How Does One Survive in Lebanon?

I’ve been having a run of bad luck for several months now.

It really started  a month before I moved to Lebanon.  It’s just been one thing after the next but mostly it’s been car accidents. I think it’s been 6 or 7 car accidents since April… and before you judge my driving, let me say that 2 of those accidents were when I was in a cab.

After each incident/accident, my friends have been waiting for me to break down or explode or something but instead I’d just shrug it off and laugh… until a few days ago.

Settling in a new country

I’ve recently been having discussions with friends and new people I meet on which country was our favorite to live in and we compare our experiences. You might have loved living somewhere that someone else hated and vice versa. I believe the reason we would have contradictory feelings about the same place was due to our own experiences rather than the place itself.

For instance, I lived in Dubai for a couple of years and it definitely is ranked on the bottom of my list of places I’ve lived in.  It really isn’t because Dubai is a horrible place to live in but I didn’t make a real effort to settle and having a job I truly was miserable in didn’t help either.

Following the discussions I’ve had sharing experiences with others, I would say the below are the best tips I can give anyone moving to a new country:

Why I Thanked my Guardian Angel

I was driving home, smile plastered on my face, open windows, enjoying the feeling of fresh wind on my face and the wind blowing through my hair. I just had had a good day.

Suddenly, my car started to twirl across the highway.

“No one crash into me, please no one crash into me” is all I remember thinking.

My car stopped right before it hit the concrete on the other side. I was in a daze. I didn’t know what hit me.

Bad Behavior Example?

I got into a service in which the driver’s young son was in the passenger seat with his iPod connected to the cab’s stereo playing a Taylor Swift playlist.   Both father and son did not have their seat belts on and the driver was texting and driving.

They were silent for most of the ride until we got to Dora bridge where we picked up an elderly man who must have been around 80 years old.  The man just wanted to get to the Mercedes-Benz showroom which as a lot of you may know, that’s like a 2 minute walk.

Elie Tahari and Dior meet the Lebanese bus system

There I was waiting for a cab, wearing one my favorite Elie Tahari dresses and one my treasured Dior heels, when a bus came to a halt in front of me. The driver signaled me to hop on. I smiled as I considered it but as I looked inside it seemed like the seats were full. I signaled the driver that it was full. He asked the passenger sitting next to him to move to a different spot.  I hesitated for a second but told myself to stop acting like a diva and get on the freaking bus. I got on and surprisingly good old soul and blues music was playing.

It may not have been the cleanest bus in the world and I may have stuck out like a sore thumb, but I did get to my destination with rhythm and I don’t think I’d hesitate to take the bus again.

 

 

Strange Effect on Me

As I was sitting on my balcony on a Sunday afternoon, I realized how light I felt.

I can’t imagine living anywhere else.
Right now, in this moment, the world feels right.

It’s pretty difficult to even imagine that I ever lived elsewhere.
Has is it really only been 3 months since I moved here?

For someone who didn’t grow up here,
For someone whose family doesn’t live here,
For someone who left her friends and her life behind,
It feels surreal that this place fits like a glove.

Lebanon, you’ve got a strange effect on me.

I’m staying here for as long as it continues to feel this way.

 

Note

Some of you have been messaging me asking me why I’m not updating the blog.  There have been several incidents and experiences I have been wanting to write about but in all honesty, I couldn’t organize my thoughts the way I wanted to. I’m still not sure I have but will share a few posts to at least get going again. It might help rev my thoughts 😀