“Bonjour! Welcome to Beirut” I was greeted by a tall young man with a French accent at the Beirut airport.”Let me take your bag” he insisted and carried my bag to his car. Pancho , is my driver for a week here in Beirut — aged 22, a Germany supporter for the European Cup did this driving work as a part time (He studied Physics he said — I asked him the next day if he’s still studying after seing a PCB at the back of his car . And suggested he should read Feynman books — ” Quantum Mechanics ? “he asked . I stopped the conversation there avoiding the details — Hey! I don’t want to mess around with a student of Physics though I had a book about Tesla in my bag . 
He drove the car to Hamra Street and we were lost for 30 minutes before finding our way to the Marble Tower around 12 midnight on that Sunday. The Hamra St. a one way street like most of the road here, is a popular road in Beirut and the area around it is full with restaurants , bars , apartment and hotel. At certain area there were road blocks with military people – I told Pancho that Lebanese army are friendly and more human than .. hmm you know 
[OK the day had finally come and I can't give any valid reasons for not accepting this trip to Beirut, not that I am avoiding this place as I said before -- being abroad alone without the family is not a fun thing to do--I missed my kids I left Riyadh on 15th June after got the visa (though I could get it on arrival at the Beirut-- but I hate the hassle explaining to the immigration if there were problems) ]
First day, was a tough day to me — I was given a list of tasks to do completed a few but went into some problems that caused me to stayed up until 3am at customer’s place! Thank Allah problem was resolved a day later (man I told my colleague I will always remember my first day there!)
Beirut is only the 3rd Arab city that I had visited after Dubai – French is widely spoken here, indeed they greeted with “Bonjour” and said “Merci” instead of Shukran as a way of say “Thank You”. The Lebanese had French as their 2nd language and taught widely at school — I always amazed with people who can speak multi-languages. My friend Pancho, spoke fluent Arabic, English,French,Spanish and German too He asked me do I speak Arabic ? — considering that I have been living in Saudi for almost 2 years . Not much I said — though I can read Quran , conversational Arabic is not something that being practised –and the fact that we were taught classic Arabic — I bet that he would laugh if I said “Kaifa Haluka!” to him and he burst into laughter and agreed that he last heard of that phrase perhaps from his Arabic class ages ago ! People greet with Keefak here in Lebanon [ Keef Halak in Saudi!]
