Lebanon wasn't originally scheduled to be part of our trip but my Dad got invited to give some lectures at the American University of Beirut so we turned it into a family reunion.  All four of my Dad's grandparents (my great grandparents) immigrated to America from Lebanon about a hundred years ago, and we still have lots of relatives there who we had never met.  My uncle Paul and my cousin Allyce and my Dad's parents all flew in from Boston and met us there!  The only one of us who had ever been there before was Allyce, who spent a year there when she was my age. 

141_4169.JPG This is Beirut, the capital city of Lebanon. We stayed in an apartment right about in the middle of the picture.  We were walking distance from the University and from the beach.

141_4170.JPG This is the city of Jounieh. We went there on Easter Sunday for church and to spend the day with relatives named Aziz. My Dad says he met more Azizes in that one day than he had before in his entire life!

141_4174.JPG Kids in front of Jounieh. From left to right: Karl, Adele, Mariele, Kylene, Ralph, Alexi. Alexi is in the gray shirt. Karl and Ralph are my cousins. While Alexi isn't technically my cousin, it sure feels like it!

141_4175.JPG Kids in front of Beirut. We actually haven't moved – the camera did!

141_4180.JPG This is a person in a restaurant making Syrian bread that was extremely delicious.

141_4183.AVI (Small movie file.) This is me receiving my piece of extremely delicious Syrian bread!

141_4189.JPG I am gazing in awe at a big pile of fruit that waiters are about to serve us at this restaurant.

142_4202.JPG We are at the beach in Beirut not far from our apartment. My uncle Paul is with us, behind Mariele and to the left of Mom and Kylene.

142_4208.JPG We went to an amusement park in Beirut. Kylene, my Dad, and I went on a very fun ride.

142_4237.JPG My family and I are in front of the Mediterranean Sea at a store in Beirut.

142_4247.JPG Here I am at a restaurant eating snails in garlic sauce! They were very good, and I recommend that you should try them! They are not that hard to eat, and they are very squishy and delicious!

142_4250.JPG This is another interesting toilet flusher, in the restaurant where I ate snails. You push the big button in the middle and down it goes!

142_4257.JPG The people here from left to right are my Giddoo (that's Arabic for "grandpa"), my Sittoo (that's Arabic for "grandma", and my cousin Charbel. My cousin showed us an old city that was discovered underneath Beirut. The little circle-like things in the background are stools that people used to sit on and take a bath. The water came rushing in and out through the square-like things.

142_4292.JPG I'm eating bouza. That's the Arabic word for ice cream. My Dad had apricot bouza, which I have never seen before. It's his new favorite flavor!

143_4321.JPG We drove up the mountains to see the famous Cedars of Lebanon. This is a view from up there.

143_4338.JPG We stopped on the way. Kylene and I are holding flowers in front of a big gorge in the mountain.

143_4346.JPG This is a 6,000 year old cedar tree. The Lebanese are very proud of these trees. They are the oldest cedars in the world, and they're even older than the ruins that we saw in Greece! Nobody has bothered to chop them down in 6,000 years because they're up so high that they're out of the way.  Now they're protected.  There is a trail through the cedars that people are allowed to go on, but it was closed because it was covered in too much snow. 

143_4366.JPG This is a museum and the tomb of Khalil Gibran, who was a famous writer and artist. His most famous book is called "The Prophet".  We stopped here on our way back. 

143_4393.JPG We took a trip to the Jeita grotto. This is a big water fountain we saw there.

143_4392.JPG Alexi, my sisters, and I are in a trolley heading down to the grotto.

JEITA021.JPG We are on a boat in a cave with lots of stalactites and stalagmites.

JEITTA.JPG We are walking on a walkway through a cave. The stalactites are growing from the ceiling and the stalagmites are growing from the ground.

144_4489.JPG This is a huge stalactite in the cave we walked through.

144_4413.JPG We are at the top of a grand staircase in some ruins in Baalbek, Lebanon. These are made of the biggest blocks of rock, ever.  How could they get those humungous blocks up there?  The made hills of dirt and slid them on rollers up the hills, and then took the dirt away!

144_4421.JPG My Dad is showing you that this fallen pillar is bigger across than he is tall!

144_4438.JPG A detail from Baalbek. In this sculpture of a dancer, they have figured out how to make the cloth look transparent. This was made in about 200 A.D., and they didn't get this good again until the Renaissance, about 1400 A.D.

144_4440.JPG These are the biggest blocks of stone. Look how small the people in the corner are – they look like ants!

144_4441.JPG I am strong enough to lift up this giganto pillar! They are going to hire me to put the ruins back together, just like I straightened out the Leaning Tower of Pisa!

144_4454.JPG I am riding a camel in Baalbek.

144_4450.AVI (Short movie.) A movie of me riding the camel.

ALLYCE065.JPG Kylene and I are riding camels.

144_4472.JPG We are at a beach with Alexi in Beirut.

144_4473.AVI (Big movie file). We are splashing in the waves at the beach.

ALLYCE077.JPG We are on a cliff above the beach. That's Beirut in the background.

144_4475.JPG My uncle Paul and I are making a sand-cookie museum where we sculpt sand lumps into "artifacts."

145_4506.JPG This is in the town of Jezzine, on the side of a mountain. My great-grandparents on my Dad's side were born in Jezzine, but when they were in their 20's they moved to America.

145_4507.JPG From left to right:  Kylene, Dad, Uncle Paul, my Sittoo, my Giddoo, me, Allyce, and my cousin George.  We are in Jezzine stainding at a chapel on a cliff. 

145_4518.JPG My cousin Dimyanos is showing us how this one-room house, which belonged to his ancestors, was built a long time ago. 

145_4529.JPG At Easter at the house of Dimyanos' mother, Jalile, we had an Easter-egg cracking contest.  I am cracking with my sister. 

145_4540.JPG We are standing near the bottom of the waterfall in Jezzine.  I crawled down a wall of rock to touch the water falling.  My foot misplaced itself and I spent the rest of the day with a very wet shoe and sock. 

145_4543.JPG My relatives are surrounding me at the waterfall.   From left to right:  my first cousin twice removed Georges (who grew up in Jezzine), Kylene, Allyce, Caline (daughter of Georges and my third cousin once removed), Dad, me, Mom, Mariele, Uncle Paul, Elio (Georges' son), Martine (Georges' daughter), and Ralph (third cousin).

145_4545.JPG I am eating a not-yet-ripe almond just picked from a tree.  This is what the inside looks like.  The fresh-picked ones tasted sweeter than the ones my Dad bought in the store. 

145_4553.JPG From left to right:  Uncle Paul, Boutros Aziz, my Giddoo, and my Dad.  My Sittoo and Giddoo came to Jezzine to look for the houses their parents grew up in.  We were driving around and we didn't know where the house was where my father's father's father grew up.  So we stopped at a random house in the neighborhood we knew about, and it turned out to be the house, and Boutros was living in it!  Boutros is my Giddoo's cousin.  We didn't know he existed!  When he told him my name is Adele, he was very excited because he knew my great grandmother Adele and he liked her a lot! 

145_4564.JPG  This is the house that my Sittoo's father grew up in.  There is nobody living in it now.  But we found a pot of cooked potatoes there because someone lived in it over the winter. 

ALLYCE2041.JPG This is the other half of the house.  They split the house in half when one of the kids got married, so the kid owned the other half of the house.  This half is still occupied.  By relatives, of course, who served us things to eat and drink, of course. 

145_4587.JPG This is Adele Aziz and Adele Aziz.  We are both Adeles and I met her on Easter Sunday.  We are cousins. 

146_4617.JPG This is me and another Adele. Her last name is Mendelek, but she is also a cousin. 

146_4620.JPG From left to right. Elisa, Ursula, Kylene. They are cousins we met at Easter.

146_4642.JPG This picture was taken from the top of a mountain. We drove up here and climbed up a statue. From the top of the statue we could see a lot of Lebanon! We timed this just right, so you can see the sun setting.

146_4644.JPG  Yet another interesting flush. You have to push down on the white tube and it goes whoosh!!!  This is in Alexi's house. 

IMG_3744.JPG We went to school for a day in Lebanon. It was owned by Alexi's dad. It's called the “Ataya New School" because Ataya is their last name. These are some of the kids there, surrounding Kylene.

IMG_3750.JPG These are more kids from the Ataya New School offering me and Mariele lollipops.

ALLYCE006.JPG We are with Alexi, his Dad, my uncle Paul, and my cousin Allyce on a rock next to the sea in Beirut.

ALLYCE009.JPG We went on a boat ride in a little motor boat. We went to a famous rock called Pigeon Rock.

ALLYCE011.JPG This is Pigeon rock. Notice how the bigger rock looks like a pair of shorts.

ALLYCE012.JPG We are now heading under Pigeon Rock.  I hope to see you when we return!