Vacation with some edge

Ok, so I'm going to bore you all to tears now, with the stories of my trip. I'm gonna try and keep them to a minimum, but I have lots to blab about. So the first bit of business is that by the time I got there I was sooo sleep deprived it was absurd. I hadn't slept the night before and we had something like a four hour extra delay in Italy. Ick. So I think I was awake for around 40 hours or something stupid. And when we first got there, the car bringing our luggage had broken down. Nice. And our house wasn't ready so we were saying at my step-mom's parents. Bad Karma, I think.

Anyway, eventually we got into an up around 6am, breakfast at 10am, kinda groove. It was nice staying at the grandparent's house. Comfortable and everyone went there to visit. The toilets were an adjustment. Luckily the grandparents have a normal toilet, but many people in lebanon have this little porcelain hole in the floor apparatus where you squat. Anyway, most people there don't use toilet paper so it was an adjustment always remembering to find tissue before you went to the bathroom. At some point within the first two weeks, my step-mom's youngest brother started taking me and my half-sister out every evening. Usually we'd drive around the village or to a neighboring village and have ice cream and/or shwarma (like a pita sandwich). Let me tell you the icecream is good in Lebanon. YUM! Our icecream does not have nearly enough nuts.

Anyway, finally our house's floor was done, something like it had to be buffed or something, I dont' know. But it didn't really look like it had been done properly anyway. But I was sad to leave the gradnparent's house because I had become really comfortable there. And I liked hangng out with the brother. He is cute and fun and doesn't speak any English. I liked spending the evening trying to teach him English and learn Arabic. It was fun. AND he is the only person in his twenties without children.

Well, this hanging out with Mr. M soon became a problem as my father DID NOT like me staying out after 10pm with "boys". What a crock. Considering he never takes us anywhere I wasn't going to spend my entire VACATION hanging out with my brother's and sisters in the house. Mr. M like most good people has a job and so wasn't around much during the day. To make a long story short my dad and I eventually had a big fight and I had to stay in at 10pm. And I was not happy.

This occurred around the time I started making out with Mr. M when no one else was around to see. Tee hee. For the record he kissed me. You see in Lebanon people are very conservative. NO dating. No fun after dark. So Mr. M who is the youngest in the family, spent a lot of time in Beirut, which is a lot more like Edmonton or Ottawa. Originally I was hesitant to show Mr. M the pictures on my computer because I am drinking in many of them and I didn't want him to think badly of me. Ha. I shoulda showed him. We'd have had more fun sooner. Mr. M drinks. Mr. M ...uhm...misbehaves. Good for Mr. M. I'm quite sad that I didn't meet him in Canada. We'd have had a great deal of fun. I like that he is very very masculine.

Let's see, that is really boring so far. But I will tell stories in my next post, I think. Anyway, Highlights:

• Mr. M bought me my only birthday gift. It was nice. It was perfume which I normally wouldn't like but somehow didn't mind from him.
• Mr. M also bought me a going away gift. Something he'd seen me wanting before. Very sweet.
• My dad is the same old jerk he's always been, but amazingly, we managed to get through the whole trip with only one fight
• I didn't see as much as I wanted to see. I am very disappointed about this.
• I made one good girl friend. But we couldn't hang out cuz she had to go for surgery. Boo.
• I only saw my grandparents once or twice. I spent the whole trip with my step-mom's family. They are great, but I am sad.
• Beirut is #@*&(*& hot.
• I tried to stay longer but I couldn't change my ticket.
• My computer got wiped and I lost ALL my files. Thank God I backed up before I left. Though there was a small disaster with my grades for the course I am TAing. Shh. Don't tell.
• I only spent $500 Canadian on a five week trip. Yay for me.

Ok, I'm really not in the mood to reminisce. Sorry folks. There are some good stories, I have the sorta down somewhere, but I'm still rebuilding my computer as we speak and it is distracting. Hope you all are having a lovely summer.