Christmas Cookies and Rain days

The rains came finally, and it actually got chilly here this week, not chilly Chicago chilly, but still into the 50s, which felt cold here. This week we had our first "RainDay". Alexa-the storm that hit Lebanon, came in Tuesday night, and the Minister of Education cancelled all schools the next day. It actually wasn't that bad here in Beirut, but the mountains got hit with snow. The ministry canceled the next two days as well, but we still had school. It is interesting to walk the corniche now with the snow on the tops of the mountains. This weekend was our Christmas Cookie exchange. It was quite the interesting production trying to make cookies here. I wanted to make my mom's favorites, mint meringue, but that didn't go over that well. First of all, I bought a cookie sheet, that after I came home I realized it was too big for our oven. Hilarious. Then, after going to 5 or 6 stores, I couldn't find mint extract or food coloring, or mint chips. I decided to try anyways, and started cooking, and tried to whip up the meringue, without a mixer, needless to say it didn't go well. I scrapped the whole thing, and turned it into chocolate chip cookies that I brought to school. After talking with one of the teachers, I decided something stove top made would be best, so I went with fudge, and caramels. I had to go to four stores to find wax paper, but I found it. However, the caramels never hardened, so now it is a nice dip. Oh well. Saturday about 9 teachers came over with their favorite Christmas cookies and we had a great time listening to Christmas music and eating cookies. That night, we went to another teacher's Christmas party. Her husband works the university here, so it was a great mix of people. My favorite part was when a group of people gathered around the piano singing carols. It was beautiful, since they are all very talented, unlike some of us... Anyways, it was a great party. Today we went to Classic Burger, which is a great name for this place. They have a great quinoa burger and the fries are legit. So far we have found three places that serve veggie burgers, which is excellent. One week from now we will be back home, we fly through London, and are spending time in Chicago and Florida. The break will go fast, and I am sure we won't be able to see all those that we will want too, but it will only be a short time till the summer. Also, there have been over 5000 views on our blog so far, which is crazy. I'm sure a lot are my mom, but still. There have been some from 10 different countries and 4 continents. It is so fun to think of other people actually reading these blogs. I enjoy sharing what is happening in this amazing country, that I knew very little about, and I know a lot of people I knew also didn't know much about Lebanon. It is a beautiful country, with amazing people, and we are very lucky to work with such great students and teachers here.

2 weeks till we come back to the States

I can't believe it is only two weeks till we go back to Chicago and Florida for the winter break. Time has really gone by fast. This week we were able to go to a lot of really fun things. Sunday, we went to Gemmayzeh for a street fest, which reminded me of Chicago street fests. We had a great time, and I bought an amazing wicker wine carafe, with the glass bottle inside obviously. The man made it right there on the spot. There were a lot of great crafts and food and drinks. That night we went to a church for an orchestra and choir that performed a rendition of Handel's Messiah. It was a packed house and it was really impressive.
Monday night we went to another concert at the American University in which a few teachers and students performed in. It was wonderful, and they sang songs from around the world, and in different languages. At the end they had everyone there join in and sing a few carols.
Wednesday we had another coach from Egypt come in to stay with us for a few days, due to another tournament Ryan organized. I made the coaches some homemade chili, since it is getting cold (er) here (65 degrees at night...hehe). Ryan had the tournament Thursday and Friday during the day.  Of course, this is the weekend the rains finally came, it has really rained here yet. So, it was a wet few days, but they all survived and we took second place again in boys and girls JV soccer. Friday night, I attended our school play, a hilarious production of Dr. Horrible's Sing a Long blog. The students were so good, and I was really impressed at their musical talent and the acting.
Saturday I walked downtown to the farmer's market. It was really great. The people are so incredibly generous there, with handing out samples of their fresh goods all the time. I bought some hot peppers in a jar, which I didn't realize they were so hot until Ryan ate one yesterday. I also bought some homemade eggplant dishes, pomegranate dressing, teas and more. After I walked home, stopped to pick up a cookie sheet for our cookie exchange this weekend. However, I didn't think about the fact that our oven is smaller, so the regular sheet doesn't fit...oh well. I also picked up some beautiful fresh poinsettias, a red and a white. The man selling them is the same man who sold us pumpkins earlier in the year from the top of his car. He is a really great man and has an awesome store that has all sorts of weird items in it. It was the kind of day that made me realize that I really live here in Beirut. It was really an incredible feeling.
Sunday we went for a walk to the public beach. We hadn't gone there yet, so we decided to check it out. I now know where I will be when it gets nicer out again soon. It is a decent beach with sand and rocks, and of course yesterday it wasn't really crowded. The walk isn't that far either.
We have two full weeks of school left-our first full weeks in a long time. I should say that the Friday before break is only a half day as well-so not really two full weeks.

Thanksgiving

This week went by fast again. We had four days of school this week, with Friday off for Thanksgiving. Ryan was extremely busy running two volleyball tournaments and two soccer tournaments. Tuesday and Wednesday he had the volleyball tournaments, with our varsity girls and boys getting second place, jv boys getting first place and our jv girls getting second place. So, I guess it was four volleyball tournaments now that I think about it. Then Thursday night he had two teams come in from Egypt. One team was hosted by our players, and we hosted their coach, a guy from the US who has been working in Egypt for four years. Thursday night we went to Gretchen and Mikes for some Thanksgiving football, Detroit vs Packers, which was fun watching it live, just like we would have been at home, but only at 8 o'clock at night. I tried rooting for a tie in this game, but it didn't work. Friday we went to our middle school principal's house for a huge feast with about 50 of us expat teachers. It was a wonderful evening where we got to spend time with a lot of people we don't always get to see. Saturday I went  to a German Christmas fest at a building near by that we call the German building. A few teachers live in this apartment building, and then behind it is a German church. Kind of random. The fest was great.  A lot of homemade crafts, Christmas decorations, sausages, cheesecake, Gluvine, and of course beer. All day Friday and Saturday Ryan was at school running the soccer tournaments in which our girls and boys varsity soccer teams came in second place. Saturday night we took Josh, the coach staying with us, out to dinner. Today the teams leave, and then we are going to go to Gemmayzeh because they are shutting the streets down to cars, and there will be a lot of great booths up for homemade crafts. Then hopefully tonight we will be going to see the Beirut Chants opening night, with a choir singing Handel's Messiah. There will be a number of shows the next few weeks, as well as the philharmonic orchestra playing shows too. There are a lot of great cultural events here to take part in, so I hope to be doing more of that.
Here are some pictures of the holiday decorations around town, and thanksgiving.

Mike carving the turkey

My table at Thanksgiving

German building crafts

German Santa Claus and angel

German Christmas fest

Streets of Hamra

My favorite poinsettia salesman

Stores selling decorations

Grocery store selling xmas stuff

Cyprus

This past weekend we took a trip to the island of Cyprus with Mike and Gretchen. It is a 45 min flight from Beirut, so it is the perfect long weekend trip. We had Friday off for Lebanese Independence Day, so we took off Thursday night after Parent Teacher Conferences. When we landed, we got our cars that we rented, and realized they drove on the other side of the road and car. It was a lot of fun to drive, not that I drove much. We did manage to make a 20 minute drive to our hotel a 2 hour drive, the signs were not the easiest to follow, being in Greek and all! We figured it out though, after a quick stop at a police station.

We got to the hotel and were so pleasantly surprised with how nice the hotel was and we had a quick bite to eat. Our hotel was in Kalavasos, and we flew into Larnaca. Both of those names are different on different signs, which was part of the fun. The next day we took a drive to see some ruins, of course, what trip with Ryan is complete without a stop to see ruins. After, we went to the Cyprus Wine Museum in Lemoses, which is also called Limassol(?), which was hilarious, but the tasting was delicious.  That night, we hung out in our library at our hotel for a while playing card games and dominoes, which was hilarious. We headed out to Zygi for dinner, and had some amazing mezze.

The next day we drove all through the mountains and the amazing small villages. We then went down to Aphrodite's Beach and hung out. Ryan went swimming in the Mediterranean, it was a little chilly for me, although the weather was beautiful the entire trip. We then had to find a bar that was showing the Liverpool vs Everton game. Ryan had found a local Cyprus Liverpool Facebook page, and asked the guys the best place to watch the game. We found the place and it didn't disappoint. There were probably fifty guys there all decked out in Liverpool gear yelling and cheering the whole game. That night we ate at a local place called the Bridge House Tavern, and there was a guitar on the wall that Ryan picked up and played for us all.

The next day we went to Lekosia, which is also Nicosia. This is the capital of Cyprus, and it is a divided castle. The northern part of Cyrpus is occupied by Turkey. We went to the Ikea there, which was a treat for us since we needed to get a few cheaper items for our apartment. We then ate lunch in the town square, and took a walk through the UN Green Zone to the Turkish side. That night we went to the Salt Lake, which at this time is not full of water till the winter. We ate on the beach in Larnaca and then off to get lost to return the car. Overall, it was a beautiful trip, and I'll let the pictures prove that to you.

This week is another four day week, and we are celebrating Thanksgiving on Friday. Looking forward to a nice dinner with a lot of teachers. We will be back in the States in less than a month, which is so crazy. Enjoy the pictures! 

Ryan driving on other side

Rocks at Aphrodite beach

Aphrodite Beach

Cairn made at Aphrodite beach

Library at our hotel

Driving through the villages

Breakfast nook at our hotel

Wine museum

Bar we found to watch the Liverpool game Saturday

Lefkosis

Ryan's Birthday

This was another whirlwind week. I can't believe it is already the middle of November and we have been here for three months. We had Thursday off this week, and we took a trip with Jamil (our neighbor) and Jesse to Jezzine. Jezzine is in the south of Lebanon and it has a waterfall there. It was a wonderful day out of the city, and we finally got to have bread purses called Kaak. In mine, I had the cheese and spices, Ryan went with Nutella and bananas. They were delicious.

Picture of the bread purses

Jamil's dogs Steve and Duke

The whole crew at the waterfall

Wednesday at school we started our community service project that Ryan has been organizing for a long time. Some groups of students volunteered to help clean up an area that a lot of us walk through daily to get to school called the Rainbow Stairs. The buildings around this area were covered in graffiti, and filled with trash. We worked Wednesday clearing the garbage, rocks, dirt etc. Friday we painted over all the graffiti. Saturday we repainted designs on the walls and steps. It is incredible what we got accomplished all because of Ryan's amazing idea, vision and hard work, and these impressive students who gave up a lot of time, got dirty and covered in paint, for the good of the neighborhood. 

Before we painted. 

Group of kids who helped. 

After the first coat of paint. 

Ryan's spray painting design

The stairs I painted green. 

Kids cleaning before we painted

 Gretchen and Mike's stencil

 

Saturday was Ryan's birthday, so we had a few people over that night. Sunday was the big adventure. Fabio took Jamil, Ryan and I to Jounieh to jump off a mountain and paraglide down the beach. It was an incredible experience. I went first, and had really no time to think about it at all. Ryan got a great video of me jumping. Ryan went next, and I have some great pictures of him landing. The guy he tandemed with was about 5 feet tall, so it was hilarious to see them together. While we were in the air we were both able to take the controls for a while, which was really cool. I was able to do a downward spiral dive which was a G force. It was so crazy. It seemed like we went around one hundred times, but probably closer to five.  Then we stopped for a little while along the beach. It was such a beautiful place to relax, and another part of Lebanon that we really haven't been in.  There are some great hotels there that we might go back and stay at some time. 

Where we sat after the jump

The water where we were landing near

Yachts in the water still

Jamil flying

Ryan flying

Sweet helmet

Ryan's selfie

Ryan's feet

My foot

view from the air

Ryan's landing

Me before take off