terrible though and I called him Bu-Tumba which means fatso in Kuwaiti. We could never get his attention, he forgot our orders, brought the wrong things and omitted to give us standard things like that complimentary platter of greens and bread. But when the bill came,Bu-Tumba was suddenly charm, smiles and cheer. Rowella and Armadilla both said “DON’T GIVE HIM A TIP”, so I didn’t and he graced us with an evil look that could kill, then tried to block Armadilla from leaving but she elbowed him aside and we left.
The evening, we were shattered but took ourselves out at 8 PM and walked all the way to Gemayzeh again, for a bit of revelry although we were a bit feeble for revelry. Rowella recommended a place called Kashmir and we sat there quietly for an hour or so but perked up a lot when the Lychee “juice” came and we were dancing by the the time it was time for us to leave. The next morning we visited the Jeita caves half of which were closed (due to floods someone said) but the half that was open was amazing and there were only a few people there. Extremely noisy, loud, people but they didn’t stay long.And that was that. On my perch now, feeling sullen.
Oh, it’s Mother’s Day today, according to some. There are so many Mother’s Day’s aren’t there. Today’s one of them, an American one I think, or is it Egyptian? No English!?We tried to find the soppiest, corniest, ugh-iest, silkiest, cringiest card we could find but we didn’t have to look far as we found one free in the Arab Times. Wasn’t that clever? HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY!!!!!!
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