Contemplating Travels

A week from now, I will be 30,000 feet above the Atlantic on the first leg of my journey back to the Middle East. It has been 39 years since I visited Lebanon, and almost 30 since I lived in an Arabic-speaking country. No doubt I will be sitting in the airplane listening with diligence to my Rosetta Stone recordings of the most simple phrases ("The boy reads, the girl eats, etc.) wondering whether I will be able to utter a word when I am actually on the ground and confronted with a native speaker asking who I am or what I am doing. Part of the problem is that I learned the Egyptian dialect, but these refresher lessons are in fusha (modern standard) so I will likely sound like a linguistic stir fry rather than a delightful mezza, (appetizer platter), shouldI actually be able to say anything coherent.

I decided to join the younger generation and start a blog, so those of you who are interested in my travels can drop in at your convenience and experience some of my daily adventures--the mundane, the hilarious, and the exalted--which I am sure to encounter in this part of the world. I hope that my observations will not offend, nor my typos be egregious. Please feel free to leave comments.

I will post my itinerary in the next few days for those of you who are interested.

Ma'a salaama!