Photos :: Knitting :: Down the Mountain

I did all the driving and all the talking in Lebanon, so there weren't many chances to knit or paint besides the plane trip. But it was fun playing tour giude to a car full of friends, including two who had never been there before.

At historic sites, one of the hardest tasks I had was convincing ticket sellers that we were all Lebanese. Foreign tickets are about twice the local price. With a little chit-chat I managed to get local tickets for all of us even though one friend was from Cambodia, another from Sri Lanka, and SA's last name is Hennessey, so you can guess where his ancestry is from.

Even when my arabic was at its best after living there for seven years, people still said I spoke armani. Technically, that means I speak lebanese arabic like the Armenians do. I'm fluent conversationally, but don't ask me to discuss politics or the news, cause thats a whole other language.



Yes, this is the new Clapotis I started on the way there! I knit for hours and hours straight because I couldn't wait till it was time to take out a stitch marker and watch the stitches drop. Since I'm working with a mohair/silk blend, it takes a little fiddling to get the stithes to drop, but its so oh much fun! On the plane ride home I managed to drop four more lines. I also started a few other knitting projects, but don't have any pictures to show, so they'll be in another post!



On our way down from Mir Amin in the Chouf mountains, we stopped by the most tourist-trappy site ever: Moussa Castle. Hydraulic figures, hand carved stones, and oh so cheesy. Extra cheese ponts go to the camel rides outside. The only other camel in the whole country gives camel rides in Baalbeck. There are no deserts there!




Interestingly enough, I found a knitter in the Moussa Castle! See her in the picture on the top left? The image in the middle shows kids looking into a [translated from arabic] trunk of wonders. On the right is one of the best coffee pots I've ever seen!

The silhouette made me smile because it reminded me of artwork on these two blogs. It took me a few tries to guess what the woman was doing: applying lipstick!

Our last stop was a village named Deir el Qamar, which I just found out was the capitol of Lebanon in 1518.




We made it down to Beirut before dark, then in the late evening headed downtown to Buddha Bar. What an awesome place!

Still to come :: Soap museum in Sidon, Hippodrome in Tyre, my art exhibit in Beirut, Crusader's Castle in Tripoli, and if you can't wait, check out the images SA posted by clicking here.

ps...dear friends, I hope this makes up for all the trips I've taken and all the photos you've never seen.