Kidnap Capital World Tour Day Sixteen
A Day Tripper in Beirut
I have finally hit pay dirt. I signed up for a trip which advertised it would go to less traveled places around the world, and the place which most attracted me was Beirut. The Paris of the Middle East was calling to me and after all these years I was coming. Well---I received a sketchy letter from Stanford about a month ago hemming and hawing about their UK security team feeling that Beirut might prove too dangerous to overnight the private jet. That maybe we the travelers would be more comfortable in Cyprus, and MAYBE we could take a ''day trip'' to Beirut. The money was nonrefundable at this time. I had already realized that an extra day had been tacked onto Saudi Arabia for us to be paying unpaid goodwill ambassadors from Stanford to The Kingdom (as self-important Saudi Arabia calls itself). Three miserable days in the most repressive, going downhill fast place in the world, a place I first visited in 1980 when women could drive and did not have to wear long black robes and head coverings. Now, it is all lip service, and women are in worse shape than three decades ago. Three days in that hell hole, only to have Beirut relegated to a day trip, with the group shacked up at the very fake Four Seasons in Cyprus (no relation to THE Four Seasons Hotel chain). Have you ever been to Cyprus? It is a beautiful place, not unlike California, where the Russians go to vacation and launder money. The Four Seasons Hotel in Beirut (where we were supposed to stay) overlooks the Mediterranean and is gorgeous. The city is beautiful, built on hills, with Greek, Phoenician and Roman ruins amid bullet ridden ancient churches and mosques. Bombed out buildings from the 1975-1991 Civil War stand beside new structures, and every designer you can name has a shop. The food is good, the people don't suffer fools gladly and children are everywhere, playing in the streets and happy. Happy--the operative word--in spite of all that has gone down in Beirut, these people love their city, and are proud that once again they have rebuilt it. OK, so we have spent the night drinking and feasting and dancing in Cyprus, trying to shake off Saudi Arabia. Even Little Missy was hauled onto the dance floor to help with a magic glass trick involving stacking ten wine glasses on top of each other on the head of a man, and then putting a tray of ten filled wine glasses on top of that and then a bottle of wine on top of that. When the magic tricks are brought out, look for the cover up.
So---we get ourselves into the private jet this morning with two thirds wheezing and sneezing and coughing. It is bloody awful thinking that you might get sick because nearly everyone else is. But we land in Beirut. The weather is amazing and it does feel like a kidnap capital! Some Germans were just kidnapped three days ago! Armed soldiers are everywhere---and the passport guy is winking at me! This is my kind of place. We have a look around. There are some seriously bombed out places. The Green Zone is the line of demarcation between the Christian and the Muslim neighborhood, where the most recent troubles began. We go to the National Museum and I take photographs of two ancient mosaics for my son Michael--the Seven Pre-Socratic Philosophers and the Birth of Alexander the Great. These were dug up in Beirut's back yard, along with all the other antiquities, and were preserved by a very savvy and dedicated museum director during the last civil war, when warring factions were trying to bomb, loot, plunder and destroy the museum and everything in it. He basically had concrete poured over everything--and he saved a lot of stuff. We go the the tomb site of the prime minister who was assassinated in 2005. Serious site with his grave and those of his body guards. It is maintained by his family who vow to keep it open to the public until the case is solved. That means until Assad gets kicked out--but wait--that's our perspective, or the American and Friends of America perspective. Apparently there are a lot of people who like Assad and want him to stay, despite the fact that he's running Syria into the ground. We look at old, beautiful churches, mosques, monuments. The bullet holes are impressive. I remember a Beirut photographer at couture show for Lebanese born Elie Saab a few seasons back who said to me, "If you don't like the show, do what we do in Beirut. Shoot someone". Lunch is chaotic and plentiful in an outdoor restaurant in the old neighborhood that vaguely resembles Paris. Members of my group are complaining about the disorganization of the meal, but I am thinking that this is exactly what Beirut is all about. The job gets done, on Beirut time, and if you don't like it, too bad.
For reasons I don't know, we are finally shown the place we were supposed to stay, The Beirut Four Seasons Hotel, and it is so heart stoppingly beautiful, the hotel, the location, the boats and yachts and the Mediterranean and sunshine that everyone is groaning. Luxurious, chaotic, kidnap capital of the world, please stay relatively stable. I want to return as soon as I can.
A Day Tripper in Beirut
I have finally hit pay dirt. I signed up for a trip which advertised it would go to less traveled places around the world, and the place which most attracted me was Beirut. The Paris of the Middle East was calling to me and after all these years I was coming. Well---I received a sketchy letter from Stanford about a month ago hemming and hawing about their UK security team feeling that Beirut might prove too dangerous to overnight the private jet. That maybe we the travelers would be more comfortable in Cyprus, and MAYBE we could take a ''day trip'' to Beirut. The money was nonrefundable at this time. I had already realized that an extra day had been tacked onto Saudi Arabia for us to be paying unpaid goodwill ambassadors from Stanford to The Kingdom (as self-important Saudi Arabia calls itself). Three miserable days in the most repressive, going downhill fast place in the world, a place I first visited in 1980 when women could drive and did not have to wear long black robes and head coverings. Now, it is all lip service, and women are in worse shape than three decades ago. Three days in that hell hole, only to have Beirut relegated to a day trip, with the group shacked up at the very fake Four Seasons in Cyprus (no relation to THE Four Seasons Hotel chain). Have you ever been to Cyprus? It is a beautiful place, not unlike California, where the Russians go to vacation and launder money. The Four Seasons Hotel in Beirut (where we were supposed to stay) overlooks the Mediterranean and is gorgeous. The city is beautiful, built on hills, with Greek, Phoenician and Roman ruins amid bullet ridden ancient churches and mosques. Bombed out buildings from the 1975-1991 Civil War stand beside new structures, and every designer you can name has a shop. The food is good, the people don't suffer fools gladly and children are everywhere, playing in the streets and happy. Happy--the operative word--in spite of all that has gone down in Beirut, these people love their city, and are proud that once again they have rebuilt it. OK, so we have spent the night drinking and feasting and dancing in Cyprus, trying to shake off Saudi Arabia. Even Little Missy was hauled onto the dance floor to help with a magic glass trick involving stacking ten wine glasses on top of each other on the head of a man, and then putting a tray of ten filled wine glasses on top of that and then a bottle of wine on top of that. When the magic tricks are brought out, look for the cover up.
So---we get ourselves into the private jet this morning with two thirds wheezing and sneezing and coughing. It is bloody awful thinking that you might get sick because nearly everyone else is. But we land in Beirut. The weather is amazing and it does feel like a kidnap capital! Some Germans were just kidnapped three days ago! Armed soldiers are everywhere---and the passport guy is winking at me! This is my kind of place. We have a look around. There are some seriously bombed out places. The Green Zone is the line of demarcation between the Christian and the Muslim neighborhood, where the most recent troubles began. We go to the National Museum and I take photographs of two ancient mosaics for my son Michael--the Seven Pre-Socratic Philosophers and the Birth of Alexander the Great. These were dug up in Beirut's back yard, along with all the other antiquities, and were preserved by a very savvy and dedicated museum director during the last civil war, when warring factions were trying to bomb, loot, plunder and destroy the museum and everything in it. He basically had concrete poured over everything--and he saved a lot of stuff. We go the the tomb site of the prime minister who was assassinated in 2005. Serious site with his grave and those of his body guards. It is maintained by his family who vow to keep it open to the public until the case is solved. That means until Assad gets kicked out--but wait--that's our perspective, or the American and Friends of America perspective. Apparently there are a lot of people who like Assad and want him to stay, despite the fact that he's running Syria into the ground. We look at old, beautiful churches, mosques, monuments. The bullet holes are impressive. I remember a Beirut photographer at couture show for Lebanese born Elie Saab a few seasons back who said to me, "If you don't like the show, do what we do in Beirut. Shoot someone". Lunch is chaotic and plentiful in an outdoor restaurant in the old neighborhood that vaguely resembles Paris. Members of my group are complaining about the disorganization of the meal, but I am thinking that this is exactly what Beirut is all about. The job gets done, on Beirut time, and if you don't like it, too bad.
For reasons I don't know, we are finally shown the place we were supposed to stay, The Beirut Four Seasons Hotel, and it is so heart stoppingly beautiful, the hotel, the location, the boats and yachts and the Mediterranean and sunshine that everyone is groaning. Luxurious, chaotic, kidnap capital of the world, please stay relatively stable. I want to return as soon as I can.
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