Random Pictures from around Hamra

The area we live in is called Hamra. The streets have names, sometimes, but mostly you wander around looking for landmarks to determine where you are at. The conversation for telling people where you live, or where another store is can be hysterical.
"wheres the best place to get hummus?"
"You know where Silver Arrow is? Go down that street toward the garage that sells vegetables. It is the store with the small tiles on it."
Hilarious. There are no addresses, and a lot of the small shops have no names on them. It seems to work.
Yesterday we had a chance to see three other apartments of people that work at ACS. They are all nice, and different. It is interesting to see apartments of people who have lived here a while and have made it their home. We are still in that process.  Finding items for the apartment is an adventure, because there isn't like a one stop shop, like a Target, so we find ourselves wandering up and down streets stopping in small, overstuffed stores. Yesterday we finally found some big mugs for Ryan. The cups here are ridiculously small. Yesterday we went to a rug guy, we had tea and he showed us a lot of nice Persian rugs that we were not going to be able to afford. Today we found two small rugs at the grocery store for 3 bucks...an obvious place for rugs in our price range.

Here are some pictures from around where we live.
Fruit and Veggie stand.

 Hummus store

Butcher Shop, haven't been in there...

I don't know what this place is, but looks awesome. 

Another Fruit and Veggie stand 

obvious. 

Time Square looks different from what I remember. 

My fav grocery store. 

Karaoke bar I have to go to! 

More pictures

Here are just a few more pictures of our place, the school and the city. The first few are the hallways in our building and the exterior. Take note of our name on the buzzer.  Second few are the school. Then some around Beirut. 

Ryan's office in the gym. 

The gym. 

So prepared. 

Lots of people fishing here. 

There are some amazing pools on the sea. Most connected to hotels, but you can pay $10 or so for access. 

The corniche, like the lakefront path but better. Took a nice run on this this morning at 6 am. Lots of people out and an exercise class bring taught I might join in. Ryan liked the guys playing paddle ball in the middle of the street. 

Obviously.