good morning all.  First time waking up in Beirut Lebanon.  This for now will be the highlight of the trip.  As soon as I am able to read Arabic I will be able to post pics but for now get your jealousy pants out and check out Hotel Rotana (http://www.rotana.com/rotanahotelandresorts/lebanon/beirut/gefinorrotana) in Downtown Beirut.Un real!! We are located about 300 yards away from the Holiday in that was notoriously televised during the Israeli fighting and it is still here standing.  Its quite a sight.  Bullet holes and mortar shell marks litter all sides of the hotel and most of the other structures still standing from that time for that matter.
 When we got in last night (took a shower as I am averaging about three per day) and we headed  straight for the rooftop pool that you will see on the website.  We had a couple beers then we started the small trek around the city nearby.  We stop at a small bakery cuz we wanted needed more Almaza and they had it. Our waiter was named Akl Bassir who was from a Lebanese family and he was actually born in Ohio.  He was probably late 20's and moved back here with his family in 2004.  He gave us pointers on where to find pubs (open until 2am) and the clubs (open until "you fall over").  This is gonna be fun!  We will probably meet up with him at a place called BO 18 this evening which I think is Saturday.

Now for a little hotel neighbor juice.  We get back from our stroll, take another shower and we are heading back rooftop.  As we walk out of our room there are three asian woman getting ready to knock on neighbors door...i say hello...we come back down to switch bars an from the noise we realize we passed three hookers servicing our neighbor...rather loudly...it was a gooda good laugh.

Today we are off to a town called Byblos..This is where our ol pal Ms. Mahshi's family is from.  I am confident she has no idea we are here and this should really piss her off once she finds out.

For now our whore count is low
our beer count is high
our city count is 6
and our continent count is 3