Category: General

The question most often asked while I was preparing for my visit to Lebanon was: Why? Why should one go to a country that is in Europe mostly connected with war and acts of terror? I had not one clear and good reason for this but a bunch of minor ones: I had travelled throughout Israel and when arriving at the border to Lebanon I was unhappy that there was no chance to pass. I had contact with many different persons in Germany that had fled from Lebanon because of the civil war, I had read so much about the conflicts in this region. I enjoyed Lebanese food at home and wanted some more. And I simply wanted to see how life is like in this region of the world. And then there is Beirut – a city once called the Paris of the Middle East; doesn’t that sound inviting?

Lebanon is a country quite far away in the Middle East and part of the Levante states. But already in my youth, I somehow got in contact with the country and it was all because of the Lebanese civil war which was long-lasting (from 1975 to 1990) but already over by that time. I got in contact with Lebanese people who fled to Europe and started a new life here. With that guy who opened up a fantastic falafel eatery at Göttingen, Germany, or later with the nice Lebanese family that sold delicious food at Hann. Münden, Germany. My image of Beirut was shaped by a rather unexpected medium: computer games.

When I went to Lebanon I decided to get a local SIM card for my mobile phone. And that was a very easy decision as my provider Deutsche Telekom places Lebanon into its horrible Ländergruppe 3 (the group of countries with the highest roaming costs) and doesn’t even offer data packages to book. Paying horrible 0.49 Euros every 50 KB (observe the unit, per 50 kilobyte!), making phone calls for 2.99 Euros every minute (or receiving them for 1.79 Euros per minute) and paying 0.49 Euros for every SMS message wasn’t an option. Using just the WiFi in your hotel, in coffee bars and restaurants might be okay. But especially if you want to use Uber to get around or if you travel to rural areas it feels better to have a constant connection.

I admit I was wrong. I always believed that a collection of minerals must be absolutely boring. But then I came across the Mineral Museum (MIM) of the Université Saint-Joseph at بيروت, Lebanon. It is a vast collection of minerals from all over the world. As it belongs to a university there are good scientific explanations but the presentation is also very nice. They play a lot with light and stage the beautiful stones the right way.

Lebanon currently experiences exceptional circumstances. 30 years after the Lebanese civil war and 15 years after the so-called Cedar revolution and the Lebanon war in 2006 the country now has a governmental crisis. Since October 2019 the people are protesting on a daily basis against corruption, economic turndown, daily electricity outages, the political elite and a system that assigns governmental positions and the number of seats in the parliament by religion. More than ten different religious groups claim their rights and finding consensus must be like a mission impossible.

Concerning currencies, a visit to Lebanon is a bit special. The official currency is the Lebanese pound (LBP, currency sign ل.ل.‎) which is sometimes also called Lebanese lira – most probably because of the French and Arabic names: livre libanaise and lira libnaniyya. After the Lebanese civil war and the inflation caused by it, the value has been fixed to the US dollar. One USD is worth 1507.5 LBP. At most places, it is possible to also pay in USD and if you only have Euros left in your pocket: most people will accept EUR banknotes, too. They then tree the EUR equal to USD which isn’t the best deal.