The Tallest Buildings in Beirut

Here they are, a few of the tallest buildings in Beirut:

There aren't many buildings in Beirut that have more than a dozen or so floors.  In this photo, the tallest one, the squarish  Platinum Tower, is 152 meters high and is currently the city's tallest building.  The pointy one is Marina Tower, and it is 150 meters high.

But a kilometer or two away near Sodeco, Sama Beirut is under construction. It's anticipated that it will be completed in 2014 and rise to a height of 200 meters. It's hard to imagine what that will look like.

A Little of Everything

Let's see, what'll it be today? Deteriorating walls, crazy wires, pipes akimbo, that awesome metal roof stuff, balcony curtains, peeling-paint shuttered windows?

All of the above.

Hopeless Romance

Life is full of little surprises . . .

. . . like the hopeless romance of a stranger's balcony.

Mary, Mary

I grew up in the US, in an area with Catholics, Protestants, and plenty of others though their numbers were small. But, because I was rooted within the community of others I looked around at the world from that position knowing not much about what everyone else believed.

It's funny how those things look different as a grown-up. As a kid I felt irretrievably different from everyone else and now I see most of that was in my head. Not all of it, just most of it.

I suppose that experience informs my understanding of Lebanon.

Candles for sale in Achrafieh.

Over the Rooftops

Just a few clouds, evidence that it was raining earlier. And there was also hail this morning.

Normally I'm on the ground when I take pictures, but I was a few floors up for this one. I like it, looking over the rooftops.

Four Centered Arch

It's been a while since I paid much attention to the variety of arch shapes that are to be found on older buildings all over Beirut.

Based on a diagram that I swiped from a nice website called "Looking at Buildings", I'd call this one a four centered arch.

Do you agree?

Life is Sweet

Today I grabbed a quick photo of the petit fours at my neighborhood bakery. They're 22,000 LL for a kilo, or about $7.50 a pound. Yum. When you buy them, you can pick and choose or you can just ask for a little of everything. There's no wrong move and everyone wins.

It's a good thing that I finally have a picture of some of the sweets sold at my neighborhood bakery. I go in there so much you'd think it wouldn't be a problem to get a picture, but I've noticed that it's the places I go all_the_time that I never seem to photograph.

In the Alleyway

I stepped into an alleyway, turned back the way I'd came and looked up. Such simple actions, everyday, mundane.

It's a big city. Maybe someday, I will have stepped through every alleyway, turned back along every path I've walked to look around and consider where I came from.

Someday.

Love

Can't help it. Look at that enormous lump of green. So many types of leafy what-not piled up, going in all directions, looking gorgeous.

style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; It's the variety that I love, that so many shapes and shades are layered together along the path ahead. Beirut keeps its pockets of green pretty well hidden, and it doesn't have nearly enough of them, but it does the green it's got really, really well.

Happy Valentine's Day, Beirut.

Nobody's Favorite

I don't like air conditioners, particularly these. They're in the way. That balcony is small enough without sacrificing space to AC units.

And you know what they remind me of? They remind me of Hal, from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Hal's nobody's favorite character, especially once he starts to malfunction.

Just about the only thing I remember about Hal is that he apologized a lot in his predictably uninflected AI voice. And in the end, he lost.

Now that I think of it, I'd love to get an apology from my AC unit. We could start with "I'm sorry for operating inefficiently". "I'm sorry for being so noisy". "I'm sorry about that time I broke down last summer". And we'd finish up with "I'm sorry for being appallingly ugly on the side of a beautiful building".

But, just like Hal, the AC's apologies are empty, meaningless, and it will carry on just as before.