May 2011 - Lebanon [Beirut]

The next day we finally made it to Beirut to check out the city. Meagan and I took a taxi downtown and grabbed lunch at a cute little cafe...

I was really surprised at how new a lot of the buildings and area is in Beirut. I'm not really sure what I expected, actually. But I didn't expect it to be so modern and high fashion. Some call it "the Paris of the Middle East"....

Of course there are still buildings like these from the years of war that Lebanon has sustained - a building with tons of gun holes.

But you can tell they have been doing a lot of rebuilding. And there are some beautiful buildings, churches, and mosques. Lebanon is about 40% Christian and 60% Muslim. Before going, I actually thought it would have a higher Muslim population than that.

Meagan and I were walking around and we ran into Uncle Greg, Jen, Elias and Mel....

Clock in the center of the city

Trying to get a picture of the police that roam the streets with machine guns.

The Al-Omari Mosque....I think it was originally a Cathedral that was later transformed into a Mosque.

Pigeons Rock (Raouche)

Getting some delicious Schawarma!

Some more pictures of the Grand Mosque......

We hung out in the city for a while... walked around...sat at another cafe. And then finally took a taxi back to the convent. Meagan was starving so she got some McD's on the way home...

And then we crashed. It was a good day. Great city.