At the beginning of May, Elise and I snuck away without the kids for the weekend for the first time since moving to Jordan.
We decided we wanted to take advantage of the calm while it lasted and check out Lebanon.
Both of my grandparents on my dad's side are Lebanese. My grandfather, Michael Hanna, or Jidu as he was known to me and my brothers and cousins (my dad is now Jidu to our kids, and I someday I may be a Jidu to Sam, Peter, and Clementine's kids. Inshallah) was born in Lebanon, in the mountain town of Douma, northeast of Beirut. My grandmother was born in the States, in Boston, to Lebanese parents who migrated to the U.S. Her mother, Najeeby Shalhoub was actually pregnant with my Sitii, Carmer Hanna, as she crossed the Atlantic.
I won't go as far as to say this was a "homecoming" of sorts. It wasn't anything close to that. But going to Lebanon was something I really wanted to do once we realized we were moving to the Middle East. I wasn't sure if I would even get the opportunity, but I'm really glad we made it happen.
Our nanny, Ana Lynn, is good, but she's no Rita, and while Elise and weren't leery of leaving her with the kids for two nights, this would be the first time she would stay overnight with them.
For that reason, we decided to leave Amman Thursday morning while the kids were still in school. We rolled the dice that one of them wouldn't get sick and require a mid-day pick-up, but, thankfully, that did not happen.
Though Beirut is only 135 miles from Amman as the crow flies, it might as well be on another planet. Getting there is difficult. There once was a time when we could have drove to Beirut, but I don't know when that might have been, because even before war broke out in Syria, I'm not exactly sure there wasn't a war raging in Lebanon. Such is the part of the world we live in.
As it stands now, there is no way to drive to Beirut. We can drive through Palestine and Israel, but the border between Israel and Lebanon is closed, so the only way to Beirut is by plane.
The flight seemed a lot longer than we thought it should be until we realized we were flying around Israel and over Syria. The line at immigration was long and slow moving, too, so we didn't leave the airport in Beirut for our hotel in Mar Mikhael on the eastern side of Beirut until mid-afternoon.
I think one of the things that made the trip so special was I had no idea what to expect of Beirut. I think when one travels to New York City, Paris, or maybe even India for the first time you have some idea of what to expect, even if those expectations are largely based on stereotypes or impressions from films or TV. I had no idea what Beirut would be like. What we discovered was fascinating.
In many ways, Beirut is the perfect city with the right balance between old and new, decay and glimmer, beauty and the beast. It is filled with quiet neighborhoods untouched by time and shiny new shops and hip bars with fancy fonts advertising specials on aperol spritzs. In our short time in Beirut, Elise and I only had the chance to scratch the surface of the fabled city, "The Paris of the Middle East". In this sense, it definitely did not disappoint.
We spent most of our time on the east -- or Christian -- side of town. Of no surprise to anyone except someone who is not steeped in Lebanese history like myself, the city is basically bifurcated between the Christian east and Muslim west, hence all the civil wars. We stayed at a small boutique hotel, Villa Clara.
We decided we wanted to take advantage of the calm while it lasted and check out Lebanon.
Both of my grandparents on my dad's side are Lebanese. My grandfather, Michael Hanna, or Jidu as he was known to me and my brothers and cousins (my dad is now Jidu to our kids, and I someday I may be a Jidu to Sam, Peter, and Clementine's kids. Inshallah) was born in Lebanon, in the mountain town of Douma, northeast of Beirut. My grandmother was born in the States, in Boston, to Lebanese parents who migrated to the U.S. Her mother, Najeeby Shalhoub was actually pregnant with my Sitii, Carmer Hanna, as she crossed the Atlantic.
I won't go as far as to say this was a "homecoming" of sorts. It wasn't anything close to that. But going to Lebanon was something I really wanted to do once we realized we were moving to the Middle East. I wasn't sure if I would even get the opportunity, but I'm really glad we made it happen.
Our nanny, Ana Lynn, is good, but she's no Rita, and while Elise and weren't leery of leaving her with the kids for two nights, this would be the first time she would stay overnight with them.
For that reason, we decided to leave Amman Thursday morning while the kids were still in school. We rolled the dice that one of them wouldn't get sick and require a mid-day pick-up, but, thankfully, that did not happen.
Though Beirut is only 135 miles from Amman as the crow flies, it might as well be on another planet. Getting there is difficult. There once was a time when we could have drove to Beirut, but I don't know when that might have been, because even before war broke out in Syria, I'm not exactly sure there wasn't a war raging in Lebanon. Such is the part of the world we live in.
As it stands now, there is no way to drive to Beirut. We can drive through Palestine and Israel, but the border between Israel and Lebanon is closed, so the only way to Beirut is by plane.
The flight seemed a lot longer than we thought it should be until we realized we were flying around Israel and over Syria. The line at immigration was long and slow moving, too, so we didn't leave the airport in Beirut for our hotel in Mar Mikhael on the eastern side of Beirut until mid-afternoon.
I think one of the things that made the trip so special was I had no idea what to expect of Beirut. I think when one travels to New York City, Paris, or maybe even India for the first time you have some idea of what to expect, even if those expectations are largely based on stereotypes or impressions from films or TV. I had no idea what Beirut would be like. What we discovered was fascinating.
In many ways, Beirut is the perfect city with the right balance between old and new, decay and glimmer, beauty and the beast. It is filled with quiet neighborhoods untouched by time and shiny new shops and hip bars with fancy fonts advertising specials on aperol spritzs. In our short time in Beirut, Elise and I only had the chance to scratch the surface of the fabled city, "The Paris of the Middle East". In this sense, it definitely did not disappoint.
We spent most of our time on the east -- or Christian -- side of town. Of no surprise to anyone except someone who is not steeped in Lebanese history like myself, the city is basically bifurcated between the Christian east and Muslim west, hence all the civil wars. We stayed at a small boutique hotel, Villa Clara.
As soon as we checked in, we dumped our stuff in the room and set out in search of lunch. On our "must-do" list was lunch at Tawlet, a true farm-to-table concept.
Meals were served family style. The owners invited a different guest chef every day of the week from a local Lebanese village to come and prepare the day's meal.
Our weekend get-away was off to a good start. Truth be told, I would have been content at that point to hop back on the plane and fly home, but more exploring awaited us.
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