This morning, at 3 am, my girlfriend and I arrived in Beirut. It has been a long awaited tour which was postponed several times. But now I am finally here! The rest of the musicians of the group of Rima Khcheich, Yuri, Joost and Maarten van der Grinten, Will arrive in 2 days. I had always wanted to bring my girlfriend to Beirut and I took this oppurunity to visit my favourite country in this part of the world.

I feel right at home. There is something about this country that I really love. It’s my home away from home. Maybe it is because of my close friendship with Rima and some of her close friends, maybe it is the culture, a very open and friendly version of the Arab world, the music, the food, the people… I just love being here.

Beirut is a wonderful city, the Paris of the Middle east as they call it. It has a charme and flair which is really appealing. Despite of all the political tensions here.

Our Hotel Cavelier is in the Hamra Street. One of the main shopping streets in Beirut. People are flandring throught the streets, enjoying the weather and the relatively peacefulness. it is hard to believe that only 2 weeks ago this street was the scene of the street riots which almost resulted in a new civil war. People were fighting with guns, rockets, tanks just here in the streets. Now it all seems forgotten. People of all possible orientations are browsing through the shops again, looking for summerclothes, shoes, hats. As if nothing happened. Maybe this is typically Lebanese, the ability to go on and continue to enjoy life. After al the wars and fights the last 25 years they still seem to know how to how to get past these difficult times.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008 at 9:16 pm and is filed under Tony Overwater, Tour Beirut 2008, all. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.