House Arrest

We did a lot of this during "house arrest."

Not sure how many of you have heard, but the past few weeks have been fairly eventful here in Beirut. In the words of my uncle, "Action and reaction!" (Incidentally, he has other words for the situation, but we're not gonna put those here... keeping it family friendly). After the collapse of the government, there were a few days of social unrest -- protests, road closings, some tire burning, but thankfully no serious injuries and no deaths. Consequently, our family "ordered" us to come up from our section of town to their safer suburb. We were then put on "house arrest" and strongly encouraged to refrain (read: prohibited) from returning to our neighborhood for a few days.

We also did a lot of this during house arrest.

Fortunately for us, house arrest did not preclude us from going skiing! The resort is north and higher in the mountains, i.e., farther away from the "danger zone." So, last Sunday we went with a friend of mine from school, Dominique, and her boyfriend, Elio, and had a great time! We loved it so much we went back on our own two days later! Turns out skiing here is a lot like driving. The "line" for the lift is really just a mass of humanity skiing and snowboarding on top of each other to get to the front, only to awkwardly stare at each other while figuring out who is actually going to get on the chair. Once at the top, disorder continues, as you can basically choose your own path down the mountain. Sure, there are trails, but they look suspiciously similar to the "boundary" areas. At any rate, we had a blast, and thought it was a great change from sitting at home and reading/studying.

At the top with Dominique and Elio

Jumping or skiing on the rocks?... You make the call.

Thankfully, the political situation has calmed down quite a bit. It's still unclear where the government will go from here, but the situation on the streets has almost returned to normal. We are continuing to be careful and definitely listening to our family, but praying that the peace and stability will last. We would appreciate your prayers too!

Beautiful views!

In other news... we are off to Thailand tomorrow! I finished the first semester here today, so we have a two week break before next semester. We'll get to see Josh, one of my college roommates, in Chiang Mai, and spend some time at the beach as well. We're really excited! When we get back, Lord-willing, we'll have our first guests in Lebanon - my dad, and then another roommate, Tony, with his fiancee Laura. We can't wait!

Another house arrest activity - Dena made an awesome Mexican meal for us to share with my uncle George.

Not at all related to anything I talked about, but we like the picutre. She's organizing the pharmacy for the mobile clinic... doesn't it look fun?

January thus far

Well, we've had a bit more of an exciting January than we had hoped to have. For those of you who haven't heard, the Lebanese government technically "collapsed" last week. While serious, this isn't entirely uncommon in Lebanon, so we are watching and waiting, but continuing on with our lives just the same. Some key decisions affecting stability should be made this week, so your prayers are greatly appreciated.

Finally, we wanted to share our reliable address. (Really, we've actually received mail from the states!) 
Jad Jabbour #2818
American University of Beirut
Bliss Street
Beirut, Lebanon

Because posts without pictures are boring, here we are getting ready for a double date with friends. After being back in Lebanon for 2 weeks, we desperately missed American food and couldn't wait to hit up our neighborhood Applebee's! (In all seriousness though, Applebee's is actually fairly popular here - imagine, a country where greasy burgers and nachos are a novel thing.)

A little look back at December

Well, as you can see, we've been a little delinquent with blogging the past month. We'll blame it on the holidays. But, before we catch you up on what's new with us, we have to put up some pictures of all the fun we had in December since our last post. Jad & I enjoyed our first Lebanese concert experience rocking out with Bryan Adams when he came to Beirut.
We then had the great pleasure of logging more time with our Khalife cousins (Nina's brother's sons) than we have in years. We enjoyed lots of good food, some fun evenings hanging out at home, and of course, the requisite night out.

Back to Music Hall - this time with the other side of the fam

Jad and his cousin TinTin

Me with Uncle Farid & Aunt Joumana

I also got to watch our sponsored little boy and his brother perform their Christmas program. Several friends from church (and our small group) work at the school/orphanage where the kids live, so it was fun to see & support them.

Dar el Awlad Christmas Concert

The holiday spirit also got a hold of Jad's artistically inclined friend during class one day, so he decided to make Jad a portrait as a Christmas present. We liked it so much we couldn't resist including it in the blog. We also got to enjoy the Public Health department Christmas party at AUB - decorations consisted of giving out Santa hats to everyone who walked in the door.

Thank you Kareem

Jad & classmate Metwally at the Christmas party (Jad is close to successfully convincing Metwally to be the only other guy in his concentration - keep your fingers crossed!)

No, that's not Lebanon

Jad's first camel ride, Dena's already a pro

Two weekends ago, we got to take a little trip to Egypt to meet my dad. He was there for two weeks and didn’t have time to stop by Lebanon, so instead we got to meet him there for his only 2 days off. We made the most of them! In one day, we tried to hit the big sites in Cairo – pyramids, museum, and Old Cairo. The next day, we went to Luxor, which blew us away! We saw the Valley of the Kings (lots of the Pharaohs’ tombs) and the ruins of two huge temples. The sites really were amazing, but it was even better just to spend that time with dad.

We are enjoying our last week in Lebanon before we come back to the states for Christmas.

Bit hazy but nice panoramic of the pyramids

Us and the sphinx

Hatshepsut's Temple in Luxo

Other enormous temple in Luxor

Same

Our first McDonalds since arriving - at least he got the McArabia

Nighttime over the Nile

Thanksgiving(s) and proof that we do things other than party & hike

Happy Thanksgiving everyone (a few days late)! We trust that you all had a great holiday. Several of you wondered if we'd have Thanksgiving at all over here... Well, we actually had three. The first was with some family friends, who we had not yet met, but who have kids roughly our age (pictured, right). We had a great time! It was their first time celebrating this American holiday, and they really went out of their way to make it special for us.

Our second was a potluck dinner with my friends from school (friends and meal pictured below). We're enjoying getting to know them better, and this is the second potluck we've had with them now. Turns out most of them are inordinately good cooks. Not sure why that is, but we like it.

Finally, we had one last Thanksgiving dinner with a small group from church that meets in our neighborhood. We've been meaning to go to this small group for a while, but this was actually our first time. We loved getting to meet the people (from all over - Australia, U.S., England, Bulgaria, Malaysia) and will hopefully hang out with them a lot more this year.

Beside Thanksgiving dinners, these past couple weeks have actually been really full with work. I had midterms and papers; multiplied by 7 classes, that added up. Meanwhile, Dena made several trips with HOME's mobile clinic. From small suburbs around Beirut to a southern village a stone's throw from Israel, she and the rest of the team saw dozens of patients who have little regular access to health care. It definitely wore her out, but she really enjoyed the more hands-on part of HOME's ministry.

Lastly, one of the highlights of the past couple weeks was getting to (finally) visit a boy at a local orphanage who we've been sponsoring for a while, and to see his brother too (who my brother and sister-in-law sponsor). They were really cute, and even though Dena had met them once before, this was my first time. We got a little tour of their school and are really impressed with everything they're doing for these kids; it was a blessing to see.

Yara's Last Days (in Lebanon)

November news: A few weeks ago we had our first trip to the ER as a married couple. It was lovely. Jad, who kindly was doing the dishes after lunch, gave himself a deep cut in his thumb when a glass broke. He got 3 stitches as a souvenir and was told by one of his (many) female classmates, "Well, I hope you learned your lesson. You shouldn't be doing dishes anyway." Hmmph.

In other news, we went to the beach again on November 6. Swam and everything. We love Mediterranean autumn! Jad is continuing to do well in his classes and is enjoying his profs and classmates. I am getting a lot busier with my work for HOME and have also started volunteering at St. Jude's children's cancer center near our house.

Sadly, we had to bid farewell to Yara this past week. She has headed to NY to start her grown-up job and while we are so proud of her, we are very sad to see her go. So, in typical Lebanese fashion, we decided to live up her last week as much as humanly possible. And we did. A few highlights of the week were hosting our first family dinner party, a late night out at MusicHall, and several consecutive dinners ending around 2am.

This past week marked Eid al Adha and Jad enjoyed 4 days of vacation. On one afternoon, we traveled to Dlebta (Nina's cousins' hometown) to enjoy the gorgeous weather, beautiful views, and old style Lebanese architecture.

As a side note, Lebanon has been making some CNN headlines not only for Ahmadinejad's visit last month, but also for this. We are so proud.

Weekend in Dubai

Palm Jumeirah

We celebrated Halloween weekend with a little family trip to Dubai. Dubai is a very unique place – everything is new, huge, and the best description of the culture we heard was a “mall culture.” We had a blast! We enjoyed time with family friends the first evening, then spent our first afternoon walking through the Mall of the Emirates – where we indulged in as much American stuff as possible (think P.F. Changs & PinkBerry) and gaped at the indoor ski slopes. Skiing, indoors, in the middle of the desert – crazy! Then we headed out to Palm Jumeirah and the Atlantis hotel to take in sunset over the Gulf.
 

Mall of the Emirates

Ski Dubai

After a fantastic dinner, we slept in, got up and went back to the mall. This time, it was Dubai Mall, the largest mall in the world, which had stores from pretty much everywhere, including Chicago's own Garret's Popcorn. From there we headed next door to Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world. We went up to the observatory on the 124th floor, which was still 50 or so floors from the actual top. It's quite the view.

Burj Khalifa

In the evening, we watched the water show outside of Burj Khalifa, which was designed by the same engineers who designed the show for the Bellagio in Vegas. The weekend went by fast and we really enjoyed ourselves. Certainly a pretty great way to spend Halloween!

View from the 124th floor

Jad gets artsy with his photography

Jad strolling through Dubai Mall with his new buddy...the 3 year old son of our friends. His dad works at Cartier, hence the reason he's the only kid-o walking through the mall with 2 Cartier bags in his hands (although, they are only filled with puzzles) :)