knitting en route to beirut.

I'm a travel knitter because that's when I get most of my knitting done. Two weekends ago, on a roadtrip to soutwestern virginia on 81 (6 hours down, 6 hours back), I decided that I would name my knit work after the roads/connections they were made on. My next big knitting spurt was later last week on a plane trip to Beirut. With almost 8 hours on one flight, 5 on the next, and rare quiet moments here, I have had plenty of time to pull out my needles and work. But now that we're in Beirut, no road trip knitting for me since I do all the driving!

So, in these past two trips I've made out with one umbilical cord hat (started on 81, finished in Paris), two bulky hats (first one made on 81 south, second on the flight to Paris), half of a man hat (still in progress), and the beginnings of another man hat. Yes, lots of hats...I'm a travelling haberdashery.

Between the knitting, I had time to think about how similar the highways of VA and Charles De Gaulle airport are. The chaos on either makes absolutely no sense to me. They must have been designed by the same person.

I left my gocco in dc, but brought plenty of sketchbooks and am working on some ideas for when I get back. The first few days here were a lot of fun. I even got to check out an art gallery (oops...link fixed!) in downtown Beirut.

Here is a view from my apartment in Beirut:


















Here is a view from my house in the mountains:


















And here is a photo inside Beiteddine:


















The whole country shut down Monday morning when another pro-lebanese journalist was killed by a car bomb. So sad.