HAPPY ACCIDENTS

Hellooo.  I’m so sorry it has been so long since I published.  There is a very good reason but I think I am over it all, and will begin to publish a bit again.  I make no more promises as to frequency, but I will do my best.  My life here is quite busy now.  I am teaching yoga, and I LOVE love love it.  I give group classes and have several private clients as well.  It keeps me sane and grounded, and makes me smile.  I am also doing a few Ayurveda consultations, some in conjunction with healthy cooking classes, and/or meal prep.  I have settled in and am truly enjoying this chapter. That said… Thank you for sticking with me, or if you are new, thanks for stopping by.  Please read on, and enjoy!

HAPPY ACCIDENTS

As a child, I watched a guy with a big red afro create beautiful works of art in what seemed like minutes.  The paintbrushes he used seemed as though they should be painting walls, not minutiae on canvas, but nevertheless, right before my eyes a painting appeared, with detail!  The man’s name was Bob Ross.  If you are an American you likely know of him and perhaps like me watched him.  For my non US friends, google him.  Bob lives on in YouTube glory for all eternity (hopefully) for everyone to see and experience.  Go watch one or two of his videos.  (Also google his background – fascinating to see how he came to be the man you will see.)

Mr. Ross was very soft spoken in his process.  Very gentle and kind, what people might refer to today as Zen.  His subjects were always happy.  He painted Happy Trees, Happy clouds, happy waterfalls, you get the picture.  If you did as suggested and had our own easel, canvas, palette, and brushes so you could paint along, he encouraged you by insisting there were no mistakes.  Everything you put on the canvas was fine.  It could be painted over or turned into something completely different.  A dropped blob of red paint could become a happy little rose bush.  There were never ‘mistakes’.  Only ‘Happy Accidents.”  I have interpreted that saying and applied it to life in general.  It’s similar to believing in the Butterfly Effect – there really are no mistakes – just choices to make and directions to take.  Life really is what you make of it, Every. Day.

Fast forward more years than I care to think about (and half a world away) and visualize yours truly about to miss her first flight ever (well, unintentionally anyway).  Handsome Hubby and I are in the back of a car flying towards Dubai to catch said flight.  I am using words my mother always told me were not only impolite, they were downright improper and only used by the uneducated.  I was definitely flunking kindergarten at the moment I realized there was NO WAY we were going to make that plane. 

Breathe.

Breathe.

OK now… pick up the phone and call the airline.  (Brief moment here to thank the people who thought up mobile phones, and a nod to those who create them as well.)  45 minutes of phone time later, almost to the Dubai airport, the airline gave us new flights for the following morning.  The cost was $218 per person and I thought all things considered it was OK.  We would lose our prepaid hotel room in Paris, and our early morning first class train ticket to Amsterdam We would also have to spend the night in Dubai, BUT we would arrive in Amsterdam with plenty of time to relax for a day before our Bike and Barge trip began. Ultimately that was the most important point. In exchange for this, we gained a 12-hour layover in Beirut. Hmmmm.  Not my first choice I thought, but it was acceptable all things considered.                                              

Except… It turned out to be a GREAT choice.  We walked up to the transit desk in the airport and asked if it was legal for us to leave the airport and go into town for a while were told we needed an address to put on the immigration form.  I reached out to a friend of ours in the US with family in Lebanon.  Time differences being what they are that didn’t work out, so I went online to Booking.com and found a hotel with no deposit required and free last minute cancellation.  Booked it while Handsome Hubby pulled up his Uber app and voila! 10 minutes later we were through immigration (no visa needed for US citizens) and in a car headed for Beirut. 

Our good luck held and we happened to get a really fun driver who spoke English well. After asking a few questions and telling him we’d like to have some Lebanese food for dinner, we determined that we first wanted to head up the mountain and view the city from above.  Beirut is a coastal city, that looks west over the Mediterranean Sea. The city is surrounded by, and in some cases grows up the side of mountains on all sides. Beirut is about half Muslim, and it was the beginning of Ramadan. That means that the Muslim population is fasting from sunrise to sundown, and as in Abu Dhabi and Dubai many restaurants in town were closed during daylight hours out of respect for that.  He suggested that we may more easily be able to find a place to have dinner up in the mountains.  We chatted and he spoke of the diversity of Lebanon, and once over the first mountain we were able to see further into the country.  It is a country of mountains and huge trees and really great beauty.  He made a few phone calls, and then asked us to trust him on a place for dinner. We agreed to do so.  

Along the way at our behest he stopped at a liquor store and grabbed us a bottle of Lebanese Red wine.  One thing we have learned in our time here in AD is that Lebanese wines are amazing!  Lebanon is one of the oldest wine producing regions in the world. Lebanese wines were known to have been exported to Egypt as early as the 2600s BC, and their virtues extolled throughout ancient history.  Robert Ballard, a famous underwater archaeologist (the guy that located the Titanic) found the wrecks of two Phoenician ships from 750 BC, whose cargo of wine was still intact. As the first great traders of wine, the Phoenicians protected it from oxidation with a layer of olive oil, followed by a seal of pinewood and resin – this is thought to possibly be the origin of the Greek’s taste for retsina. (Geographic History note: Ancient Phoenicia comprised part of what is now Syria, most of Lebanon, and went down through what is now part of Israel.) All this is to say that the Lebanese have a long (and somewhat colorful) history of winemaking.  They seriously know what they are doing.  Some of our favorite wines are Lebanese labels, and here they are quite affordable, especially compared to American or European labels.    

Our driver took us up and around the mountains through a cute little village, seeming to follow signs for a resort. We were dropping down the back side of another mountain, into a small canyon with a river below.  He turned opposite the directional sign for the resort into an even smaller lane. We drove through a beautiful olive grove, filled with gorgeous, gnarled trees that had to be ancient. The road ended at well-tended, flower filled landscape with a restaurant at the edge of the river. 

The owner came out and greeted us, then escorted us inside.  The restaurant was quite large, and completely empty. He was normally closed until Iftar (the meal Muslims eat after sunset to break their fast) but our driver had called ahead and he was happy to serve us. He did not have a menu written in English but asked what we enjoyed eating. Lebanese is one of our favorite cuisines and after hearing us, he went back to the kitchen and prepared our meal. The owner’s son, Khalid, was our server.  He spoke beautiful unaccented English and told us he had been taught it in the local schools from a very early age.  His teachers had been American, and he seemed pleased that we had commented on his accent. He also spoke French and a couple of dialects of Arabic.

We sat down and took in the unfiltered olive oil on every table (made on site from the olives in the grove) and the surrounding gardens, the beautiful wide planked wooden floors and the river running literally right along the side of the building. Khalid opened our bottle of wine and poured us each a glass, then asked what kind of music we liked. He dialed it up on Spotify and ran it through the speakers in the dining room.  Handsome Hubby asked me to dance, and I accepted.  We danced to George Winston, on soft wood floors with the river rushing next to us, at the bottom a canyon in Lebanon.  Wow.  Our dinner, comprised of copious amounts of freshly made Lebanese favorites, was delicious.  Afterward the owner gave us a tour of the grounds.  He has been in his job for almost 30 years and this restaurant and the grounds are his retirement plan.  The gardens are large and spacious.  They host weddings and other events.  He plans to add a few hotel rooms this year.  We plan to go back and stay in one of them.

Wine – $26us, Dinner for two including tip – $27us, Experience – Priceless.     

On the way back to the airport, our driver gave us a tour of Beirut.  The heart of the city combines ancient and modern and is much more European in appearance than any other Middle Eastern city we have seen.  It is really quite cosmopolitan, and I would also say pretty as far as cities go with the waterfront parks and sidewalks, all of which were bustling with activity.  It is a place I would love to return to, and plan to do so soon.

Talk about “Happy Accidents!”  This is a top 10 in that category.  Go if you get the chance.