I am in Beirut today. I took a minibus from Homs down here; it only took five hours. I met a really nice Palestinian family on the microbus that gave me a handful of chocolate candies; people are so nice here in the Middle East.

Beirut is a modern city springing back from years of civil war. The streets are filled with Porsches and Mercedes. The downtown pedestrian area is beautiful and expensive. It's quite an open society here, influenced much by the French. Many of the signs are in French, and the architecture is reminescent of France. There are also a lot of buildings that show scars from the civil wars in the 1980's and 90's. There are bombed out buildings with artillery scars. The waterfront is beautiful and tonight it was crowded with people exercising and enjoying nargila, the waterpipe. I expect to be here for almost a week, after which, inshallah (God willing), I will be let back into Syria.