I was reading an article posted by Mark on 248am.com and it mentioned something that surprised me. How many countries do you think you can enter using your Lebanese passport? 2? 5? 10? nope! 32!

I think not many people know this. Here’s a list of the countries.

Africa: Cape Verde, Comoros, Djibouti, Madagascar, Mauritius, Mozambique, Seychelles, Togo, Uganda

Americas: Bolivia, Dominica, Ecuador, Haiti, Siant Kitts and Nevis

Asia: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Georgia, Iran, Jordan, Laos, Lebanon, Macau, Malaysia, Maldives, Oman, Nepal, Syria, Timor-Leste

Europe: Kosovo, Turkey

Oceania: Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Niue, Palau, Samoa, Tuvalu

How about a nice Christmas break in the Federated States of Micronesia? It’s warm that time of year.

via Lebanon News

I spotted this military trailer for sale in one of the car exhibitions on Dbayye highway.

No one would dare cut you off and this is much safer than a bus in times of war.

Lame.

I took this picture during my trip to Qanat Bekish. It reminded me of the famous Ain el Remmaneh bus that ignited the Lebanese civil war, however this time the building was damaged while the bus was fine.

You can see the owner of the famous Ain el Remmaneh bus in the picture here. [Source]

Even though it’s a great picture taken by mistake, what caught my attention and made me laugh is the guy in the moustache on the right.

Update: Looks like theChive noticed it as well and made good use of it. Check it out!

Masaad has a reputation of being the BEST taouk place in Lebanon.

The place isn’t really very posh, in fact it’s the complete opposite, it’s a bigger version of a regular “snack”. Maybe that’s what gives the place a charming atmosphere?

I was there with a friend and we took a table on the second floor. We ordered 3 taouks and it took them 45 minutes to get us the food!

There are 2 waiters serving the 2nd floor, but only one of them is allowed to take your order, and he disappeared for 20 minutes. I was asking the other guy to get me a Mirinda or a Fanta while waiting for the food to arrive, he told me “ta yerja3 el m3allem”.

When the m3allem finally came back, I asked him where the food was, he told me that we’ll get it in 1 minute. 24 – 1 minutes later the food arrived.

The concept is basically a regular taouk sandwich with some fries and lots of garlic, rolled and put over the fire to make it crispy, then zaatar with olive oil smeared on top. It’s served with some hommos, pickles and coleslaw.

To be honest, I found the sandwich to be a bit dry and hard to swallow (that’s what she said).

All in all it was an average experience, between the food being late and the dry sandwiches.

I told Najib about this and he told a friend of his who wasn’t really happy with the comments I had made about this restaurant. He said that you shouldn’t go on a weekend and that the sandwich tastes better when you have a ze7lewi with you. mmm, really? having a person from Zahle sitting with me at the table would make the sandwich taste better?

According to Fars news, Ahmadinajad’s speech at the UN general convention generated over 2 billion read comments on France24′s website. (knowing that there’s only 1.5 billion internet users worldwide).

In reality, Six comments were posted on the English version and 25 on the French version. [Source]

Via Angie

We are getting more hints on the alleged thief who turned out to be related to a Lebanese politician and recent member of parliament.

First Addiyar posted about the robbery and now according to lebanonfiles, the thief did not need money but hads mental issues. Added to that MP was elected in 2009 for the first time and in a region different from his original one.

Now i am curious to know who that MP is. Anyone has any clue?

Seems like nothing is illegal in Lebanon anymore.

Spotted in downtown Beirut next to Saifi village.

Thanks Zissou for this picture!

As i posted earlier, i went to see the largest cross in the world that was inaugurated in Qanat Bekish in Lebanon. It took around one hour and a half from Jounieh to get to the Cross. There are two ways you can go:

1- From Bekfaya, head to Baskinta then Qanat Bekish
2- From Faraya head to Faqra and go to Qanat Bekish

I headed to a restaurant called Jar el Amar ( The Moon’s neighbor) with a group of friends. It was packed and needed reservation apparently and it only took the singer one hour to get everyone to dance dabke. After 3 hours of drinking Arak and eating and “Dabkeying”, we headed to the cross.

The cross was beautiful, but too wide in my opinion. Also the view from the site was impressive. I uploaded some pictures that you can see below.

Gemballa was shot execution-style in the head. His hands were bound behind his back and his body was wrapped and dumped in Atteridgeville, west of Pretoria. [Source]

I saw this expired Coco pops while buying cereals at Medco’s supermarket on the Dora highway.

According to lebanonfiles, more Lebanese are buying RPGs (commonly known as B7) lately. Most of these RPGs are coming from Beirut and being sold in the North.

During my visit to the world’s largest cross yesterday in Bekish, i was telling a friend that this is not the tallest cross but the largest one and the tallest lit cross in the world.

An old nun overheard my talk and turned to me saying angrily: “This is the tallest cross in the world, it entered the guinness book of records”.
It was as if i insulted her or something, so i just said “yeah sure” and walked away from her.

Nevertheless, this is NOT the tallest cross in the world. The tallest cross is found in Spain in the Valle de los Caídos and is 152 meters long. [Picture]

“Oh you live in Lebanon? Do you go to work on a camel? Hahaha”

Typical reaction I would get from foreigners sometimes when saying that I’m from Lebanon. I’d make an effort and explain that that’s just the perception people have of the Middle East, that it’s all desert and nomads, that we have greenery bla bla bla…

And what’s the first thing you see when you get to Baalbek?

Nba3asna lol