Tag Archives | Beirut

Lebanon’s October Revolution – Where And How Do The Others Live?

By Rami on October 30, 2019 in Lebanon

I admit I have never participated in a demonstration prior to the October 17th uprising. I didn’t think any of the political movements represent me in 2005, and I didn’t believe the civil society was capable of bringing real change with the 2015-16 protests.

This however all changed two weeks ago when I decided to join the masses in Riad El Solh and The Martyrs’ Square to protest against the whole ruling class in Lebanon after watching people from all social levels and religions united against the politicians. For once, it felt like people were liberated from their politicians especially in some areas that were always thought to be fully controlled by ruling parties. For instance, people in the north rioted against Tripoli’s wealthy politicians, while some villages in the south dared for the first time in 30 years to revolt against the Hezbollah-Amal duo and go as far as cursing Nabih Berri who has always been regarded as second to god in the region.

Yet, and in this unique moment in our recent history, some sheep-like people from all communities have still chosen to keep acting submissive to their political leaders and conform to their will no matter what, and at this time I seriously don’t understand it.

Where and how do these people live? Aren’t they suffering in this country the same way as everyone else?

Are they getting 24/7 electricity at their homes and don’t pay extra for a generator subscriptions like everyone of us?

Do they get immediate admission to any hospital without paying a hefty deposit or calling their za3im?

Aren’t they paying the same taxes like us? Or are they getting anything in return if they do?

Don’t they feel forced to bribe government employees to get their things done sometimes?

Were money changer providing them with dollars at the official rate or at 1,600 and 1,700 like the rest of us?

Do these people find easy to buy an apartment nowadays? Are housing loans open to them?

Do they have decent internet connections at home?

When it rains continuously for two hours, do they get flooded in their cars like everyone else on the roads or they usually get immediately teleported to their homes?

Do they feel like their salaries are worth less and less every year like everyone of us or are their savings magically increasing?

Do they get free schooling for their kids?

I can keep going but seriously, it is 2019 and w are all sharing this land called Lebanon, why do people still sheepily follow politicians instead of rallying behind qualified people…? Despite all this, it is ironic that the protesters’ demands are for the greater good of everyone, including those hardcore fans of the current political leaders.

With 14 days since the uprising, PM Saad Hariri resigned yesterday and everybody seem clueless about what comes next. Whatever the outcome is though, let’s hope for less poor people beating each other and more wins against this rotten ruling class.

Uber and Careem No Longer Allowed to Pick Up Passengers from Beirut Airport

By Rami on April 4, 2019 in Beirut, Transportation, What the fuck!

Several news websites reported last week that a new decision (number 1/247) was issued by the Minister of Transport that aims to organize the operation of Taxi cabs at the airport, an urged taxi drivers to abide with it as of the first of April. No details were provided about that decision and the ministry website didn’t have any information, so it all sounded vague.

A few days later I started hearing about people arriving to Beirut Airport not being able to meet their designated drivers at the exit and I just made sure yesterday it was because of that decision.

A friend of mine arrived last night and tried to use Careem, but a few minutes later the driver called and told him he can no longer go beyond the army check point (around 700m away from the airport entrance), and that he should meet him there to pick him up. With too much distance to walk, my friend decided to simply cancel the ride and book one of the official airport taxi cars, except that they told him it will cost “around $50” to drive him to Dekwane which is ridiculously exorbitant, so he just said thanks and called one of his relatives to come take him instead.

So whatever that decision states, it essentially no longer allows taxi river to pick up their arriving passengers from the parking lot as before in order to force people to use the official airport taxi drivers who are infamous for charging very high amount for a few kilometers rides. Therefore, in case you are arriving to Beirut anytime soon, make sure to arrange for a friend or relative to pick you up if you don’t want to bear unnecessary charges.

Keep in mind that our so called tourism season should start in a few weeks from now, and this decision is basically the best way to kick it off!

Update (April 5th 2019):

Private taxi companies can pick up passengers from the airport only if they apply for a special permit from the syndicate of Lebanese taxi drivers for every ride they want to make.

The permit should include the passengers name along with their flight details in order not to be used more than once.

Update 2 (April 5th 2019):

Minister of Transportation Youssef Fenianos just reversed his decision, so taxi drivers can pick up incoming passengers from the parking lot just like before.

La Nuit des Musées 2019 is Taking Place This Saturday April 6th

By Rami on April 2, 2019 in Events

The Ministry of Culture is organizing the 6th edition of La Nuit des Musées this Saturday April 6th. And this year, 14 museums around Lebanon will be open for free to the public starting 5:00PM until late at night.

Free shuttles will be available at LibanPark parking in the Mathaf area in Beirut for people wish to visit the museums in the north and south, but reservations are mandatory through Virgin Ticketing box office to secure your place.

I highly recommend you use public transportation to visit the participating museums in Beirut by the way because it tends to get very crowded around them on this day.

Here’s the list of the participating museums:

MUSÉE NATIONAL DE BEYROUTH
de 17h00 à 23h00
“Mathaf”, rue de Damas

MIM, MUSÉE DES MINÉRAUX
de 17h00 à 23h00
Campus de l’innovation et du sport, Université Saint-Joseph

MUSÉE DE PRÉHISTOIRE LIBANAISE DE L’UNIVERSITÉ SAINT-JOSEPH
de 17h00 à 23h00
Rue de l’Université Saint-Joseph, quartier Monot

VILLA AUDI
de 17h00 à 23h00
Rue Georges Choueri, Achrafieh

MUSÉE NICOLAS IBRAHIM SURSOCK
de 17h00 à 23h00
Rue St Nicolas, Achrafieh

MUSÉE ARCHÉOLOGIQUE DE L’AUB
de 17h00 à 22h00
Université américaine de Beyrouth, Ras Beyrouth

MUSÉE DE LA BANQUE DU LIBAN
de 17h00 à 23h00
Locaux de la Banque du Liban, Sanayeh

MUSÉE DU CATHOLICOSSAT DE CILICIE
de 17h00 à 23h00
Antélias

SENTIER CULTUREL À SAÏDA
MUSÉE DU SAVON
PALAIS DEBANNÉ
KHAN SACY
KHAN EL-IFRANJ
MADRASAT AÏSHA
de 17h00 à 22h00

MUSÉE DES ORPHÉLINS DU GÉNOCIDE ARMÉMIEN “ARAM BEZIKIAN”
de 17h00 à 23h00
Jbeil

MACAM – MUSÉE D’ART MODERNE ET CONTEMPORAIN
de 17h00 à 23h00
Alita, Jbeil

MUSÉE ETHNOGRAPHIQUE DE L’UNIVERSITÉ DE BALAMAND
de 17h00 à 22h00
Koura

MUSÉE NABU
de 17h00 à 23h00
El Heri, Batroun

Jal El Dib Bridges Are Finally Open – Traffic is Even Worse Now

By Rami on March 20, 2019 in Traffic, Transportation

Following two years of construction work in Jal El Dib, the two 2L bridges were finally open for traffic last Saturday.

With the project completion, people were promised and actually expected the traffic to get better, except that it actually got worse, and I guess the outcome is simply logical. For cars coming from Jounieh towards Beirut, the road is effectively now narrower in Jal El Dib with an exist ramp follwed by an entrance ramp that eventually turbulate the traffic thanks to the way we drive around here. For example you always see drivers making a sharp right from the left lane to take the exit on the right and consequently slow down the traffic behind them.

People in charge of road management definitely deserve a trophy. And for those who make the Jounieh-Beirut trip everyday and now have an additional bottleneck on their way, antidepressant pills maybe.

photo via Lebanese Contractor Magazine

Inside The Middle East Airlines Training and Conference Center

By Rami on March 6, 2019 in Lebanon, Travel

On the way to airport, and just before you reach its entrance, you can’t but notice “The Dome”. This intriguing structure is part of the Middle East Airlines Training and Conference Center, where their staff get most of their training at. And since I have always felt curious to know how would it be like inside such training facility, I simply contacted someone I know there a couple of weeks ago to check if I can visit the center.

A few days later, the the cool people at MEA quickly arranged an appointment for me to tour the facility and I was lucky to be accompanied by one of their engineers, a training manager, and of course a communications officer.

I think people know very little about the things that happen behind the scenes at an airline, so here’s everything I saw at the 43,500 m2 MEA training center.

Flight Training

First things first. When I initially asked MEA to visit their training center I was mostly interested in checking the equipment that help their pilots achieve their flight training, so the tour started by first visiting the available simulators.

MEA currently has a full motion Airbus A320 flight simulator, and two other fixed-base simulators. As you can see below, the full motion simulator gives the same feeling as being inside a real cockpit with the surrounding screens displaying very realistic scenes. It can simulate turbulences and any required weather condition, and once you’re inside you simply feel like you’re in a real flight due to all the movement feedback that the device provides. Training on this simulator counts like flying a real airplane for the pilot and it is the only one of its kind in the middle east, that’s why pilots from other airlines in the region come to Lebanon to train on it.

There’s currently only 1 full motion simulator but the space where it is installed can actually accommodate 3 others. I heard they might soon be getting additional ones but I couldn’t figure out of what model series.

The other two fixed-base simulator are for the Airbus A320 and A330 but they of course don’t feel as real as the one above.

In addition to the simulators, the center has 20 stations for CBT (Computer Based Training) as well as a facility for pilot’s license renewal. As I was informed, pilots should undergo certain tests every 6 months to renew they licence and the MEA has a dedicated accredited facility for that.

Cabin Crew Training

My second stop was at the division where the cabin crew are trained. Again, real airplane models are used with simulators to train the crew on several evacuation scenarios including jumping into an adjacent swimming pool.

The material inside the airplane mockup (photo below) are the same that are used in a regular Airbus, while the windows are in fact screens that can simulate different scenarios like a fire, cracked window, emergency landing, etc… and according to each situation the crew is trained on a course of action. Note that the pilots get similar training in order to be able to cope with incidents inside the cockpit.

The Conference Center

Apart from the available training facilities, the building has many conference areas. People are probably familiar with the Riad Salaeh auditorium (also known as The Dome) since it shows in the news every now and then, but there’s also a much larger hall, The Mohammad Al Hout hall, which extends over an area of 680 m2 and has a very large attached kitchen to it in order to serve the events.

The conference zones of the center can host various events and are therefore not for the exclusive use of MEA as they can be rented to any company willing to host an occasion or event.

The same also applies to the training areas since other airlines in the region pay the MEA sometimes to use the center in order to train their staff. Some of the airlines that recently used the facilities are Cyprus Airways, Air India, and Turkish Airlines. So basically the whole center contributes in generating additional income to the MEA.

All in all, I really enjoyed the tour and it felt cool getting exposed to the aviation world with all the info that experts were telling me. More importantly, it was also nice to know that a center of such caliber does exist in Lebanon and serves regional airlines from neighboring countries.

A Government of Publicity Stunts

By Rami on February 20, 2019 in Politics

After a 9 month political deadlock, we finally got a new government that won the vote of confidence in the parliament last week. And with all the challenges ahead of the country, you’d think the new ministers are busy planning a way out of this shit we are in. However all I’ve been noticing lately are nothing but pathetic publicity stunts to make a positive impression, while in fact everything is still steadily deteriorating like the electricity supply for example.

Over the last 20 days, and according to social media which supposedly reflects the people thoughts, here are the major achievements of the new government.

Raya El-Hassan – Ministry of Interior

Just like every previous minister of interior, she started by claiming she will ban all illegal vending kiosks and tents that cause traffic on the highways, in addition to banning illegal motorcycles. Yep, good luck with both decisions in areas like Ouzai! But anyway, fast forward two weeks, everybody will forget about these decisions and everything will be back to “normal again”.

El-Hassan also called for establishing civil marriage in Lebanon (that is partly ruled by religious figures), while she knows very well that implementing it will definitely backfire on her political party and she would never allow that to happen. The move is only an attempt at scoring with civil and secular movements.

Mohammad Choucair – Ministry of Telecommunications

Cellular communication is expensive, and DSL internet is SHIT. So what does he do? He simply promises people an awesome level of service soon, and of course never forgets to mention fiber optics plans in his statements.

Fadi Jreissati – Ministry of Environment

There was a dying plant in the office of the previous minister, so the first thing he did was replacing it with a new one and posting about it on social media. And he also decided to drive to the parliament in an eco-friendly car. Meanwhile, Litani.

Nada Boustani – Ministry of Energy

Shortly after the formation of the government, the electricity supply was reduced due to shortage in fuel. So what does Mrs. Boustani do? She makes it public that working hours at the ministry should be highly respected. Ok.

They’re all against corruption

One thing all ministers are currently agreeing on is to make fighting corruption as one of the main goals of this government. So they all want to stop whoever is robbing the country’s wealth and resources. Because you know, it was the Italian Communist Party that has been ruling our land for the past 40 years.

Anyway, the whole thing makes me wish I was a minister. Making promises is quite easy, and the benefits are pretty cool. Who would object a high salary, cool circle of colleagues, getting worshiped by the people, driving like an asshole in tinted cars, and making TV appearances?! SIGN ME UP PLEASE!!!

Pick a Flower, Snap a Photo, and Win $500 This Valentine’s Day

By Rami on February 14, 2019 in Social

If you pass by Mar Mikhael today then you will definitely notice red flowers bouquets hanging around the place and up for grab to anyone roaming the street. I first thought it was some sort of a practical joke when I was passing by last night since red flowers tend to get expensive around Valentine’s and you would not expect someone to just give them away for free during this period.

As I got closer, I figured it was Banque Libano-Française who staged that stunt around their e-branch in the area, and aside from giving people flowers to offer to their loved one they are also giving them an opportunity to win $500.

To qualify for winning the prize, all you have to do is taking a cool picture of the hanging bouquets or the flower that you pick (they’re staying there until tomorrow evening), share it it on Instagram via post or story tagging @blflebanon or @luckytobeyoung, and wait for their jury’s decision ext Wednesday February 20th.

You know everybody hates overpaying a red flower on Valentine’s, so there’s nothing wrong with getting one for free this year and even having a $500 on top of it! So Happy Valentine’s and good luck winning.

Adonis New Music Video and Concert

By Rami on February 12, 2019 in Music

The music scene in Lebanon saw the rise of several local bands over the last few years, but one of the my favorite Arabic performing bands remains “Adonis” which was formed in 2011 by Anthony Khoury, Joey Abou Jawdeh, Nicolas Hakim, and Gio Fikany.

Their music isn’t sophisticated and I simply like how they mix Arabic lyrics and traditional sounds with international influences. They first started with “Daw El Baladiyyi” in 2011, and then followed it with “Men Shou Btishki Beirut” in 2013 and “Nour” in 2017.

Adonis recently released a new music video titled “Shayef” which I recommend you check below. And if your like their work, then you have a chance to catch them in concert tomorrow night (February 13th) at HNGR Beirut and you can reserve your tickets here.

Cement Blocks Near The Ministry of Interior Finally Removed

By Rami on February 5, 2019 in Beirut

Security forces in Beirut is finally removing the cement blocks that were set in place a few years ago due to security threats. People who work in Hamra know how badly positioned were these block due to the traffic they were causing everyday, so it is a relief to have them removed at last.

The funny thing though is that the former minister of interior (Nohad Machnouk) and the new one (Raya El Hassan) both claimed they ordered the blocks removal which really sounded childish (here and here).

The Cheesecake Factory Closing Down For Good in Lebanon

By Rami on January 30, 2019 in Lebanon, Restaurants

A friend of mine shared with me yesterday an end of work notice that The Cheesecake Factory employees were getting from their management which states that April 30th 2019 will be their last working day due to the restaurant closure. (You can check it here)

The notice attributed their closure to the bad economic situation that Lebanon is going through right now, but I don’t think it’s only that. I personally loved The Cheesecake Factory but always thought it failed to really compete with other american diners here for two reasons.

They never justified their prices

Items at The Cheesecake Factory are expensive if you compare their menu to that of other diners in the country. However their portions are really big and definitely meant to be shared.

Unfortunately, that’s was one thing people failed to get at the beginning, which left an impression that the restaurant is quite expensive while you can in fact share a main dish and a salad with another person and end up with almost the same bill you would get from Roadster or Crepaway.

They never bothered to convey that message to the masses and I never recall they promoted some special formulas for two like other diners do sometimes.

When was the last time they made an advertising campaign?

I recall they made a buzz when they first launched but that was it I guess. My timelines across the different social media platforms is always infested with sponsored posts from food places but I can’t recall the last time I saw an ad from The Cheesecake Factory. On the other hand, I have no idea if they follow the same strategy in the UAE but their outlets there are much busier and I remember I once had to stand in line for a good time to get a table. So I’m not sure whether they should be blamed or the Lebanese market simply has different preferences.

Anyway, as much as I hate to see it going, I think a lot of us were expecting it, and foreign brands who are planning an expansion to Lebanon should definitely take lessons from The Cheesecake Factory experience here.

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