Overheard at the beauty-salon: Bonjour Madame, good to see you again! You’re here for… a manicure. Ah, for the Rotary tomorrow? No, no, no, tomorrow I have a hospital visit. Medical check-up for my heart. Rotary is next week! …
I’m in a service (shared taxi) and since I am the only passenger, the taxi-driver starts a conversation with me. ‘So, what do you think of Lebanon?’ It’s the usual question to start with. ‘I like it. That’s why I live here.’ My standard answer to this question. ‘You live here? Where are you from?’ Curiosity goes up, possibility to charge higher rate goes down. ‘From Holland.’ I have to pronounce this one really well, for it not to be confused with Poland or written off as ‘non-understandable Scandinavian country.’ ‘Hahaha!’ The taxi-driver starts laughing. ‘You must be scared of the cold there!’ ‘That’s right. I love the sun!’ I’m glad he understands what I’m talking about. ‘Well,’ he says without missing a beat, ‘you could just take a picture of it and put it up in your room.’
And with that: case closed on the weird foreigner who wants to live here.
As seen from our terrace when we moved in in May 2008...
And this is the view now...
On the road to my parents' village, Oosterhout (in the east of the Netherlands), the youth group of the Catholic church has placed a big sign made of strings of lights that says:
U.T.O. wishes you a white Christmas and a sunny 2009!
I know there is always something to laught at here, so I asked what U.T.O stands for. It used to be ‘Ultra Terror Oosterhout,’ was the answer. I can only assume the name was chose in a time that no one in the village mastered the English language.
The pastor must have done some research, because he adviced them to change the name. U.T.O. now stands for ‘Uiterst Trots Oosterhout’ – Extremely Proud Oosterhout. I sure hope they didn’t get their inspiration here, but I wouldn’t be surprised.
Either way, I wish you all a merry Christmas and a great start to 2009! Hope to see you here!
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So why do you like living in Lebanon? My friend, visiting from the Netherlands, asked me after a day of being harassed on the Corniche and having been overcharged with every single purchase just because we are both foreign.
I couldn’t quite think of anything, just then.
But two days later I knew full well why I like living in Lebanon. Because I can sit on the beach on a Monday night, enjoying the colors of the sunset and throwing pebbles in the water, I said.
In November! she added.
In November, indeed. It’s easy to forget one cannot wear flip-flops this time of year everywhere in the world...
