Saturday we were up, ready, and waiting for Nayef to pick us up and drive us to the bus station. It was really helpful and generous of him to do this for us but it kind of sucked that he was quite a bit late and we didn't hop on the bus until noon, arriving in Tripoli at 1:30pm. Oh well, you can't look a gift horse in the mouth. He also gave us the number of Ivana in Tripoli, another Rotaract, which was helpful.

When we arrived Ivana was waiting for us with her boyfriend and we headed out to tour the downtown area and the souks. Then they took us up to the Citadel of Raymond de Saint-Gilles which overlooks the city. The view was gorgeous and the Citadel, which still functions today, was really impressive. We were walking up to the top of the Citadel, up a stone stairwell with no walls or railings, when Rachel again stopped mid step and crawled down. Since when? I know Michigan is pretty flat but I never realized that heights mattered that much to her. At least we had a good laugh about it.

What else? Ivana was in high heeled boots which made our off roading, wall climbing, restricted zone exploring a bit difficult for her, lol. Eventually two of their friends met up with us which was kind of odd at first. Emil and another guy who used to live in Canada. Emil is something like the President of the region's rotaracts or something and I quickly realized they all thought I was involved in Rotary and I actually felt kind of bad saying that actually I am not involved and never even heard of Rotaracts before I came to Jordan. I still talked it up because of course Rotary does a lot of great things, but in the end...no, I am not a member which made me kind of nervous about their feelings as hosts, but it turned out fine.

We went to Shater Hassan Palace for lunch/dinner with the four of them plus one of Ivana's friends and again we had a gorgeous view. It overlooked the Sea and all of Tripoli. The food was also scrumptious and extremely filling. They were dead set on feeding us every possible Lebanese dish in one meal. Hummus, fattoush, mutubbal, tabbouleh, sambousek, kibbeh niyyeh, wara anib, kofta, shish tawook, sweets, etc. 20,000 Lebanese Pounds each. It was a good time. Everyone was really nice and we had a ton of laughs with the guy who used to live in Canada. We is madly in love with Canada so he was excited to talk about it with people who have some relation, aka neighbors.

We said goodbye to Ivana and everyone and hopped in with Emil because he offered to drive us to Byblos and then to Beirut since he was planning to head there for the evening anyway. A highlight on the way to Byblos was two guys on the highway on a scouter. The guy in back was holding a giant flat screen television. Nice. I also developed the catchphrase "fishtastic" based on a series of frozen fish billboards that seemed to be every 5 kilometers along the coast. Meanwhile, Emil developed an allergy to us or something because we was sneezing like every 5 minutes.

Byblos was pretty sweet. It was nice of him to take us because originally we didn't plan to go there at all. We arrived in the dark, walked the souks, saw the churches, and almost got blown off the pier by crazy high winds. Byblos is an old port town so there were boats everywhere and it was generally just super cute. We took a thousand picture on the pier, trying to combat the darkness with our limited photography skills. After we were sufficiently freezing (just due to the wind...Lebanon was actually much warmer than Jordan...probably because of the Sea and the humidity), we headed to Emil's place. On the way we drove by his university, the American University of Beirut-Byblos. Emil did his thing, freshening up, while Rachel and I decided we had to touch the Mediterranean Sea which was right outside his place. We touched it alright, but that was about it since it was crazy windy and we were about to sink into nowhereville in the sand.

Once in Beirut, Rachel and I freshened up too. Fishtastic! Then off to dinner. Emil was still sneezing like crazy and he took us to Al Balad in downtown Beirut. Downtown Beirut is really nice which is surprising when you think about the violence the city has experienced. It was clean and beautiful and swanky. Al Balad was down one of the walking streets full of eateries and sheesha places and it was so so so tasty. Fatteh, calamari, potato and coriander, hummus, fattoush, spinch pies (fattyer sabanik), and wara anib. Again 20,000 each.

Emil's friend Pamela met up with us as we were finishing and proceeded to take us to join her friends at a small bar in Gemmayzeh. I think the bar was called "Tipping Point" (All vinyl all the time). It was so cute. The atmosphere was soul/funk/vinyl and the whole place was probably the size of my kitchen. Rachel and I each had one drink and it was 26,000 for both of us. I was happy to have a Black Russian but we stopped at a drink a piece because in all honesty we were exhausted. Emil headed back to Byblos and Pamela dropped us off at our hotel where we slept like logs.