Month: May 2019

I made a number of friends during my month in Beirut. One sunny afternoon, one friend Ziad and I took a drive to the ancient city of Byblos, north of Beirut. Part of what makes Lebanon so interesting is its placement as a seat for some of the most important empires in history. Byblos is [...]

I flew into Lebanon WANTING to love the country. I don't know why, exactly; I had been to neighboring Israel (/Occupied Palestine) and enjoyed it, and I spent several years in the Middle East as an adolescent, so I was familiar with the region already. But something about Beirut specifically got me very excited, and [...]

Like many Americans (and probably Westerners in general), I grew up reading stories about Greek mythology: the (lecherous) adventures of Zeus and his jealous wife Hera, athletic Athena being distracted by the golden apples, the grieving Orpheus who tried to save his love Eurydice from Hades, the minotaur and cyclops... The world of the Olympic [...]