So my parents came to visit me for a week, which was a great opportunity to show them around the country I have been calling home for seven or so months, and a welcome break from relentless studying. It is very easy to spend extended periods of time without leaving Beirut, and I had been itching to get out of the capital for a while. Over the course of their visit, I took them to Baalbek, Mleeta (yes, again) and Jeita, and let them see Sur and Jbeil on their own like the grownups they are.
Monday, April 30, 2012
Sunday, April 8, 2012
Moving to Sector 37
Before coming to Lebanon, I had a hard time imagining what a new life in Beirut would be like, but I hoped that it would somehow involve a small apartment overlooking the sea, or something suggesting similar levels of exciting possibilities.
Instead, I was convinced by my mother to apply for university housing to allay her worries about me struggling to find housing upon arrival and having to sleep under a bridge with my 314 suitcases. This sounded like a reasonable suggestion. Perhaps my dorm room would have a balcony with a view on the sea.
I did end up with a balcony, with a splendid view on a construction site, and well within earshot of an Islamic cultural center broadcasting the five daily prayer calls and the hour-long Friday noon service.
Living in a dorm was a harsh reminder of my closeted misanthropy and my strong distaste for sharing sleeping quarters. I was assigned a two-person room, but was lucky to have it for myself for most of the semester. Eventually, I had to share my living space with another person for two months. While my roommate was very sweet, I still felt that I was accommodating an intruder on my territory, a presence coercing me to do things such as shower on a regular basis and not wallow in my pajamas all day eating cereal during finals. Cohabitation in such close quarters also led to some awkward cultural interactions, such as the couple of times I came home mere minutes before my roommate's morning prayer.
With my first semester nearing to an end, the perspective of going five more months without a kitchen and the assured presence of a permanent roommate this time around was too much. I had to move out and live the dream. So by early February, Ithrew all my belongings into neatly packed my suitcases, and left the AUB campus for a small apartment, three roommates and two cats in the nearby neighborhood of Qoreitem.
While I now bathed in the glow of having a room of my own, living off campus was my long-awaited introduction to some previously unseen aspects of day-to-day Beiruti life.
Instead, I was convinced by my mother to apply for university housing to allay her worries about me struggling to find housing upon arrival and having to sleep under a bridge with my 314 suitcases. This sounded like a reasonable suggestion. Perhaps my dorm room would have a balcony with a view on the sea.
I did end up with a balcony, with a splendid view on a construction site, and well within earshot of an Islamic cultural center broadcasting the five daily prayer calls and the hour-long Friday noon service.
Living in a dorm was a harsh reminder of my closeted misanthropy and my strong distaste for sharing sleeping quarters. I was assigned a two-person room, but was lucky to have it for myself for most of the semester. Eventually, I had to share my living space with another person for two months. While my roommate was very sweet, I still felt that I was accommodating an intruder on my territory, a presence coercing me to do things such as shower on a regular basis and not wallow in my pajamas all day eating cereal during finals. Cohabitation in such close quarters also led to some awkward cultural interactions, such as the couple of times I came home mere minutes before my roommate's morning prayer.
With my first semester nearing to an end, the perspective of going five more months without a kitchen and the assured presence of a permanent roommate this time around was too much. I had to move out and live the dream. So by early February, I
While I now bathed in the glow of having a room of my own, living off campus was my long-awaited introduction to some previously unseen aspects of day-to-day Beiruti life.
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