My view!

We're here! Yippee!

Above is the view from my terrace. (See why I couldn't wait to get here?) We arrived Monday afternoon and have barely left the house. I've started my morning walks on the hills. My legs may never forgive me. There are so many hills when you live on a mountain. I walk for about 40 minutes and my legs let me hear about it the rest of the day.

The kids' godfather's brother (did you follow that one?) picked us up from the airport so I could drive his SUV to decide if we want to buy it. We are but we're going to have to watch the gas though. We're no longer in the land of cheap gas. But it's a good size and we can fit more than just ourselves in it, unlike the little Renault we rented last summer. We've had to wait until today (and may still be waiting tomorrow-LOL) for the man to come and hook us up to the generator. We spend at least half our day without power. We've been waiting 3 days for the man to come and hook us up. He's had trouble with one of his generators and when my neighbor called him last night to check on things he said he was getting another one this morning and should come and hook us up this afternoon. It's not so bad during the day. We don't have A/C anyway (don't need it) but we can't turn on our fans. We sit out on the terrace unless it's the sunny part of the day (all windows and terrace/garden are on the west side). Then I put the blinds down to try to keep it from heating up the house. We read a lot and the Boss goes to visit a friend upstairs. It's more of a pain in the evenings when it gets dark. We last as long as we can with just the twilight and then turn on the emergency lights and shower as quickly as we can before they go out. Then we either head to bed or visit the neighbors across the hall. Last night we just went to bed early and I listened to my iPod. Hopefully tonight we'll have generator but I've learned not to hold my breath.

My friend called me this morning and they're just going to finalize the paperwork for changing the car over to us. Then I'll finally be mobile. Then I can do something with all the Kuwaiti money Baba sent with me. There's a lot of stuff within walking distance, but not a place to change money, unfortunately. Speaking of, we walked to the square to buy ice cream last night and ran into some people we knew. One said he remembered me pushing the twins in their tandem stroller. (When we lived here for a year that's how we got around. We never had a car then.) Now the twins are walking around and holding our hands instead. It's good to be home

Well, speaking of generators (or like thereof) we're now without power. Welcome to Lebanon!