So long, and thanks for all the fish

I've really enjoyed writing this blog, but it's time to say good-bye. Thanks for coming 'round.

Out the window

A few days ago, we went down to Tyre to see some archeological sites that we missed out on last time. While I'm working on the write-up, I thought I would entertain you all with pictures of road-side attractions.

When we first saw this piece of installation art/monument, Mary Ann didn't realize it was supposed to be a boot on top of the troop transport. Therefore, until someone can come up with a better interpretation, you are hereby notified that it is in fact, a boot. For those of you unfamiliar with the history of South Lebanon, this is with reference to the retreat of Isreal.



The ratio of political posters to commercial advertisements is getting out of balance here. Bonus points if you can spot the fake plant.

Enfe

We’ve been living in Lebanon for a while now, so we’ve seen most of the big name sites. Fortunately, there are plenty of little nooks and crannies to enjoy. The accessibility of these sites has improved dramatically with the arrival of a swanky new set of bilingual guidebooks. These are so much better than the little fold out pamphlets that were parading around before. For those of you who might be curious, the whole set can be downloaded here, or you can look at the one for Enfe here.

It was fairly easy to get there, although we needed to do a certain amount of adaptation. For example, the name of the city on the brochure is Enfe, and the name on the map is also Enfe, but the phonetic spelling preferred by the people who made the road signs is Anfeh. Just something to keep in mind for the hordes of pilgrims who will try to retrace our steps in an effort to pay homage to our greatness.

The map of the city provided in the brochure does correspond well with the actual location, although the lack of street names on the map was annoying. Nonetheless, we were able to find our way and park fairly easily. Once we got out of the car, the girls were in the mood to run off some energy, so we took some time to check the place out.





For some reason, this structure features prominently in all the brochures and guidebooks I’ve seen, so I decided to follow the crowd and take a picture of it myself.



I particularly like archeological sites with a high frolick and scamper factor, but with few chances for children to kill themselves. Enfe did quite well in this criteria, with funerary caves, basins for ancient olive oil presses and salt evaporators cut right into the rock.



About that time, a herd of very friendly goats came over to visit. This one in particular decided to live up to the stereotype by eating a plastic bag.





We decided to offer them some more healthful food.





After much exploring and frolicking, we eventually moved on to the second site in the area, the Abbey of Balamand.

Joys of summer

Technically speaking, it isn't really very warm out, but Stella and I are highly motivated to enjoy some of the swimming options available around Lebanon these days. Last week, we made use of a sunny day to head down to the Corniche and try out the water.

At the last minute, Stella decided that the waves were a bit too loud, and decided to stick with some rather shallow tide pools that were free of any cantankerous waves.



I splashed around with her for a while before wandering off to go check the breakers for sharks. You can never be too careful about sharks.



Anyway while I was gone, my wife had some loustabout hoodlums yell unpleasentries at her from the walkway. Grrrr

Not to be deterred, we moved down the coast a bit. There was a small herd of crabs hanging out in a small cavelet, so I scooped one up to show to the girls. While Stella is a lot more mobile, the crab would have to be highly arthritic to stick around long enough for Danielle to get a good look. Drawing on my deep respect for life, I gently let the crab go so it could eat enough scum and filth to get big enough to be turned into someone else’s dinner later on.

How to rob a bank

Looks like these crooks had it all figured out. They picked a bank right next to an Army barracks and robbed it in broad daylight, with a fake grenade. Stragenly, the security cameras happen to be turned off for maintenance. Oh, and the staff didn't trigger the alarm until after they were gone.

Hmmmm

Fully story here.

Luna Park

I had thought that taking some time off from work would leave me more free time to blog. I had even decided that I should probably limit myself to one post a day so I didn’t saturate things. Silly me. We’ve been having all sorts of fun, but for some reason, there is an inversely proportional relationship between having a great time and blogging about it….

That being said, I’d like to give my endorsement to Luna Park. The four of us wandered down there in the middle of the afternoon this week, and the place was absolutely deserted. We were quite literally the only guests there. We thought they might chase us off, but this was not the case. They were quite happy to have us around, and started up any ride we wanted to go on. The fee usually amounts to about 60 cents per adult. It was the easiest, most convenient amusement park I have ever been to.

Stella had a great time on the Ferris wheel, which also provided a great view of the coast.



The hydraulic airplanes were also nice but defitintely needed adult accompaniment. The little darling would have been sent flying by the centrifugal force.



Oddly enough, some friends of ours from the German playground showed up at about this point. They were the only other people in the park.



One of the rides left a little something to be desired. I’m normally pretty enthusiastic about a good tilt-a-whirl, but this one seemed a little dodgy.



Is that an exhibitionist she-hulk in some kind of reverie?

Yes, I know it’s potentially lethal

The volume on our television has been growing progressively less responsive lately. Yesterday, the whole set shut down. It was making an admirable effort, but it was failing the critical image on the screen test. Being the cyberguy that I am, I could not just leave the thing alone, or call for a so-called “repair man”.

Televisions contain enough juice to provide a one-way ticket to the cemetery, but I was undeterred. Being a graduate of what passes for Boy Scouts in North Carolina, I’ve seen folks eat poison, chop limbs and burn down medium-sized sections of a National Park (true story). I take this as evidence that the natural consequences of risk-taking behavior happen to other people.



I cracked it open and low and behold, was able to find a spot on the main circuit board that had corroded. This section was responsible for the volume subsystem, so I was feeling pretty confident in my ace deductive reasoning. I had hoped that the problem was caused by the corrosion creating a short circuit. If this was the case, there was a chance it could be fixed by simply cleaning it. Unfortunately, no dice.

My sister-in-law gave me a swanky portable microscope for Christmas, so I whipped that out for a closer look. Some of the wiring had been completely eaten through and simply wasn’t there anymore. Electricity had been flowing through a mixture of oxidant and a steadily decreasing amount of wire. Poor little TV, it tried so hard.

Anyway, it’s dead and I’m alive so that’s the end of the story.

A certain subtext...

I doubt the people who made this sign are aware of the potential alternate meanings here. Anyway, Andy, this one's for you:

Not too smart

Hey baby, I drive a Brabus. A Smart Brabus. Wanna go for a ride?

Debate skills 101

Discussing things with a three year old requires certain artistry. At that age, they are starting think more logically, but it’s still a work in progress. This charming exchange I had with Stella this afternoon illustrates the principle:

Me: Stella, you are not allowed to ride your bike in the house. You have to ride it on the balcony.

Stella: No! I want to ride it!

Me: You can ride it, but only on the balcony.

Stella: I like eggs

Me: *Stunned*

Mary Ann: You should blog that.

Signage

After all the interest generated by the last sign a posted, I thought I would post another one. Anyone want to guess what the "Live Fast Food" might entail?



I'm reminded powerfully of a scene from the child-traumatizing movie Dark Crystal, where these charmers dine on a bowl of live mice-like things. Not the most appetizing memory.



No, I did not wait around for the establishment to open up and find out from the proprietor what their sign meant.

What do they sell there?

Based on what they are dispalying in the windows, I think this is supposed to be a toystore. Based on the sign, I have no idea whatsoever.


Sorry for the glare from the flash, but I had to take this picture on short notice while in the car.

Solving the problem the Lebanese way...

Having previously blogged about the serious lack of real pepper in my life, I would like to give you all a little update. From time to time, things inexplicably vanish from the Lebanese market. This could be medications, computer equipment, car parts, you name it. Typically, this problem is solved by that most effective of Lebanese tools, the wasta network.

For all those of you outside the country, “wasta” is a delightful little word full of so many layers of meaning. We don’t really have a single English word that encompases all the many definitions of wasta, but a good general translations would be “connections”. In these sorts of cases, it involves finding some friend of a friend who is flying into Lebanon from a better supplied location and persuading them to play mule for you.

In my case, I didn’t actually have to formally activate my wasta network. The problem was solved by the timely arrival of my mother, who saw it in the goodness of her heart to arrive in Lebanon with a pocket full of this:



Pepper packets from Turkey.

Yipee!

My new windows background

I took this picture while we were all on a walk to the park. I decided I liked it enough to be my new windows background for a while...

Today is a happy day

Lebensgefahr

Stella has recently developed a love of sunglasses. She accidentally broke her first pair, so we have been keeping an eye out for new ones. This has helped me appreciate how rare children’s sunglasses are in this country. A few days ago we were on an eerily successful shopping trip, when we discovered some likely candidates. The size and price were quite good, but the sticker left a little something to be desired…

Discovery

Stella has discovered that she can roll her tongue.

Advice urgently needed

Three days ago, my mother got quite sick. Within about two hours she went from normal to vomiting and bedridden. She couldn't keep anything down, and didn’t want to try for about a day. She then gradually came back up to speed over the course of 8 hours. We hoped it wasn't contagious, but last night the kids and I all started spontaneously throwing up at about 1 am. For the girls this happened at least twice, for me only once. I still went to work today, but didn’t eat anything.

The trouble is that Mary Ann is now showing symptoms. From the previous pattern, she’s probably going to be throwing up within about two hours. My question is, how do you prepare a bathroom for someone who is going to throw up to make the experience as pleasant/less horrible than it otherwise would be? I’ve just cleaned the bathroom, so everything is clean, sparkly and no longer smells like three people just spent the last day throwing up in there. Unfortunately, she really doesn’t like the smell of bleach, so my most powerful (and instinctive) weapon is out.

I think the smell is neutral at this point, but where to go from here? As anyone who watches commercials knows full well, girls love candles in their bathrooms, so I’ve done that. Also, She doesn’t have long hair, so the whole “a friend is someone who holds your hair when you are throwing up” thing isn’t going to apply…

Any ideas on what else I could do?

Decisions

For some reason, Stella has spontaneously decided that she no longer feels comfortable going down the big slide at the park by herself. She hasn’t had a bit of trouble for months, but now it’s different. Who knows, maybe she has started understanding the cause and effect relationship so often associated with gravity and tall objects.

Despite these misgivings, she still enthusiastically climbs up the slide, but then won’t go down without an escort. On a recent trip she seemed to be willing to handle the slide on her own. In this picture I’m reminding her that she has changed her mind about solo sliding for the last 20 or so attempts. She assures me she will do it herself.



As usual, I follow her up the ladder to prevent any nasty consequences from her loosing her footing. We’ve had her do this twice, and nothing reminds you of the proper role of a parent like catching your child as she falls from a 15 foot tall ladder. Oddly, she is not a bit afraid of the ladder...



She finally arrives at the top of the slide, and guess what? She changes her mind.



After assurances and persuasion, she is unmoved. Her majesty then decides to send an unequivocally clear signal on her position.



There’s always next time…

New Shirt

Paradise Found

Mary Ann has discovered a solution for the age old problem of babies pulling out their pacifiers at night. Generally, this problem requires some adult reparation, particularly when it’s dark. With the application of a bit of creative thinking, and minimal investment, behold the solution:



This is now pacifier paradise. No matter what happens during the night, the supply of pacifiers is always so plentiful that Danielle can solve the problem on her own without waking us up. This has resulted in the whole family sleeping through the night for no less than four nights in a row. Mary Ann is a genius.

I am most seriously displeased

Maybe it was because I just wrote the post below, but I had pepper on my mind when I went to the cafeteria this afternoon. Therefore, I noticed that there was a little basket containing little packets marked “Salt”, and low and behold “Pepper”. Since I’m fond of pepper, I was quite pleased about this.

I happily opened one up and began to sprinkle it on my food, foolishly believing that just because it was labeled “pepper”, it would actually be pepper. Silly me. It was in fact, cinnamon. Strangely it wasn’t pure cinnamon, I think it had some cloves and maybe something else on it. In any case, it should have been on a Christmas cookie somewhere, not on my lunch.

Vital and critical update

The peppershakers in our cafeteria are full of cinnamon. The salt shakers do indeed have salt in them, but in the year and a half I’ve been going to this cafeteria, I have yet to see any pepper whatsoever. Apparently, cinnamon is the preferred spice for Lebanese food. Can anyone offer a better explination?

That's interesting...

Americans' Ratings of United Nations Among Worst Ever

Our good friends over at Gallup have put out some interesting data on the good ol' UN. The isn't any information on causation for the approval ratings, but I do find it interesting that the highest rankings seem to come aroung the time of the first gulf war, and Sept. 11th. Maybe there was something else at work there, but the timelines do match up reasonably well.

On another point, I was had expected the approval ratings among Democracts to be higher than they were. Now, let's take a look at these figures for other regions in the world...

Witz

This is only funny if you know German…

****

Matthew: Want to try and guess what this German word means?

Mary Ann: Sure, go for it.

Matthew: Opduziert

Mary Ann: I have no idea. Hmmm… Does it mean saying “Du” to someone you should have said “Sie” to?

Matthew: That’s a really good guess, but no. It means autopsy.

Dirty but happy

This cursed black fingerprint powder is still fighting our efforts to get rid of it. The morning after the investigation, and after much scrubbing and vacuuming, this is what #2s knees and feet looked like after crawling through the living room for less than five minutes.



We were a little slow on the uptake though, and left her in her white clothes. It will come as no surprise that they were gray very shortly thereafter. Why this did not occur to us at the time is a mystery of hindsight.

Coping

Anyone have music suggestions for someone who's trying not to think about the fact that someone is watching his family's movements and breaking into our house to steal our stuff?

Robbed

Today, sometime between 1030 and 1130, someone broke into our apartment. They took our laptop, video camera, and digital still camera. All together, we’re out about $2,700.00 Whoever it was must have been keeping a pretty close watch on us for a while, because they timed their escapade for exactly when Mary Ann was out shopping. Fortunately, we had backed up the laptop recently, so she only lost about two days of work on her thesis.

I’m quite glad to all the help we got through my workplace. They sent me down to the main police station with a translator, which made things a lot easier. I’m fairly confident that the office I was in for starting the investigation used to be a jail cell at one point, but that just adds to the ambiance. I also got to see where they are storing the vehicles from the Harriri explosion, so that was another item of interest.

In the course of the investigation, it has come to light that the concierge was asked to change the locks on our apartment when we first moved in, but didn’t actually do it. This sheds some light on why there was no actual forced entry into the house. Whoever broke in used a key, or did a very good job picking the lock.

Things got a bit hectic this evening, with the landlord coming over, and a squad of forensic detectives dusting for prints and so forth. We had Danielle in her chair eating some chocolate, but in all the hustle and bustle she got a bit dirtier than she normally would have.



Later on, Mary Ann and I were both finger printed so they could compare our prints with the samples they lifted off the house. Tune in later for my witty insights on how to clean up the plague of black fingerprint dust.



Fortunately, we do have renter’s insurance, and it does cover this sort of thing. I’m curious to see how the claim process goes.

Let that be a lesson to you

To all you procurement officers out there who don't feel a rush to process paperwork, take a lesson from this guy who was kidnapped because UNICEF hadn't paid its bills (allegedly).

lone shark or swim with the crowd?

I am a rather self-motivated person. I’ve reached a wide variety of goals without anyone helping to motivate me. I’ve kept an exercise program going for several years, and done other stuff, like distance education. However, I’ve recently come to believe that being self-motivated is all well and good, but doing things like this is quite a bit more difficult than doing things in a team. Joggers do better when they run together, and the second child almost always develops faster than the first because the older child is setting the pace.

Now that I’ve had this brilliant revelation, I just need to figure out how to best apply it. Anyone out there want to change the world, learn Chinese, and write software?

Glad to see the sport is properly named....

Even though British English is supposedly the standard in the UN, the still got the name right on this new website:

UN Soccer Club

Lotta Lawyers

I am constantly amazed at how many lawyers find their way into the UN in one way or another. Obviously, the UN doesn't really practice law (except for the odd tribunal here or there). Most of these folks seem to be document jockeys in some kind of advocacy role. Women's issues, rights of childrent, etc. However, some of them are in really weird jobs, like peace keeping and such. Maybe the papery nature of the UN is attractive to people with good documentation skills...

Treffen

Today I met the only UN employee from Andorra. Apparently, they are still an under represented country, because they are allowed to have somewhere around 3-5 employees in the UN system.

Yeah, diversity.

$

I've come to the conclusion that I am more fond of money that I had previously thought. A few days ago, we had occasion to withdraw more money than normal from the bank. Shortly thereafter, I noticed how much I liked flipping through it, counting it, and generally having it around. Even then, it wasn't until Mary Ann gave me a "what are you doing?" look that I realized she and I have very different perspectives on cash.

Fortunately for our financial health, I teeter between a desire to hoard the money in nice little piles, and the desire to invest in high-yield items such as video games, PDA/phones, and trips to 3rd world countries. If Mary Ann were to go on a spending binge, my guess would be that there would be a lot more fabric and art in the house.

Hopefully, the balance between wanting to keep the money around will continue fending off spendiness.

Dreams

I'm a fairly ambitious person, and I've been fortunate enough to be able to achieve a reasonable amount of my goals thus far. The thing is I've noticed that very few of my dreams have turned out to be as good as I had visualized them to be when I was working towards them. My marriage is one major exception to this, as it has turned out far better than I had originally thought.

So what about you folks? Have your dreams turned out to be disillusioning once achieved?

Reading

I've decided that it's about time I buckled down and read the Koran. Some first-hand knowledge would probably be a good thing.

Well, look at that

For the first time, I’ve come across someone else who happens to have the same strange little genetic two-part eyebrow quirk that I do. I have no idea who this person is:



But here is the eyebrow in question.

His:




Mine:





Unfortunately, despite this similarity, I doubt we're similar enough genetically for any useful purpose, such as a murder alibi.

Proximity alert

Today my news aggregator presented me with this little gem:



Group-think has failed.

Random pictures

Fishing along the corniche in Beirut is a popular pastime. I'm not really sure why they do it though, most of the fish are really small...



This scene is the Dora highway in the area of Harissa at night.



I really don't know what this sign is trying to communicate. It's clearly a typical funeral wrapping, but maybe an Arabic speaker can translate exactly what they are trying to get across...

That's a pleasent surprise

Surprise hit humanitarian video game reaches one million players

UN reform

I rather like this website on UN reform.

http://www.lowlevelpanel.org/

Change of plans

I had been planning to take the kids out to the park this afternoon, until I saw this:

Lebanese torch Danish consulate over cartoons

I am not very happy with the idea that I need to check the news before leaving the house.

Following the crowd

Normally, I don't care to engage in these online poll thingies, but it seems that several of my family members are taking it, so I will too.

On the plus side, I seem to be decently righteous, but on the negative side, I seem rather boring. Watch out though, I'm moderately violent.

I wonder if that would make a good bumper sticker?

The Dante's Inferno Test has sent you to Purgatory!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	Extreme
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	Very High
Level 2 (Lustful)	Low
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	Very Low
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	Very Low
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	Very Low
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	Very Low
Level 7 (Violent)	Moderate
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	Low
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	Very Low

Did I just get old?

I just realized that I've had cable TV at our new apartment for over a month now, and I have utterly no idea which channel MTV is on. I do however have all the German channels, discovery and BBC/CNN memorized.

Hmmmm

The importance of reading the whole article

While I'm glad that the US, Iran, Cuban, Sudan and Zimbabwe can all find something to agree on, this isn't the first area I would pick.

Human rights organizations and the co-chairman of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus protested on Thursday a decision by the Bush administration to back a measure introduced by Iran denying two gay rights groups a voice at the United Nations.

In a vote Monday, the United States supported Iran's recommendation to deny consultative status at the United Nations' Economic and Social Council to the Danish National Association for Gays and Lesbians and the International Lesbian and Gay Association, based in Belgium.

Nearly 3,000 nongovernmental organizations have such status, which enables them to distribute documents to meetings of the council.

Among countries with which the United States sided were Cuba, Sudan and Zimbabwe, nations the State Department has cited in annual reports for their harsh treatment of homosexuals.

Sounds pretty unfair and weasely doesn't it? A bit further down the article, we find this little gem:

Mark P. Lagon, a deputy assistant secretary of state, said in an interview that the vote did not stem from "being against gay rights groups" but was based on "the controversial history of the International Lesbian and Gay Association — an affiliate of the North American Man/Boy Love Association, was associated with it in the past and openly condoned pedophilia."

While I have no idea if this reason/excuse is in fact valid, it does cast things in a different light doesn't it?

Sigh

Gulf retailers were pulling Danish products from their shelves and ambassadors were being summoned for a dressing down over the publication in a Danish newspaper of cartoons depicting Prophet Mohammad. Saudi Arabia recalled its ambassador to Denmark last week to protest the Danish government's laissez-faire stance on the offending drawings, and Kuwait said it was summoning Denmark's ambassador.

Sheikh Ali al-Huzaifi, the imam of the holy mosque in Medina, urged Muslim governments to recall their ambassadors and freeze trade with Denmark and Norway "who permit such nonsense, calling it democracy."

"Ridiculing the Prophet is an appaling crime which should not pass without response, because that would allow others in the future to commit the same indecent act," he told Friday worshippers.

"They call [that] freedom of expression and democracy. They are liars and hypocrites," he added.

What?

Irony of the day:

The last name of Lebanon's "Sports and Youth Minister" is Fatfat.

I find that amusingly ironic.

Weird Sign

Warning: Fathers dragging their daughters to school on this road

Certifiable

I am now a certified speaker of German. Well, more like a certified mauler of German, since I only took the Zertifikat Deutsche, which isn’t a very high level. Still though, now I have an extra certification to list on my resume. Yipee!

Death to those who annoy me

At about 1:50 this morning, a mosquito (better know to faithful readers as sky leeches) attacked me. It got in two good bites behind my ear before I woke up, which turned out to be a strategic mistake, because I was then in as much of a mood for blood as the sky leech. The little parasite took it, and I wanted it back with interest. Still though, I didn’t want to bother Mary Ann, so I used the LED flashlight built in to her cell phone to try and track the thing down.

I wonder what goes through a woman’s mind when she wakes up at two in the morning to find her husband using her cell phone to inspect the walls. Mary Ann is very patient.

Anyway, she told me to just be done with it and turn on the light. After a few moments of searching, I found the little beast and started my attack run. The closest weapon at hand happened to be Mary Ann’s pillow. Please see paragraph #2.

I’m proud to say that I brought death to my adversary in one blow. On a biophysical note, I found it interesting that I didn’t actually swat the little pestilence with the pillow, but somehow managed to kill it anyway. There wasn’t a smear on the wall, or a body squished on the pillow, but I later found the entire mosquito rendered lifeless on the bed, fully intact. Dead from my lethal thought beams no doubt.

Lebanese taxi drivers, you have been warned.

I wish it was a joke

Sadly, it isn’t. Click here for the original.

*****

Hundreds of university graduates have held weekly protests for the past 15 years on the streets of the Moroccan capital, demanding safe government jobs because they fear the demands of private business. Mostly holders of degrees in the humanities and social sciences, some of the demonstrators say they would rather die than work for a private firm.

So they demand to be put on the public payroll even though the government has little use for them.

"In the private sector there is no security. You could work for years and one day or the next they will show you the door," said Driss al-Hassnaoui, a member of a 7,000-strong organization of unemployed graduates.

Hassnaoui believes the government is obligated to give him a job.

"We are ready to be integrated in any public position," he said, as protestors waved a banner reading "work or death."

Last month a young woman ate rat poison during one of the demonstrations but did not die. In another incident several other demonstrators suffered severe burns when their Molotov cocktails accidentally exploded on them.

Morocco's official unemployment rate is 10.9 percent. Some 13 percent of the workforce is employed in the public sector, or about 700,000 people. This year some 12,000 people are expected to get government jobs.

"Recruitment in Morocco is not equitable," said Mohammad al-Boukili of the Moroccan Human Rights Association.

"Those who are part of a certain social class or family are favored although the unemployed graduates, who often come from poor backgrounds, are the most in need of work," he said.

But the protesters have little sympathy from the government, which says it simply does not need more public servants with humanities degrees.

Driss Guerraoui, an adviser to the premier, said the graduates could not afford to turn their backs on the private sector.

"They demand jobs in the public sector but they don't have the qualifications for those positions where we need workers," explained the adviser, who is supposed to be dealing with the problem.

"We're looking for economists, telecommunications engineers, people with expertise in languages. We've suggested in vain that they get retrained.

"These unemployed graduates have made a profession of demonstrating," he said, adding that they needed to change their mentality "especially toward the private sector."

Hassnaoui said he was prepared to keep protesting for many more years. "We will continue our sit-in, even if it gets us nowhere for years to come," he said

Discovery

This weekend, the family went down to the local park. The highlight of the trip was Stella discovering the mother of all puddles. Loads of fun, but it was a trifle cold.

Testing

Just got out of my certification test for German. I’ll find out my score on Tuesday at 5pm. If I did well enough, they’ll allow me to move on to the verbal portion of the test. I suppose that will be scored within a week. I’m not really sure what score I’m going to end up with, but I’m glad I tried it out.

While I was there, I signed up for a Library card. Unfortunately, most of their AV materials are video tapes, but it’s something at least. Benjamin Blümchen, here we come!

houseshopping

I've blogged about shopping for French castles in the past, but this one has really made an impression on me. It's just outside Batroun, in the north-ish region of Lebanon. Of course, it would need a lot of work to be habitable, but it's just so picturesque. How can you not like this place?