RECOVERY

After the 2 travel days from hell, I woke feeling better and alone! My cousins still have not made it, but hopefully tonight they will arrive.  When my cousin Suzy heard her luggage was on a cruise ship to Alaska, she threw a wonderful wing ding, and now Holland America is going to fly it to Beirut. Stay tuned to see how that pans out!
So today I am making a lazy day, a recovery day, and am about to go out and wander the streets...mainly looking for food! And water. One cannot drink the water here, so big bottles of  water are important.  Our airB&B is quite large with 4 separate bedrooms and 3 bathrooms. It is in the Armenian district and fairly close to the water.yesterday Ali gave me a crash course inLebanese pounds vs. US dollar, so this am I went to the little shop below our apt.and bought more water, juice and bread...but man cannot live on bread alone...even if it is greatLebanese bread....so I need to get grub.
Traffics here is a formula. Lebanon is a small country and in Beirut, everyplace is 20min away..unless there’s traffic...then it’s 2 hours! It’s always traffic, ...so when they say 20 min away...they mean 2 hrs! That’s the formula. The weather is warm now, and a bit humid, but we have A C and a small deck, which I am using to dry a load of sheets and towels, that I found whirling around in the washer when I arrived. No one uses dryers here, and the electricity goes off for a couple hours everyday which messes with the wiFi and I have to reset the router. Otherwise, it’s just a noisy, gritty, bustling city with Christians and Muslims living together and making it work. Yesterday was the end of Ramadan, and my driver explained today would be party time, eating, feasting, with all state run agencies closed.
Before I left home I decided to see if I had any relatives living in the area.I had old pictures with names written on the back, because my mother had come here over 40 years ago and someone painstakingly identified all the people in the pictures she took.  I used those names to search on FB, and voila! I hit pay dirt with the first person I found. A cousin! So I contacted him, and he is excited to show us around and he lives in the town my grandma other was from. So am looking forward to meeting him and his family.  But for now...I am just lying low and resting the cold so I can hit the ground running tomorrow.